Strategies

Even seasoned U.S. investors can make basic (and wrong) assumptions and generalizations when it comes to investing internationally. Here are a few common traps that investors tend to fall into when they start looking outside their own country’s borders.

Numbers don’t lie. You’re either making money or you’re losing money. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you make incredibly careless errors that could cost you dearly. There’s no better meritocratic environment. So, do you possess the characteristics of what it takes to become a successful trader? Here are 10.

Don’t ever take financial headlines at face value. They seldom tell the whole (or true) story - and you definitely shouldn’t rely solely on insiders to govern your investment decisions. They’re just as unreliable.

One of the most enduring of Wall Street axioms - falling somewhere under "buy low and sell high" but above "greed is good" - is to "sell in May and go away" and, indeed, there appeared to be some truth to the saying. Between 1950 and 2012, the Dow Jones gained an average of 7.6% annually during the November-April period, but only 0.4% during May-October. Does "Sell In May and Go Away" still hold true as a viable investment strategy? Not according to my analysis. Here's why.

Much has been written that it is impossible to time the market - that a buy and hold approach is much more rewarding - but that is simply not the case. This article provides you with the knowledge and a great charting service (free) to do just that.All you need do then is set aside the time and make the effort to apply the disciplines learned.

It seems logical that a scary, destructive terrorist attack, particularly one that implies more attacks to come, would be bearish for stock prices - but has that actually been the case?

It would seem logical to say that peace allows companies to focus on manufacturing goods, providing services, innovation and competition, all of which helps the overall economy but does peace, in fact, have anything to do with determining stock prices?

Macroeconomic news supposedly explains only about one fifth of the movement in stock prices but if there is no accommodating theory, then the presumed causality involved is tenuous at best. Let me explain.

A sensible story of causation regarding oil prices and stock prices made by countless economists is that "rising oil prices increase the cost of energy and therefore reduce corporate profits and consumers' spending power, thus putting drags on stock prices and the economy." Stunningly, as far as I can determine, however, no evidence supports that claim, as the discussion below will show.

One of the great myths about investing that we’re told by the mainstream investment education is that we should “buy and hold” for the long term [but, as this article will explain,] it’s time to move on from the mainstream. There’s too much technology and too many global options now to be lulled into conventional investments that are born to lose.