Wall Street analysts, magazine editors, economists, academics—they’ve all found it virtually impossible to make accurate market forecasts. That’s why Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle gave this advice to investors: When markets go haywire, “don’t do something. Just stand there.” Warren Buffett [...]
Avoiding the incinerator
A while back, I was speaking with the manager of a mutual fund. In describing one of the stocks in his fund, he noted: “I owned it for a while, then I sold it, but then I bought it back.” It was a surprising comment since frequent trading is, in most cases, generally unproductive. Indeed, Warren [...]
Bad timing
Perhaps you’ve seen a chart that looks something like this: The message: Investors who try to time the market in search of better returns often end up damaging their returns. To many investors, this seems intuitive, because trading isn’t easy. But to others, market timing seems to make a lot [...]
When to sell
Year-to-date, stocks are down almost 20%. And bonds, surprisingly, have lost money too—down about 10%. At times like this—when the headlines are almost all negative—the standard advice is to avoid panicking, to stay focused on the long term. I agree with that, and indeed the data are clear: [...]
Up? Or down?
The market today reminds me of Dickens’s famous line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” It’s the best of times, of course, because the stock market continues to hit new highs. From a low of 2,192 last March, the S&P 500 has now doubled, reaching 4,466 earlier today. Over [...]
