Serious Investors Value the Un-Sexy
Most of us think that we are above average drivers. Likewise, I have never heard anyone say they are bad at investing. After experiencing negative returns, the market is to blame or maybe the President of the United States is to at fault if they belong to the “wrong” political party. After positive returns, I only hear about how great the person is at picking stocks. Here’s the thing: most people don’t actually know how their investments are performing. I have yet to see a brokerage statement that showed meaningful information. The typical statement has something like this on one of the first pages: Month starting balance Income Withdrawals/Contributions Value change Month ending Balance The following pages don’t give much more information – usually a list of positions and transactions – so you can see if you had more or less than you started with last month, but how does that compare to…
