INVESTING SHOULD BE BORING (IN A GOOD WAY)

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Investing is Boring

Sports can be exciting.  Travel can be exciting.  Movies can be exciting.  But your investing should be boring. Why?  Because proper investing mechanics are driven by investing systems that generate predictable outcomes.  And when outcomes become predictable, the excitement is lost.  While investing with a system may be boring, it can also be immensely profitable when applied with regularity. If you want to become an accomplished investor, it behooves you to understand that emotion should NOT be part of your approach.  Making money through investing is an intellectual pursuit, not an emotional pursuit. One of the challenges I occasionally face Continue reading →

SMART INVESTING MEANS OBSERVING TRENDS

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Old Personal Pager

Change is constant and inevitable.  Winter changes into spring, night changes into day, and even the largest boulders are eventually reduced to sand.  Death, taxes, and change.  Those are your guarantees, my friend. In the world of business and investing, when a simple change evolves from a temporary detour into a sustainable new direction that’s backed by fundamentals, a new trend emerges.  And when a new trend alters a familiar course or practice, the change can be very disruptive.  Entire industries can be impacted, cultural ideals are often reformed, and massive transfers of wealth can occur.  “Paradigm shift” was a Continue reading →

INVESTING IN LAS VEGAS? NOPE.

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LasVegasNevada

On a recent flight back to California, I struck up a conversation with a fellow traveler.  Turns out we actually went to the same middle school even though we were a few years apart in age.  Small world, huh?  Eventually we started chatting about why we were on a flight.  He told me that he was heading out to a friend’s wedding, and I explained that I had just spent a few days in the Midwest visiting some of my rental properties.   That captured his interest, and he asked if I was planning to invest in Las Vegas since it’s Continue reading →

DEVELOPING GOOD FINANCIAL HABITS

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Piggy Bank

We demonstrate habits in nearly every area of our lives.  We brush our teeth with the same hand every morning, we drive the same route to the grocery store, and we practice the same general mannerisms when interacting with others.  Habits, both the good ones and the bad ones, are a function of our subconscious minds, and they literally run the majority of what we do – even how we handle our finances and our investing activities. Habits are a fascinating human construct.  You weren’t born with any habits, but you’ve managed to acquire them over the course of your Continue reading →

EVALUATING YOUR RETIREMENT ACCOUNT

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Properly Diversify Your Retirement Plan

In 1974, Congress enacted legislation known as ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act).  This ushered in a new era of financial self-reliance for millions of American workers.  With this transition from defined benefit plans (i.e., pensions) to defined contribution plans such as IRAs and 401(k) plans, the United States government conveyed their expectation that employees must now privately manage their financial futures. Moreover, as the sustainability of government-sponsored entitlement programs are called into question, more and more citizens are realizing the importance of taking a proactive approach toward their “golden years”. To be honest, as an independent investor, I’m not Continue reading →

WHAT THE HECK… IS A P/E RATIO?

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Stock Chart

“What the heck…” is an ongoing series within The Pay Me Plan Blog for Investing Novices where I dissect a financial concept or principle, and explain how it can apply to your investing activities.  In this post, we’ll be covering what a P/E ratio is and how it works. In the P/E ratio, the “P” stands for price and the “E” stands for earnings.  Thus, the P/E ratio means the price to earnings ratio.  This is a metric used when evaluating the price of a public company’s stock in relation to how much net income the company is actually generating.  Continue reading →