I worked for roughly one year as a financial advisor, and I ran into several people who had done exactly that–and many more who were well on their way.

In fact, that experience was the inspiration for creating this blog. It’s my belief that the ability to simply “not mess up” is the most important factor in a person’s investment success.

There’s no need to come up with any brilliant investment strategy. Just come up with a decent strategy and stick with it.

Also, I can’t help but suspect that there really is a negative correlation between an investor’s return and the attention they pay to short-term market results.

Be ironic if returns did reduce as attention to the industry/markets increased! A sort of natural dampening system.

Thanks for the response. Out of curiosity, would you be able to email me your contact info? I have a question for you about guest posts, but I could not find your email address anywhere on the site.

Thanks,
David

@David: I never buy individual stocks. As to taking advantage of high dividend yields in a 401k, I’d check if there is a low cost “equity income” fund.

Or simply invest in an all-market or S&P index fund. With prices of everything down, dividend yields on everything are up. No need to go bargain hunting when everything is on sale.

I agree that now is a good buying opportunity, but I’m not ready to start buying indiviual stocks yet.

When bank shares crashed again last week, I did think for a moment maybe this is it for shares, at least in the West. I didn’t do anything about it for numerous reasons – not least because I don’t really believe ‘this is it’, but also because as you say where are you going to put the money?

Government bonds look like the next bubble to me. I suspect everyone will rush for the exit at the same time – either because the economy improves and shares take off again, or because it *really* doesn’t, and overseas investors get spooked, even against their own interests, and start selling.

Sounds like a good plan to me.