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Steve Selengut's Articles Display Category|Title|Newest|Oldest Year End Investment Ideas and Tax Strategies First thing Monday morning I'm going to march into my boss's office and demand a pay cut so that I'll be in a lower tax bracket next year. Your Financial Professional's perspective may produce smart tax advice but only professional investors (not accountants, attorneys, stockbrokers, financial planners, advisors in general) should be called upon for acceptable investment advice. Asset Allocation: Investment Management Without Mutual Funds Investing is not a competitive event, ever. You don't need to beat the market. You need to accomplish a set of personalized goals. Avoid what the crowd is doing and shun investment products. Consumers buy products; Investors buy securities. Avoid hindsightful analysis, and uninformed (or salesperson) criticism. Solving Social Security: Fire the Politicians! There is no "Social Security Trust Fund"... no investments and no Investment Managers. There was always a tax plan for funding the benefits, but never an Investment Plan. This is a gigantic Government designed and controlled Ponzi scheme that has worked incredibly well in spite of congressional tinkering and prohibitively high cost. REITs and CEFs: The KISS Principal Applied to Real Estate The benefits of this form of Real Estate Investing vs. ownership of the properties themselves should be clear as well. No attorneys; no debt; no maintenance; no problem. The size of the numbers may be less exciting, but the net income and capital gains potential are comparable and the turnover rate much more impressive. Window Dressing: Wall Street's Investment "Circle of Gold". At least four times per year, security prices are more a function of institutional marketing practices than they are a reflection of the economic forces that we would like to think are their primary determining factors. Do you remember the "Circle of Gold" chain letter from the seventies? RELAX, A Volatile Stock Market Is Your Dearest Friend A volatile equity market creates opportunities with every gyration in either direction. But you have to be willing to transact to reap the benefits. A necessary first step is to recognize that both "up" and "down" markets are forces of Stock Market nature with abundant potential. In Value Stock Investing, Quality is Job One In the late 90's, a well-known Value Fund Manager was asked why he wasn't buying dot-coms, IPOs, etc. When he said that they didn't qualify as Value Stocks, he was told to change his definition... or else. Here are five filters you can use to come up with a selection universe of higher quality companies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average: Failing the Average Investor To most investors, the DJIA provides all of the information they think they need, and they worship it mindlessly, thinking that this time tattered average has mystical predictive and analytic powers far beyond the scope of any other market numbers. It's Wall Street's rendition of "The Emperor's New Clothes". Ten Common Investment Errors: Stocks, Bonds, & Management Losing money on an investment may not be the result of a mistake, and not all mistakes result in monetary losses. Compounding the problems that investors have managing their investment portfolios is the sideshowesque sensationalism that the media brings to the process. Avoid these ten common errors to improve your performance: Ishares and ETFs: Indexed Investment Illusions Let's not dwell upon the three or more levels of speculation that are the very foundation of all index funds… these things are designed for manipulation! Isn't "Passive Management" as much of an oxymoron as "Variable Annuity"? The Investment Gods are not happy. An Investor's View of The Fair Tax: A Resolution A Government that bemoans the population's low savings and investment rates has only itself to blame, and Wall Street Institutions are happy to exacerbate the problem with their own financial pandemic of products, strategies, and tax deferral/avoidance schemes. It's time to reinvent this wheel! Investment Strategy: The Investor's Creed, and "Smart Cash" The Stock Market is a dynamic place where investors can consistently make reasonable returns on their capital if they comply with the basic principles of the endeavor AND if they don't measure their progress too frequently with irrelevant measuring devices. Five simple concepts of Asset Allocation, Investment Strategy, and Psychology are summed up quite nicely in what I call "The Investor's Creed". The Case for Value Stock Investing...What If? Predicting the performance of individual issues is a totally different ball game that requires an even more powerful crystal ball and a whole array of completely illegal relationships. No one can predict individual issue price movements legally, consistently, or in a timely manner. Investment Advisors 101… ask some questions. Why do people become Investment Advisors? Call me skeptical, but I don’t think it’s the ethereal glow they feel after implementing your new Financial Plan. Actually (once you appreciate that IAs are the primary delivery system for Wall Street’s huge collection of one-size-fits-all products), you’ll realize that it’s the money. A New Wall Street Line Dance Every December, with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, investors begin to scrutinize their performance, formulate coulda’s and shoulda’s, and determine what to try next year. It’s an annual, masochistic, right of passage. Managing the Income Portfolio You don’t have to be a professional Investment Manager to professionally manage your investment portfolio, but you do need to have a long term plan and know something about Asset Allocation… a portfolio organization tool that is often misunderstood and almost always improperly used within the financial community. Remember, your unhappiness is Wall Street’s most coveted asset. Don’t humor them. Understanding Fixed Income Securities: Expectations Wall Street pumps out products and Investment Experts rationalize strategies that cloud the simple rules governing the behavior of what should be an investor’s retirement blankie. The investment gods have spoken: “The market price of Fixed Income Securities shall vary inversely with Interest Rates, both actual and anticipated… and it is good.”	Authors Sign Up for a free account. Submit your articles. Publishers Category RSS feeds. Resources Accredited Home Schools Article Directory More Resources

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