The Online Investing AI Blog

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This isn’t New Agey hocus-pocus, necessarily.

This is reality.

The things you think about. The things you believe. The things you read and watch. The things that make you confident and the things that make you fearful are the very foundation of wealth generation–on a lot of levels.

The pricing of stocks and other assets reflect beliefs about their value. These beliefs aren’t just the thoughts and opinions of analysts and big-time market movers, they reflect your ideas, too. Now, your personal belief may just represent a fraction of that price, but when merged with the collective sense, you have mass market psychology.

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Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, US Economy belief, beliefs, indexes, information, market, Money, stock market, wealth

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Conventional wisdom is usually not conventional and not really wise. It’s often an agreed-upon lie, at worst, or an excuse to keep trying to do the same things over and over again.

It’s a mass-thinking rut, often.

You can find examples of conventional wisdom everywhere–at work, at schools, and at the town hall. But, if you really want to see conventional wisdom at work, check out the world of investments and personal finance.

How can you tell when conventional wisdom is at work? When you hear the same debate or argument over and over again, chances are you’ve stumbled on a conventional truth.

Conventional wisdom doesn’t have to be a thought that is believed by all of  the population. Different groups have different conventional truths. Ironically, these bits of conventional wisdom can be exactly opposite of someone else’s conventional truth.

And the other problem with conventional wisdom is it leads to fatalism. You believe the conclusion of a certain “truth” is writ in stone, simply because it’s the conventional truth of so many people.

An open mind is the cure for conventional wisdom.

Here’s one way to exercise that open mind and break through the walls of conventional wisdom.

What you do is to define some challenges that are part of conventional thought–things you hear in the mainstream media, or talk about with your friends. Then, write down some options that will contradict their conclusions, or change the game entirely. Try to make them positive. Here are some of mine:

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Business Strategy, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success, US Economy conventional wisdom, economy, personal finance, rich, truths, wealth, wisdom

Home of Grace Groner, secret millionaire

It’s hard to be a buy and hold investor in this economic condition. We’ve seen major companies get bailed out, or evaporate like a pool of water on a hot summer day.

But think what it was like to be a buy-and-holder in 1935, the depths of the Great Depression. That’s when Grace Groner spent $180 on three shares of her employer’s stock. Over the next seven decades, those shares in Abbot Laboratories split many times and she reinvested the dividends, too.

And guess how much she ended up with when she passed away in January?

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Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success, US Economy buy-and-hold, invest, Investing, lessons, millionaire, millionaire next door, rich, Success, wealth

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Personal finance is really about asking the right questions.

Should you buy and hold? Should you sell and walk away?

How much should you save?

How much should you spend?

What’s the best investment?

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers to all those questions–but a lot of smart bloggers and columnists do. And I’ll let them do the talking in this week’s edition of Weekly Wisdom.

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Business Strategy, Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success Investing, Links, Money, personal finance, questions, roundup, saving, wealth

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The trader’s Catch 22 is that high risk can lead to high returns. Oh, and high risk can also lead to devastating losses.

But the great trading dilemma is to figure out  how much return you’ll receive for the risks you take. One way to estimate this risk-reward ratio is by using the Sharpe ratio.

The Sharpe ratio is named after Nobel-prize winning economist William Sharpe.

The  ratio is calculated by subtracting the risk-free rate – such as that of the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond - from the rate of return for a portfolio and dividing the result by the standard deviation of the returns.

This may sound a little complicated, but compared to other ways of determining risk, the Sharpe Ratio is a snap.

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Automated Trading, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI Automated Trading, invest, money management, risk, sharpe ratio, smart investing, strategy, trading, wealth

I think Warren Buffett is an interesting guy.

I admire him. I read a few books that were written by him or about him. I believe–at least for my long-term holdings in my portfolio–that the Intelligent Investor, written by Buffett’s mentor, Benajamin Graham, is a must-read.

Over the years, I’ve had some disagreements with Buffett, but nothing to stop me from sitting down and having steak with him.

But there’s one thing that would: paying a million dollars for that steak.

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Dreams Come True, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI auction, benjamin graham, berkshire hathaway, charity, dinner, investors, long term investing, Money, Warren Buffett, wealth

One day, your ability to generate wealth will be automatic and ever-present.

How can we make this assertion?

The exponential wave of technology, which is turning the globe into interconnected, untethered web of information, will eventually wash over the world of personal finance.

Those first waves have already lapped onto the shore. The tsunami, though, is building.

In this untethered world, the power of mobile financial apps are growing in power.

Here are some  great apps you can use to monitor the market and, in some cases, use to trade.

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Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI apps, financial, management, mobile, Money, personal finance, tech, technology, wealth

John Grogan was a hard-working writer.

He rose up through the ranks of journalists, winning lots of awards and recognition. The pay wasn’t bad either–by journalist standards. But it certainly wasn’t enough to fund his real dreams–those aspirations that bubbled under the surface. The ones that his friends and families probably rolled their eyes when he mentioned. The ones that “didn’t pay.”

John wasn’t deterred, though.

John worked hard and wrote a tale about his attention-deficit dog, Marley. The book–Marley and Me–and the movie based on the book became blockbusters and the financial freedom opened up new career paths for the writer, including his dream of becoming an editor of an organic gardening magazine.

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Dreams Come True, Money, Online Investing AI, Success aspiration, dream, employment, inspiration, job, John Grogan, marley and me, work

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OK

The groundhog was right.

Another week and another two feet of snow for some folks. More high winds, too. And don’t forget the below-freezing temperatures.

But that hasn’t chilled the aspirations for us to bring you the best blog posts and articles about how you can become financially free. From productivity tips to ways to save a nest egg, you’ll find some solid advice in this week’s collection.

So, let’s start…

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Dreams Come True, Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success fiscal, making money, Money, money tips, personal financial freedom, saving money, secrets, tips, wealth, weekly wisdom

After reading Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing In Gold and Silver last week, I did some research and thought about the whole concept of gold and sliver. It got me thinking about the value of  precious metals, and some of the ideas that we just accept about money.

Consider this. When was the last time you paid for anything with a silver coin whose value was determined by the amount of silver in the coin? The answer is probably never. Because we don’t use silver or gold coins for exchange anymore. And, the reason is quite subtle. The government has replaced these coins with fiat currency such as dollars.

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Investing, Money books, currency, derivatives, gold, Investing, rich dad, silver, Warren Buffett