Articles: Psychological Hurdles


Investment pornography
User Rating: / 9
July 07, 2001

The provocative title of this article is designed to get your attention. The article itself is designed to open your eyes to the trash that’s routinely peddled by Wall Street and much of the financial media.

Advisors roundtable
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October 27, 2003
Editor’s Note: Late in September, Paul Merriman, editor and publisher, met with the Merriman investment advisors to share ideas on how to persuade investors to make changes that will bring them more success. This issue of FundAdvice.com is an edited transcript of that round-table conversation.  Participants included Jeff Merriman-Cohen, Cheryl Curran, and former financial advisors Ed Ward and Jim Whipps.

Reducing the anxiety of investing
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July 07, 2002
If you want your investments to do more for you, you have to be able to answer the simple question: "More of what?" At the core, I think most investors have three main goals. First, we want to preserve our capital instead of lose it. Second, we want a return each year that will achieve our financial objectives. And third, we want performance relative to the market...usually we want to do better than the market. I suspect all investors would be happy if they achieved all three. But if you’re going to invest efficiently, you need to know which one of these three is the most important to you.

Learning the wrong lesson
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November 11, 2002

The current bear market, now the worst three years in market history since 1931, has taught investors some harsh lessons. Smart investors learn from other people’s mistakes as well as their own.

When should you throw in the towel?
User Rating: / 5
June 17, 2000
The topic is timely this year, when many investors are facing disappointments. Many investors became so excited about technology stocks last winter that they borrowed money from brokers (using margin accounts) or credit cards to buy aggressive stocks and funds. Many of those people have to be mighty disappointed about now.

Do you have the guts to let Warren Buffet manage your investments?
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January 21, 2000
Last fall, more than 300 professional investment managers were asked to vote for the top 10 money managers of the 20th century. Warren Buffett was first on the list, named by 86.4 percent of the respondents.

Will the bear be with us a long time?
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October 24, 2002
Recently, I was watching the Suze Orman show on CNBC when a caller asked: “What is a secular bear market?” Apparently more and more investors are wondering about this, and I’ll use this article to address the topic. More important, I’ll talk about what investment strategies are effective in a secular bear market.

Bonds: still a good investment?
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May 06, 2002
As most readers of this newsletter know, bond prices move in the opposite direction of interest rates. When rates fall, older bonds with their higher payments are worth more than new bonds.

When all the experts disagree
User Rating: / 12
July 07, 2005
It was a balmy Saturday evening in late spring, at the end of a three-day investment conference in the Seattle area. I was about to leave the hotel where I had just finished being on a panel with four other newsletter publishers, when one of the attendees came up to me and said: "It’s really confusing to listen to five experts when they all have such different views of the market."

Aftermath of terror
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September 15, 2001
Terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. this month have produced profound shock waves far beyond those cities, and the aftermath could affect the national and world economy for an extended time.

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