Maybe it's just all those envelopes in the mail with "important tax document enclosed" printed on the front, but income taxes seem to be very much on people's minds these days.

At my investing workshops I always run through a list of things that keeps investors from receiving the returns they deserve for the risks they are taking. It's a laundry list of common (and costly) mistakes investors make.

Although inflation hasn't been a major problem in this country for a long time, it's still lurking just beneath the economic surface, ready to gobble up some of the assets that so many people have carefully socked away for retirement and other purposes.

If there's one thing the past three years have taught most investors, it's a new respect for risk.

The Enron collapse provided a powerful lesson on the tragedies created by too much company stock in an employee retirement program -- and yet, many investors are still reluctant to diversify away from the stocks of their employers.