It seems that every day I turn on the TV and find a Poker game. Texas No Limit seems to be all the rage these days. I love watching it. When I discuss this with others, their response is always the same, "You should play." Ah, but what they don't know is I stay out of the kitchen. As far as risk to reward ratio. That's a gamble I'm not willing to take. I prefer to invest my money. Sometimes I gamble in the stock market, but as long as I stay within my comfort zone (long term), I don't mind....

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TOO OFTEN, INVESTORS SIMPLY CHOOSE TO follow the crowd. This strategy works in the short term, but can lead to difficulty in the longer haul. It also prevents investors from finding the great opportunities that experts have missed. Similarly, when picking stocks, it is important to see past the opinions of "experts" and recognize real value. In recent years, "Wall Street" has become more of a marketing machine than a center for careful analysis. Over time, we can learn who the few viable analysts are, but in the meantime, most of us are almost better off ignoring the salesmen in the media....

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If you have a pension plan at work you will want to read this and if you don't you will still want to because it affects your retirement account. There are two kinds of formal retirement plans that are set in place by employers. The least complicated is the Defined Contribution where you are allowed to make your own contribution and your employer may also make matching contributions of a percentage of what you put in. At retirement you get out what you put in plus all accruals. The more you contribute the more you have for retirement....

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While trading a basket of Stocks has it's advantages, such as removing the risk of any single company you own Stock in going bust and taking all of your money with it, Indexes tend to be highly volatile, especially the smaller ones. Using technical analysis and swing trading strategies for your index fund trading can vastly improve your results and profits if you know how to analyse Stock trends and patterns. The S&P 500 is probably one of the Worlds best known indexes, and it has a long history of strong trends that have made and lost traders fortunes over the years....

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What! Me worry? Many of you remember the cover of MAD magazine. It was one of my favorites. Alfred's only worry was about his front tooth. You and I have other problems. The one big problem we all have is enough income to support our life style. Those who are approaching retirement or are retired will have to have enough cash or income from investments or pension plans to make it. We all know you can't live on Social Security alone. Your broker, financial planner, banker, whoever you rely upon for financial advice will advise you to start saving and to make some sound and safe investments....

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The bear market that showed up at the end of 2000 has every brokerage house-as well as the entire mutual fund industry-scrambling to find creative ways to boost both their image and bottom line. Unfortunately, this is often at the investors' expense. Fund managers are ever on the lookout for ways to spin the stats to hide lousy track records and to find ways to obscure fees. To add insult to (financial) injury, investors end up being penalized for selling. So what's an investor to do? In this case, knowledge is power....

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Last time we looked at the real performance of the stock market (we used the Dow Jones as a reference point) and the apparent performance that makes the headlines and can be seen by a casual look at a chart or "ballpark" figures - briefly; the Dow went up, for example, less than 50 points between April 1999 and April 2005 - essentially 6 years with no growth! But behind that seemingly "becalmed" Dow there were at least 10 significant moves each and every year totalling many thousands of points! But did the Wall Street Moguls, the so-called "Masters of the Universe" make you any money from those huge movements?...

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Let's go into the details of why non-indexed mutual funds are such a bad deal. When Arthur Levitt became the head of the Security Exchange Commission in 1993 he had to sell off all of his individual stocks so that people would not claim that he was doing any dirty inside dealing. He decided to put the cash from selling off his stock portfolio into mutual funds. Mr. Levitt grew very angry when he tried to decipher how particular mutual funds divvied up their cash into specific stocks. He couldn't make heads or tells from the fancy brochures of the mutual funds called prospectuses....

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What can I expect to make my first year of trading? We get questions like this one quite often. We find that most aspiring traders don't have a clue as to what to expect from the market. Yet here they are, putting up their money. Most are going to learn the hard way. We have no idea in the world what you can expect to make in your first year of trading, or any other year, for that matter. What we can tell you is that without proper guidance and help, you are probably going to have some very bitter experiences....

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We have two candidates for president that have really different ideas on how to make the economy grow. Bush believes in the entrepreneurial approach. People should be allowed to invest in themselves. He even wants to let people have some of the 15% that now goes to the Social Security "trust fund". Folks, there ain't no such thing. All the money the government takes out of your paycheck goes into the general fund and the pols spend it as they choose for "your best interest" provided it coincides with theirs....

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The greatest stock market myth is the idea that investing in stocks is a form of gambling! The financial markets are often compared to a casino. Put some money on X stock and you might as well be playing craps! If that's your impression, and it's keeping you out of the markets, consider this:If investing is organized gambling, it's one of the rare kinds where the odds are stacked in your favor! Why is that? Corporate profits are the key to understanding the investor's edge. By buying a share of stock gives its holder an ownership claim on that company's earnings....

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