The Evolved Investor

Few things make us as emotional as the prospect of losing money. Wouldn’t investing be easier if you were a robot? Imagine the market crashes and yet, there you are, cool as a cucumber. But unfortunately that’s not how it works. As humans, we are hardwired to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. Our primal instinct is to avoid predators and …

Top 5 Retirement Investment Mistakes To Avoid

By: Jesse Anderson In my daily interactions with clients and potential clients, I get to hear the horror stories from their investment past.  Hopefully, you haven’t made these same mistakes.  Here are the Top 5 mistakes I regularly hear from investors ready to retire.  Trying to Time the Market We’ve all heard “Buy Low and Sell High.” In theory, that sounds …

Skyrocket Long-term Portfolio Performance With One Quick Fix

Perspective just may be the single greatest indicator of success or failure in any pursuit. When it comes to investing for retirement, many people define wealth in terms of having a net worth of “X million dollars”. Most people spend a lifetime working hard, in pursuit of the million dollar nest egg goal for retirement. However, while many still hold …

Investing is Not the Same Thing as Saving

A mistake far too many people make is to invest money they should be saving and save money that they should be investing. In our continuation of the discussion of Snider Advisors’ Guiding Principles, we will examine the principle that investing is not the same thing as saving. While saving and investing are certainly interrelated, they are also independent processes …

How Investing is like Sports Illustrated

What do Josh Hamilton, Notre Dame, Peyton Manning, the L.A. Lakers, Tiger Woods and countless others have in common? The Sports Illustrated jinx – a legend that holds that very shortly after an athlete or team appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated, they will fall victim to profoundly bad luck. Proof of the Jinx? Need some proof of the legend? …

Don’t Brag Yet

by Jesse Anderson, CFA® Last weekend a long-time friend said to me: “I cashed out my entire 401(k) before the tech bubble, and Thank God!, because I would have lost everything.” My friend is so proud of his decision that he’s still bragging about it over 10 years later.  I did not have the heart to tell him that his …

Making Change

by Shelley Seagler Here’s an obvious concept: if you want to change something in your life, change your behavior.  Certainly, there is nothing revolutionary or particularly profound about that idea, but for something so blatant, it sure is hard to do. Don’t believe me? Read Alan Deutschman’s, Change or Die.   Deutschman states that in situations where someone will surely face …

You and your emotions – friends or enemies?

Have you lost sleep over your investments lately? If so you are not alone.

With all the complexities and nondescript jargon surrounding the financial markets, it is easy to forget that they are still driven by the same thing they always have been; buyers and sellers. Each with their own opinion on what the market is going to do next. While in the long term, stock prices are primarily driven by earnings, in the short to medium term, stock prices are greatly controlled by the fear, hope, and greed of stock market participants

10 Steps to Improve Your Finances at Any Age

A few simple steps can make all the difference when it comes to being prepared for retirement. While it’s never too early to start saving for retirement it’s also never too late to evaluate your financial situation and make sure you are making wise financial decisions. Research shows that these simple tasks can dramatically increase one’s chances of financial success

The Investor’s Christmas Wish List

What do you want for Christmas? This is a common question we likely all hear from friends and family this time of year. While I doubt any of us will be creating a Christmas list to send to Santa, we all have secret wishes or cravings that would put a smile on our face Christmas morning.