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legion legion is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: State of Failure
Posts: 32,246
Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonF View Post
So true, I know many investors who barfed up their equity holdings that final, ugly week in early March and have missed this entire move off the low by sitting in cash. People are their own worst enemy when it comes to investing and as I say to my wife almost daily, people always do the opposite of what they should do when it comes to investing. Unless you are living and breathing the markets daily most investors should simply do the following things:

1. spend less than you earn and put the difference into sensible investments (equity tilted portfolio and depending on your age some fixed income; use ETFs for low fees and tax efficiency, buy your investments through a dirt cheap broker like Interactive Brokers).
2. max any retirement plans
3. ignore the daily market noise
4. ignore all stock tips and financial media (including Cramer)

Simply doing these things will put you far ahead of 95% of the investing public.

Funny, I was a Finance major in college because I wanted to learn how money worked and get rich quick after college. I came to the exact same conclusion as you. I'm 31. I have no idea what my 401k or Roth IRA are worth right now, and it doesn't matter because I'm not touching it for decades. I did open the Roth IRA right at the market bottom though, I figured it was a good time to get in...
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Old 09-23-2009, 07:18 AM
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