The Online Investing AI Blog

If you’ve ever visited the department of motor vehicle’s office, or an open bar office Christmas party, you know that the number of jackasses in the world considerably outnumber the rest of humanity.

These are the same people who bought dotcom stocks for thousands of times their net worth and took $700,000 mortgages on homes worth about $200,000 a few years before.

So, that’s bad for investors, right?

Not according to Michael Dever and just some good old common horse sense. You can actually learn how to take advantage of these jackass investors.

Dever, who is Founder, CEO & Director of Research of Brandywine Asset Management, says you can take advantage of jackasses to make money as an investor. In fact, he’s written the book about it. It’s called Jackass Investing: Don’t do it. Profit from it.

The book, which Dever says is the result of a decade of research and three decades of trading experience, teaches some contrarian lessons.

For instance, Dever believes that every decision is a trade–even the decision not to trade. He names that decision the Rush trade, after the rock band.

One difference between investors and jackass investors is whether they know if they’re investing… or gambling.

Read more…

Great Books, Investing, Money advice, bonds, books, debt, finances, Investing, stocks, Success

Maybe, because of my readings about research and technology, as well as the Singularity, I’m becoming more sensitive to the pace of technological change. The number of breakthroughs appears to be increasing rapidly.

These new technologies and findings aren’t just coming in one area; they are spread out across a number of disciplines, from biotech to quantum physics. That’s a key insight that’s making it harder to predict just how the future unfolds.

I’ll start out with some links to stories about the latest breakthroughs…

Daily Mail — New Solar Paint Could Generate Electricity from Roofs and Walls

ABC (Australia) Science — Quantum Computer Breakthrough

Gizmag — A 3-D Printer Under $500

Eureka Alert — Duke Researchers Turn Scar Tissue into Heart Muscle Without Using Stem Cells

Dvice.com —  MIT Reinvents Glass That’s Non-fogging, Self-cleaning, and Glare-free

Mashable — Company Looks to Mine $20 Trillion Rock

By the way, if you want to keep up on this breathtaking pace of research, I’d subscribe to Futureseek. It’s a great resource.

Read more…

Accelerating Technology, Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI blogs, Investing, learning, Links, singularity, stocks, technology, weekly wisdom, wisdom

Image courtesy Creative Commons

Investing, Money, Success behavior, buying, emotions, failure, Investing, loser, manias, markets, Money, selling, stocks, Success, winner

Investing, Money, US Economy depression, dips, housing, Investing, markets, Money, prices, recession, recovery, stocks, Success

Last week I read The Ivy Portfolio by Faber and Richardson. Before I tell you about it, let me share with you one incredible resource.

I found out about the book from an awesome site that you really need to check out: dshort.com. I was so impressed that I immediately added it to the blogroll. What’s so great about it? It is easy to understand, offers outstanding content, and has great charts and graphs. I’ll be writing about it extensively in a future post.

Back to The Ivy Portfolio. It explains how Yale and Harvard endowment funds have outperformed the market and had consistent returns for 23 years (ending in 2008). I think that is pretty useful information. And, thanks to the great writing, you don’t need a Ph.D. in mathematics to understand it. It is actually very easy to understand and replicate the strategies.

How good is outperform? Yale returned an average of 16.6% per year. Harvard did 15.2%. Not bad for such a long period and two major market crashes. What is their secret? Did they have 100 Ph.D.’s working for them?

Read more…

Accelerating Technology, Dreams Come True, Great Books, Internet, Investing, Money, Success, US Economy 401k, asset allocation, bonds, books, commodities, etf, harvard, Investing, ira, ivy league, Money, phd, portfolio, real estate, retirement, stocks, Success, yale

Many books that I read focus on a certain aspect of trading. They might talk about technical analysis or a specific entry technique. I feel that these books are OK, but they won’t really make it possible for most readers to succeed at trading. To succeed at trading there are certain dimensions of trading that need to be mastered, and those are the ones that are least written about. They include:

• Psychology
• Process
• Learning
• Money Management
• Risk Management
• Discipline
• Understanding Oneself

Last week I finished reading Come Into My Trading Room by Alexander Elder. I really like this book because it offers tons of clear, practical information that we can use to become successful trades. And, it addresses many of the dimensions of trading that I think are most important. I think it is the perfect book for anyone who wants to improve their trading, especially for beginners and intermediate traders.

Read more…

Dreams Come True, Great Books, Internet, Investing, Money, Success alcohol, alcoholic, alexander elder, books, discipline, failure, losers, Money, process, psychology, stocks, Success, trading

For the last few weeks, I have been focusing on learning how to trade stocks. And, I have found some outstanding resources that I want to share with you. One of the best is Stockbee, which I wrote about last time.

I think that one of the hardest things about learning to trade successfully is knowing where to get information. There is too much information available in books, newspapers and the internet. 99% of it is useless noise. I look for information that is clear, easy to understand, and also actionable.

One interesting site I found is the Kirk Report. After reading about Charles’ struggle to learn to trade, I was really interested in what he had learned. I read about his story, and I like how his goal is to help other people learn to trade. I haven’t yet signed up for his service, but if any subscribers have any comments please share them.

For those of you who are not members, there is plenty of free information available as well. It is listed as “free reports”.

Read more…

Internet, Investing, Success blogs, charts, fundamental analysis, human intelligence, Internet, Investing, learning, resources, stocks, Success, technical analysis, trading, web sites

After doing research today about the gold market, I was surprised to see the big movement in silver. It seem that the entire character of the commodity has changed. It has gone from being in a sideways market to a strong, clear uptrend.

SLV - Silver ETF

I think silver is a good investment because of the large amount of money being printed by many countries, especially the U.S. Besides that, it seems pretty clear that not just the U.S. but many of the world’s economies are on shaky ground. What do you think will happen to the price of silver if there is a major default?

What is driving the price of silver?

Read more…

Internet, Investing, Money, Success, US Economy commodities, education trend, etf, gold, silver, stocks, trading

After reading this article about a possible rocky future for the U.S. (and world) economy, I wondered how many people are prepared. What would you do if we had another depression? What would you do if we have hyperinflation and the dollar becomes worthless?

Are You Ready?

I have mentioned it many times before. Depressions tend to happen once every 80 years. How long has it been since the last one? 80 years. Thanks to crowd psychology, once everyone has pretty much completely forgotten about the last one, the next one can start. Good times come and good times go. Economics happens in cycles. Read more…

Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Investing, Money, Success, US Economy chaos, economy, foreclosure, Investing, Money, poker, real estate, stocks, Success

I just checked out Kapitall (with 2 l’s) and was really surprised to find so many new and fresh ideas. After my experience with Cooliris, I thought how wonderful it would be to find new ways of displaying the same old, boring stock data. And, just like that, a few days later I found out about Kapitall!

The Kapitall Desktop

As I mentioned before, I think that computers have come a long way in the last 30 years, but the way we interact with them has not changed much since the introduction of the mouse. And, looking at stock charts hasn’t changed either, except that they have gotten more complicated and less readable.

Read more…

Business Strategy, Internet, Investing, Success Apple, design, detail, Internet, Investing, kapitall, management, Money, portfolio, stocks, web sites