Can You Say, “Useless Platitudes?”
With the usual onslaught of year-end investing articles, I’ve noticed a sub-genre emerging this year.
Namely, advisors who claim that the secret to market-beating performance is “avoiding bear markets” (and implicitly, that parking your money with them is the best way to do that).
I suppose the corollary would be, “only be fully invested during bull markets.”
Unfortunately, that insight is about as actionable — and useful — as such chestnuts as “buy low, sell high”; “cut your losses, and let your profits run”; and “never follow the herd.”
P.S.: For classic investment advice, it’s hard to out-do this one from Mark Twain: ‘only buy stocks that go up. If they don’t go up . . . don’t buy ’em.’
As far as real estate investment advice goes, the only useful tidbit I’ve gleaned from (browsing) several dozen such books is, “buy property close to where you live, so the property management will be easier.”
