I recently wrote a post about the pros and cons of passive investing earlier in the week. Now I would like to take a look at active investing. Active investing is an investment strategy where the individual investor is more involved in the buying and selling of securities. Active investors believe that by managing their own money they can beat the return of the stock market.
Investing With Mutual Funds




Investing can be a scary endeavor without a road map. That’s why it is so important to develop a solid investment strategy and stick to it. There are two main strategies for investing: passive and active. Most people don’t have the time to actively manage their own investment portfolio and having someone else actively manage your investments can be very costly over the long term. Passive investments such as index funds and ETFs are great investment vehicles for amateur investors looking to track the performance of the market or a certain market sector. In this article we’ll focus on passive investing.
I was reading an article today about how the governor of New York David Paterson is including a “fat tax” in the 2010 budget. According to the NY State Health Department, the fat tax proposed in New York would apply to all drinks that “contain more than ten calories per eight ounces, such as soda, sports drinks, ‘energy’ drinks, colas, fruit or vegetable drinks containing less than 70% natural fruit or vegetable juice, and bottled coffee or tea.” All full calorie beverages would see their prices increased a penny per ounce. Paterson is trying to cover a 7.4 billion dollar deficit in the state’s annual budget. Lawmakers estimate that a tax on sweetened beverages would raise about 450 million dollars a year.
Have you ever turned on a cable financial news channel and noticed a network pundit touting the next great investment? CNBC may have an analyst telling you that a small tech company is the next Microsoft and you must buy it today. Fox Business may have a gold expert telling you to buy gold despite the fact that gold is selling at a 30 year high. Or you may be at a social function and someone is talking about an investment that is guaranteed to double over the next year. What is the average investor to do with all of these “hot tips”? My advice to you is To Tune Out The Noise. 