Thoughts on Investing

Thoughts on Investing---from the Motley Fool

            50 Unfortunate Truths about Investing (26-50)

26. Most IPOs will burn you. People with more information than you have want to sell. Think about that.
27. When someone mentions charts, moving averages, head-and-shoulders patterns, or resistance levels, walk away.
28. The phrase "double-dip recession" was mentioned 10.8 million times in 2010 and 2011, according to Google. It never came. There were virtually no mentions of "financial collapse" in 2006 and 2007. It did come.
29. The real interest rate on 20-year Treasuries is negative, and investors are plowing money into them. Fear can be a much stronger force than arithmetic.
30. The book Where Are the Customers' Yachts? was written in 1940, and most still haven't figured out that financial advisors don't have their best interest at heart.
31. The low-cost index fund is one of the most useful financial inventions in history. Boring but beautiful. 
32. The best investors in the world have more of an edge in psychology than in finance.
33. What markets do day to day is overwhelmingly driven by random chance. Ascribing explanations to short-term moves is like trying to explain lottery numbers.
34. For most, finding ways to save more money is more important than finding great investments.
35. If you have credit card debt and are thinking about investing in anything, stop. You will never beat 30% annual interest. 
36. A large portion of share buybacks are just offsetting shares issued to management as compensation. Managers still tout the buybacks as "returning money to shareholders."
37. The odds that at least one well-known company is insolvent and hiding behind fraudulent accounting are high.
38. Twenty years from now the S&P 500 (INDEX: ^GSPC  ) will look nothing like it does today. Companies die and new ones emerge.
39. Twelve years ago General Motors (NYSE: GM  ) was on top of the world and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL  ) was laughed at. A similar shift will occur over the next decade, but no one knows to what companies.
40. Most would be better off if they stopped obsessing about Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the president and focused on their own financial mismanagement. 
41. For many, a house is a large liability masquerading as a safe asset.
42. The president has much less influence over the economy than people think.
43. However much money you think you'll need for retirement, double it. Now you're closer to reality.
44. The next recession is never like the last one. 
45. Remember what Buffett says about progress: "First come the innovators, then come the imitators, then come the idiots."
46. And what Mark Twain says about truth: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while truth is putting on its shoes."
47. And what Marty Whitman says about information: "Rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise."
48. The bigger a merger is, the higher the odds it will be a flop. CEOs love empire-building by overpaying for companies.
49. Investments that offer little upside and big downside outnumber those with the opposite characteristics at least 10-to-1.
50. The most boring companies -- toothpaste, food, bolts -- can make some of the best long-term investments. The most innovative, some of the worst