DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning
Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software
Why allow the financial industry to help itself to your money? This blog provides you with objective information that could solidify a lifelong commitment on our part to low cost investing. Low cost investing is how you keep more of your own investments for your family, instead of naively giving your money to the financial […]
The scientific investment literature indicates that passive investment strategies usually are more time efficient, while they also increase returns and add more value to your investment portfolio. For example, given the diversification imperative, it is highly questionable whether the vast majority of individual investors should own any common stocks or bonds directly. Instead, they can […]
CLICK HERE TO READ THE SKILLED INVESTOR’s OTHER ARTICLES ABOUT THESE “10 FINANCIAL PLANNING STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION Given the extremely large number and variety of available securities, investors need a rational basis to select among them. Without rational selection criteria and a good understanding of which factors are more or less likely to […]
“Market efficiency” makes it very difficult for individual investors to “beat the market.” Making their own decisions, individual investors perform so poorly that on average their investment returns lag behind the returns that one would expect from random stock selection. The average professional trader does somewhat better than amateurs do, and professionals probably do so, […]
You are not likely to beat the stock market, despite all the cheer leading from the securities industry and the financial media. When you try to beat the public securities markets, unfortunately you are more likely to trail the market’s return, because of extra costs, taxes, and investment mistakes. The idea that investors can beat […]
The securities markets provide an evolving consensus of the risk-adjusted value of particular securities. By understanding how the markets value securities, individual investors can chose more durable investment strategies Judging the potential usefulness of different investment strategies requires some understanding of what the public securities markets really do. This article discusses how the markets price […]
For Individual Investors Risk-Free Investment Money Is Fantasy Money Securities with low investment risk and high investment returns are just fantasies. No “risk-free” investment money is consistently and reliably available to individuals. Luck dominates skill in the securities markets. Clever investment selection is vastly over-hyped, and only the promoters tend to benefit. On average over […]