Dollar Cost Averaging for Better Stock Investing

A variance of dollar cost averaging is a critical component of the Snider Investment Method. So, let’s define dollar cost averaging, explore some of its benefits, and illustrate how this strategy helps conquer some harmful investment practices. You may be familiar with the term dollar cost averaging.  With this strategy, you buy a fixed dollar amount of a particular investment …

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 …

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.

What is your investment ‘Plan B’?

A client recently asked a great question, “What is our ‘Plan B”? I think part of the question stemmed from the idea that if we aren’t reacting to the market and its changes, we are doing something wrong. Adjusting our investments or calling an audible in the middle of the process makes investors feel good. Just like nearly every other decision, the change is driven by emotions yet investors fail to realize it. After the change, they normally come out feeling the portfolio is much ‘safer’ now, or they can make a whole bunch more money. (Fear & Greed) Rarely will an investor go back and evaluate previous decisions to decide whether or not it was advantageous in the end.

Everyone likes to hate the market

People truly hate the stock market. Don’t believe me? Take a quick glance at a yahoo finance comment chain. You’ll undoubtedly see that current investor sentiment is filled with distrust, skepticism, and outright hatred of the entire capital market system. The common belief seems to be the fat cats of Wall Street are out to make a quick buck with no regard to how their decisions will impact the little guy on Main Street.

Emotional Risk?

You will often hear that investors are worried about the risks associated with investments. They are concerned about inflation risk, market risk, and liquidity risk. There is one type of risk that should be a major concern for you, but it is often ignored. Are you concerned about emotional risk? The risk that you make investment decisions based on fear, greed, or worse, doing what everyone else is doing.

Bad News Bears: Reacting to Bad News

In the Information Age, nearly everyone has access to boundless amounts of information at their fingertips thanks to the Internet. When researching stocks, investors can access statements and news within seconds of opening a web browser. This allows information to reach your hands much quicker than receiving financial statements in the mail or waiting for the newspaper or televised news program in the evening. Since news travels faster, this also allows investors to rapidly react the moment they read good or bad news about a company. If an investor reads news about one of their stocks underperforming earnings, they may want to sell their stock, thinking this news will cause their stock to decrease in price. However, this course of action may not accomplish what the investor is looking to do.

Avoid the Herd

By nature human beings are drawn to a Herd Mentality. It can be evidenced in new fashion trends, technology, social norms, and even the stock market. Ideas and trends start small with only a few early adopters jumping on board. Then as acceptance grows the new trend starts to become the new norm. It is this inherent need to follow the herd that prevents some people from joining trends too early on.

The S&P 500 at Post Crash Highs, What to Do Now?

Since the beginning of the year the S&P 500 is up nearly 8 percent. This quick jump in the stock market has taken place depite the fact that much of the debt crisis remains unresolved in Europe as well as in Washington. China’s economy is showing signs of slowing while inflation fears could lead to a surge in emerging markets. All the while a presidential race is heating up and the prognosticators are calling for all sorts of calamity. This surge has sparked frenzy in the media bringing about predictions from financial pundit bulls and bears.

Gold Rush

I recently wrote about how Cash was Today’s Hottest Investment. I made this assumption based off the billions of dollars investors are adding to cash accounts (checking, saving, and money market) and removing from equity funds. This is a great way to track investor behavior. Although cash seems to be where investors are moving money, I hear the most questions about Gold.