Don't want to lose this in a unrelated thread so will start our own ;).
This is a thread about investing philosophy. 1st a little background - as I reached the end of my engineering career I looked at things I might like to do to keep the mind active. Politics was out after my unsuccessful run at the State Legislature & a good view of the inner workings of that process. But liking numbers & having a reasonable level of success, a good econ prof in college, led me to financial planning. So I took several courses, did quite well, but was unwilling to accept the fact that I would have to work for someone else for two years, pimping their product, to be in line to get a CFP. So I opted out, do mostly my own research & use that of the Mutual Funds we own for additional ideas.
Of note, the FP classes I took were mostly myself & a bunch of retired Public employees wanting to supplement their income. When test time came I rarely missed a question while these people were scoring in the 70-85 range. What do they call someone who graduated last in their class at medical school "Doctor" & it would be no different in the CFP world. So that's what you could possibly get. I know that I offered to teach a couple of my dog friends how to invest, they felt it too hard so placed their money with a CFP who proceeded to lose 80% of the principal, so they don't play dogs no more :(.
Investing is not that hard & it's personally rewarding as is training your own dog. Reading, Numbers & a little common sense go a long way. The really neat thing is you never stop learning as the circumstances of the world change regularly & you need to be aware to take advantage of that!
There are tried & true axioms that never change:
1) Where are the customers yachts, hopefully the MOTR'er will get to ride on his broker's someday :-P.
2) Buy when the herd wants to sell, sell when the herd wants to buy.
3) "It's different this time", when that talk reaches a certain level it will be proven wrong :o.
4) When the news stand boy is giving stock tips, you probably want to lighten up you portfolio.
those are just a few that ring true!!!!!!!!!!
So if folks want to talk about investing we can do that in a generic manner. You young guys better know how cause the government only knows how to run Ponzi schemes & they are not to dependable. We did it for a while on Guthrie's website & hopefully people picked up something.
