Brian Gongol
Charles Schwab research director delivers a steaming hot pile of bad advice
Using lies, damned lies, and statistics, he claims that an investor buying stocks at 52-week highs will do better than a comparable investor buying at 52-week lows. Any investor using that kind of stupid advice to guide an investment strategy is going to end up impoverished as a result. Either the market is efficient or it is not. The success of a batch of individual investors -- the "Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville", who have followed a set of value-investing rules with profound success over a very long time horizon -- proves that the market is, in fact, not efficient. But their common strategy, based partly upon the price of the stocks they've bought, would be a colossal failure if it relied solely upon share prices. It's really quite reckless to tell investors they can get strong stock returns just by sorting stocks for 52-week highs and lows.
Fewer than a third of American young adults know anything useful about personal finance
That's horrifying news. And there's probably some connection there to the fact that we're overpaying by $9.6 billion for mutual fund administration. Sickening all around.
Whose work is remotely worth $133 million a year?
That some executives are paid absurdly large sums -- undoubtedly far more than the actual economic value of their work -- is not a reason for government to regulate the compensation of those executives. Overpaid executives at some of the newly-regulated banks are quitting their jobs, probably to avoid falling under those regulations.
See the International Space Station get assembled
An excellent use of visualization through the Internet
New signs arrive in the New York City subway system
Life-cycle equipment costs matter
