Top 10 Investing Truths

Early this week, Ben Carlson compiled a list of his 36 most obvious investment truths. 

I can think of examples for each of these truths, if applied, they would have saved someone an enormous of amount of heart ache (and money!). 

I've selected my top ten from Ben's list for you to consider. After all, investment success is more about minimizing dumb decisions than making brilliant ones. 

Enjoy!

1. If you need to spend your money in a relatively short period of time it doesn’t belong in the stock market.

2. If you want to earn higher returns you’re going to have to take more risk.

3. If you want more stability you’re going to have to accept lower returns.

4. Any investment strategy with high expected returns should come with the expectation of losses.

5. No investment strategy can outperform at all times.

6. don’t know” is almost always the correct answer when someone asks you what’s going to happen in the markets.

7. Proper diversification means always having to say you’re sorry about part of your portfolio.

8. Reasonable investment advice doesn’t really change all that much but most of the time people don’t want to hear reasonable investment advice.

9. Successful investing is more about behavior and temperament than IQ or education.

10. For buy and hold to truly work you have to do both when markets are falling.

Credit: A Wealth of Common Sense