Good reads from around the Web.
Morgan Housel at the US Motley Fool did a smashing job this week in whittling 5,000 years of financial advice down 61 pithy one liners.
Here are some of my favourites:
1. Dollar-cost average for your entire life and you’ll beat almost everyone who doesn’t.
3. Every five to seven years, people forget that recessions occur every five to seven years.
15. The more you learn about the economy, the more you realize you have no idea what’s going on.
16. Start saving for college before your kid is born, and start saving for your retirement before you graduate college. You’ll feel silly when you start and like a genius when you finish.
24. Respect the role luck has played on some of your role models.
28. Read last year’s market predictions and you’ll never again take this year’s predictions seriously.
34. You can probably afford not to be a great investor — you probably can’t afford to be a bad one.
40. Admit when you are wrong.
47. During the last 100 years, there have been more 10% market pullbacks than Christmases. Everyone knows Christmas will come; think of volatility the same way.
48. Don’t attempt to keep up with the Joneses without realizing the Joneses aren’t any happier than you are.
56. Most people’s biggest expense is interest, which comes from living beyond your means, and buying things they think will impress others, which comes from insecurity. Avoid these two and you’ll grow richer than most of your peers.
57. Reaching for yield to increase your income is often like sticking your hands in a fire to warm them up — good in theory, disastrous in practice.
Morgan wrote his one liners with a US perspective.
Any British ones we can add?
Please share them in the comments below!
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
3-to-1 odds favour index investors – Rick Ferri
Active investing
You need an investing system – Oddball Stocks
Why this dividend investor sold out of Tesco – Clear Eyes Investing
Nice metaphor: The fairground carousel – DIY Income Investor
Mad maths: Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp – Value Perspective
Buffett the market timer – Part I, II, III, IV, V by Brooklyn Investor
The buyback bonanza boosting the markets – Investing Caffeine
Will tiny BrainJuicer’s competitive advantage last? – Beddard/iii
Other articles
Your story about money – Seth Godin
The many ramifications of the pension changes – Simple Living in Suffolk
Product of the week: With eight days until the ISA deadline, The Telegraph rounds up the best cash ISAs. It’s a sign of the times that the best rate is just 2.25% from a three-year fix.
Mainstream media money
Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view these enable you to click through to read the piece without being a paid subscriber of that site.1
Passive investing
3 reasons ETFs are so inexpensive – ETF.com
What British investors could learn from America – Telegraph
Active investing
Anthony Bolton’s tips on investing – Telegraph
Be a brave and patient value investor [Search result] – Authers/FT
Seth Klarman is bearish – Business Insider [Via Abnormal Returns]
Rich people are stupid [i.e. The 10 largest hedge funds] – CNBC
Half of all hedge funds have closed in past five years – FT Alphaville
Other stuff worth reading
Regulator may now free 30 million in zombie pensions – Telegraph
React to reality, not the image of it – Richards/NYT
Robert Shiller’s Nobel knowledge – Wall Street Journal
Why economic stability is destabilizing – BBC
Book of the week: If you’re in the mood for a bit of doom and gloom, you could do a lot worse than Tim Morgan’s Life After Growth
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Reader Ken notes that: “FT articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”.”