Investors will succeed if they do their homework. This homework is primarily about making informed decisions. Without the necessary information, investing success will be mediocre at best or your investments may even suffer losses.
Making Informed Decisions
Informed Decisions require information. Not the kind of “information” — or, rather, infotainment — that you get from the mass media. It may make you FEEL informed but, at the end of the day, you aren’t.
Decisions should always be based upon knowledge and that portion of information given from sources that do not have a vested interest (like e g financial advisors, brokerages or banks) but rather those sources that are not so readily available. In other words, you should have to “find” it yourself rather than being flooded with it (from talking heads on TV, radio, internet commercials or promotional videos; again, all these do have some sort of a vested interest in your investment decisions). Based on the latter ones, investing is bound to be based on mal-informed decisions.
Find a True Source
Only take your information from true sources, from people who do not only Talk the Talk but also Walk the Walk! Did you ever ask yourself if your friendly financial advisor has ever traded any of the investments they recommend? Did you ever wonder if your financial advisor knows any other asset classes beyond the ones they are trying to sell you at on particular given moment? Usually, the answer is No to both, and this should serve as a strong warning already — but they’re giving you “advice”.
Do Not Commit Financial Suicide
Taking financial advice from a “financial” reporter making $40.000 a year in New York City is a sure-fire way to failure. So is taking financial advice from your local bank clerk or broker. The same is true for “financial education” given by the public school system.
The information on this website has been written by people who are investing themselves — long term with lots of success (sometimes spectacular) as well as lots of failures (sometimes equally spectacular)…
Our Experience
Everyone writing here has done it themselves, is in it for a lot more than the current economic cycle, has already seen booms and busts and bubbles — and has gotten smarter in the process.
This may not be on prime-time TV and it may not be as easily accessible as turning on the tube while preparing dinner, but it’s definitely getting you further when it comes to making those Informed Decisions.