I've talked with tens of thousands of investors over the years, and almost to a person they're convinced that building wealth is a complicated, difficult undertaking.
Not the way I see it.
In reality the biggest challenge isn't investing itself.
It's you.
And, specifically, the lies we tell ourselves about money.
Learn to get around those and making money becomes easy. Racking up huge profits becomes fun. Retirement becomes - dare I say it - something you enjoy.
Here are three (actually true) market truisms to get you started.
1. The Markets Have an Upward Bias
I often joke with my audiences at presentations around the world, saying that we are all born with common sense... it's just bred out of us as adults. Usually that gets a good laugh because everyone in the room can identify with the premise.
Nowhere is that clearer than when it comes to money.
It's human nature to believe that the worst is just around the corner. Faced with a minor correction, millions of investors believe the sky will fall and the markets will go into some sort of catastrophic meltdown. Headlines light up with bearish commentary and the pucker factor rises exponentially.
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Maybe that's a result of millions of years of genetic programming or simply a byproduct of the Internet - I don't know. But what I do know is that that millions of investors want to believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket
Yet, in reality, the world has a very positive bias, and so does your money.
Take current market conditions, for instance.
People are convinced the financial markets are going to implode for any number of reasons. There's Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, China, the Fed, the president, the debt, rising interest rates, and the fact that the bull market is now nearly nine years old.
This is a lot like worrying about having three feet of snow on the ground in July just because you got an inch of the white stuff in November, and about as fruitless.
Let me prove it to you.
About the Author
Keith is a seasoned market analyst and professional trader with more than 37 years of global experience. He is one of very few experts to correctly see both the dot.bomb crisis and the ongoing financial crisis coming ahead of time - and one of even fewer to help millions of investors around the world successfully navigate them both. Forbes hailed him as a "Market Visionary." He is a regular on FOX Business News and Yahoo! Finance, and his observations have been featured in Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, WIRED, and MarketWatch. Keith previously led The Money Map Report, Money Map's flagship newsletter, as Chief Investment Strategist, from 20007 to 2020. Keith holds a BS in management and finance from Skidmore College and an MS in international finance (with a focus on Japanese business science) from Chaminade University. He regularly travels the world in search of investment opportunities others don't yet see or understand.
My Mother has quite a bit of her retirement in a stock portfolio which is made up of a some BP, they started out as 2 or 3 shares as she remembers from when my Dad worked there and she never sold them, I Am not sure how many she has today, but iver 100 and worth quite a bit. I advised her about 7 or 8 years ago to buy Sketchers because I as a nurse was so impressed with the product and the company was so new, stock was like 13.00, she bought some, I don't know how much but it was one of those that performed very well for the next 6 years, now it is leveling off, might sell. My last buy advice was FBI the day it went public. I told her to buy as much as she could. I believe she bought 1000.00 dollars at 25.00 share. Yep 102% return, just so far. I am currently looking for the next best thing!!
I hope to invest after the first of the year