Stocks & Mutual Funds Articles

I have a 2-car garage. There are nice shelves on one side and a good practical workbench with a vice on the other side. Plenty of room for 2 cars yet I have to be careful when I pull in so I won't run over stuff stacked on each side. Sound familiar?...

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck it must be a duck. In the stock market if there are more buyers than sellers, more stocks are going up than down and the trend of the general market is higher it must be a bull. Not a ...

Question: How does it get better when it gets worse? Last week we had a jobs report from Washington that there were fewer jobs created than they had anticipated, but the stock market took that as good news and the DOW had a strong rally. WOW! The bad...

Just 30 years ago the stock market was a shadow of what it is today. There were many fewer shareholders and the daily volume was a fraction of what it is at present. No one thought you would every be able to trade a billion or more shares in one day....

Every broker and financial planner will tell you that you cannot time the stock market. I saw John Bogle, the great seer of Vanguard, on CNBC saying it can't be done. Of course, it is easy to understand why he and every other mutual fund manager woul...

One of the basic laws of physics states that a body in motion will continue in motion in the direction it is going until interrupted by another force. That basic physics law also applies to stocks and mutual funds. To see this trend it will be very a...

Every day on CNBC-TV they show a 200-day moving average line superimposed on the stock price history. It seems they give great credence to this manufactured line as it represents 10 months of price action. What is it? Does it really mean anything? Th...

Today we are inundated with tons of information about the economy, stocks, government agencies and foreign governments. They show us charts and graphs of the increase/decrease in oil production over the last 5 years, the amount of maple syrup produce...

The recent criminal fiasco in the mutual fund industry is being used by Wall Street to persuade investors that market timing is a bad thing. The late trading by Janus, Bank America and several other well known mutual funds is falsely being called mar...

Two weeks ago I wrote about what the Securities and Exchange Commission was doing to regulate the mutual fund industry to help the small investor, the "poor folks". It really added up to zero. Now the SEC is going to make new regulations for hedge fu...

Who are the successful investors? There are those who follow the advice of their brokers and financial planners or those who choose to use their own good judgment? If you care to compare the results of the past 4 years from 2000 to now I believe you ...

In 1960 an engineer working for a watch company in Switzerland discovered that a small crystal would vibrate at a constant rate. He found this was so accurate that it could be used to calibrate time so he took it to company management and said it wou...

The spring-loaded rat catcher is the ultimate low-tech device invented more than 100 years ago and remains the best demouser in the world. It is so simple anyone can master it and best of all you can keep on using it year in and year out. It always w...

Very few people, even professionals, have heard of the Dalbar Study that originated in 1995. Its purpose is to determine the profitability of trading for the small investor of mutual funds. Their results are even worse than I thought. The BuyNHolders...

It is difficult to make money in a bull market, but what do you do when you are in a bear market? In what direction should you go not only to make money but to protect what you have from loss? Almost immediately investors think what should I buy that...

One of the great "secrets" of successful people is discipline and it doesn't make any difference whether it is manufacturing, processing, servicing or investing in the stock market. Before you can have that discipline you must have a successful plan ...

How can you dispel an illusion unless you look directly at it? The magician distracts the eye with one hand while he does his manipulation with the other. You are looking in the wrong place and not seeing what is actually happening. Wall Street has m...

Wall Street's watchword has always been diversification, but what does it mean and why do they say it? The standard Wall Street definition is flexible because each broker or financial planner will vary the portfolio based on your age and income. They...

When is a dividend not a dividend? The latest thing "conservative" brokers are preaching these days is to buy stocks that pay dividends. Everyone likes dividends. I know I do, but when Wall Street tells me something I am automatically suspicious beca...

For the last 12 years we have seen the Japanese stock market slowly sinking from a high of 38,000 to about 8,000, more than a 75% loss and very close to the price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Why should we care about their stock market? Pleas...

Dollar cost averaging is one of the most popular ideas in the investment community. Everyone seems to like it and it has become a watchword among stock and mutual fund brokers. If it is properly done you will make money, if not you will lose money or...

Unfortunately, most of you who are reading my column are suffering some substantial losses in the stock market. Whether it is mutual funds or individual stocks everything with mighty few exceptions is going down. Maybe you are just giving back some n...

One of the great truisms of Wall Street is "Don't fight the Fed". For the long term investors this has resulted in greater profits. When the Federal Reserve Board hikes interest rates look out and when the do it 3 times in a row it is called "3 jumps...

For the year 2000 we have seen hundreds of mutual funds lose 40%, 50% and more of their value. This does not seem right since the fund is supposed to be managed by a professional. How can this "professional" do such a bad job? More than half of the f...

Duck! No I don't mean a quack, quack. I meant get down, look out for a huge blob of brown stuff is heading your way. This one is so large it is going to make Enron and Worldcom look like Boy Scouts stealing cookies at a picnic. As a result of these l...

Did you run out to buy that duct tape yet? Don't forget the plastic sheeting, bottles of water, canned food and a couple of books to read. What are you waiting for? I know - things to get better so you can resume your normal life style. While you wer...

What account size do I need? How much money can I make with trading? First of all, let's clarify a common misunderstanding: You never risk your full account size. You always have a "catastrophic stop", and it is important to define the "ruin" before ...

It has often been said that there is only two ways to get hurt really bad on a stock trade, getting caught in a "death spiral" by not using DTM: Decisive Trade Management in the way of stop loses and having a stock halted on you. Halts you have zero ...

If you want one. And I don't recommend any broker with whom to trade who will be giving you advice on what to buy and sell. When a broker speaks it is a eulogy for your money. My definition of a broker is one who makes you broker. The reason I say th...

Ever have one of those sample boxes of candy? Each little piece is beautifully wrapped in colorful foil or decorated with an interesting design. Taste just one. So good! One more. And another. Before you know it the box is empty. Nothing left. This u...