The reasons I don’t buy gold (Video!)

November 19, 2010

This could probably apply to a lot of markets. I’ve written too many times about all the reasons I’m not a fan of gold as an investment, even if it’s only a part of a diversified portfolio. I know, I know— “It’s a currency of last resort.” Or maybe, “It’s always been a store of [...]

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Focus: We lack it, and it’s costing us

November 16, 2010
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Our minds spend 46.9% of the time wandering. That’s according to a new study by Harvard psychologists Dan Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth. The two developed an iPhone app that asked 2,250 volunteers at random intervals what they were doing, how happy they were, and whether they were thinking about the task at hand or something [...]

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Investing advice: Just enough information to be dangerous

November 12, 2010
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You’re never going to learn to invest in individual stocks from reading this blog. Says the beginning of a Wall Street Journal story today: “Forget ‘buy and hold.’ It’s time to time the market.” Awesome. That’s the kind of provocative, yet easy to knock down, straw man that blog writers salivate over. I could pull [...]

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How good are you at estimating risk?

November 9, 2010
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Plane crashes are not that common. And yet… You’ve probably heard the old yarn about how we often overestimate the chances of dying in a plane crash. When I made a guess before beginning this post, I was actually off by a factor of ten. I, somewhat flippantly, guessed one in a million, when really [...]

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The Dow is back to pre-Lehman levels. Does that mean everything’s ok?

November 5, 2010
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Let’s make a quick comparison. This is a short post, and I’m sorry about that. For reasons apart from my work here, this has been a week from hell. Remember how the world felt before Lehman Bros. collapsed? Bear Stearns had gone down, but some economists still thought it might just be a short downturn. [...]

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The shopping crawl: How spreading things out can maximize pleasure

November 2, 2010
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Thank God for commercials? Sometimes, I read a study and go, “Hahaha yeah right.” Most often, I then proceed to do exactly what the study says I would do. This is one of those studies. I mean, how would you react, if the title was, literally, “Enhancing the Television‐Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruptions”? A couple [...]

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Is America just not a good investment anymore?

October 29, 2010
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Hello Get Rich Slowly visitors! I’m flattered J.D. sent you here, and I’d be even more thrilled if you stopped by on your own! Here are a few reasons why you should:   1. This ain’t your typical personal finance blog. I don’t often tackle the basics of a Roth IRA or how to choose [...]

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How come investors are still afraid of stocks?

October 26, 2010
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Yeah, but what have you done for me lately? A few years ago, professors from the University of Nevada at Reno and the Wharton School observed gamblers at the roulette wheel. In case you’re not familiar with roulette, in short, gamblers place money on even or odd, black or red, or a number—one through 36, [...]

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Perils of empathy: How day-to-day conversations impact your goals

October 22, 2010
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Just talking about something can feel like doing it. As I wrote a few days ago, I’ve signed up for a contract with Stickk that penalizes me for not writing regularly. In other words, I’ve publicized my goal, but also have people following up to make sure I keep it. What would happen if I [...]

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Can you handle the truth? Why we prefer “equal” to “fair”

October 19, 2010
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Not those damn monkeys again. There’s a certain group of Ivy League primates that must feel like life is a series of tests designed to provoke them. When we last visited Yale’s community of esteemed Capuchin monkeys, they taught us how deeply our fear of financial losses runs. Well, a few years ago, Yale professor [...]

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