Couch Potato Rebuttals

By 2 Cents on August 4th, 2011 | Category: Investing | 28 comments
potatoes

I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.

~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Well, it took about two weeks, but the Couch Potato cabal piled on all at once in response to my post on Why This Is No Market for Couch Potatoes. Unfortunately, they did so on the day I was out of town with my son for his follow-up surgery so I wasn’t (and to some extent still am not) in the best condition to comment. I’m still busy with post-op pain management and preparing to move, so I’ll have to make this quick, and therefore less thorough than I’d like.

While some fine points were made, I was fascinated by the number of people who commented and attributed a point of view to me that I didn’t think I had put [...]

Read on and enjoy … Couch Potato Rebuttals

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Why This Is No Market for Couch Potatoes

By 2 Cents on July 18th, 2011 | Category: Investing | 38 comments
Couch Potato Portfolio

Never accept the proposition that just because a solution satisfies a problem, that it must be the only solution.

~Raymond E. Feist

Update: This article was featured in the Totally Money Carnival at Family Money Values. Thanks!

A recent article in Money Sense magazine offered some data on investment returns for the publication’s preferred investment indexing method: the Global Couch Potato portfolio. It’s a simple, low-cost way to invest in a set allocation of stocks and bonds with limited effort on the part of investors. The rise of ETFs over the past decade has turned this strategy from a questionable alternative to mutual funds to a near standard in the DIY investment space. Many personal finance and investing sites promote it as the best way for individual investors to manage their portfolios.

The strategy grew out of a desire to circumvent the [...]

Read on and enjoy … Why This Is No Market for Couch Potatoes

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Ignorance Makes You a Better Investor & Other Money-Losing Fallacies

By 2 Cents on June 4th, 2010 | Category: Investing | 11 comments

Genuine ignorance is . . . profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity and open-mindedness; whereas the ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas.

~ John Dewey

Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Financial Planning #145 posted at The Skilled Investor. Thanks!

Today’s Friday Food for Thought is a little different from past editions. Most of the articles I’ve highlighted so far have been those that I’ve found inspiring or otherwise agreed with. Today I’m writing about an article where I found myself completely disagreeing with almost every line.

I chose to highlight this article, not to criticize the author or those who would agree with him, but just to show that there’s another side to every opinion. [...]

Read on and enjoy … Ignorance Makes You a Better Investor & Other Money-Losing Fallacies

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