When the Gods Punish the Profligate

Source: (AP Photo/Jon Gustafsson)

It has been an interesting week; it turns out that Europe is being punished for their profligacy in dealing with Greece. Here are some good reads for the weekend:

Beating the Index: Selling Stocks: Don’t look back in anger!

Mich over at Beating the Index has a great post on how our emotions can mess with our heads when it comes to buying and selling, and why we should reserve our feelings of affection for people rather than stocks!

Andrew Hallam: The Losers are Winning!

It was once found that a monkey selection of stocks, by having monkeys throwing darts at a list of stocks on the wall, performed better than 90% of the pros. In Andrew Hallam’s new contest, he goes one step further than the monkeys: Instead of simply picking stocks randomly, he has asked readers to pick the worst stocks they can think of, with the only caveat being that they cannot be penny stocks. These stocks are going to go up against professionally managed active funds, also selected by the readers.

So far, this selection of “loser” stocks is beating the “mutual market gods” by more than $8 000! I am interested to see how this contest turns out.

The Wise Buck: Are You Prepared For Your Retirement?

Although retirement is still decades away for most of us, it is still important to plan for it and to prepare for it. However, you should first think about what retirement even means for you. For some people, it can mean vacationing around the world, while for others it can simply mean the freedom to work for  themselves. I personally believe that while being able to travel around the world would be amazing, I also think that just getting out of the rat race would be pretty cool, too.

Young and Thrifty: Variable and Fixed, Open and Closed Mortgages

With the recent interest rate activity, there has been a lot of interest on whether to get a fixed or variable rate mortgage. However, for newcomers to the mortgage game, it is often helpful to know just how these mortgages work before talking to a mortgage specialist. Being armed with some information will help protect you from being hoodwinked and fear-mongered!

Blog Income Life: Blog Hopping to Success

Valentina over at Blog Income Life talks about the importance of networking as it pertains to blogging; as it turns out, the blogging community can be very rich and diverse, even within your own niche, and it can certainly pay off to visit other sites and see other sides of the same subject.

Let A Thousand Nations Bloom: Antitrust Regulators Should Break Up The Government

Anti-trust regulators usually don’t have too many qualms about breaking up private-sector monopolies, but why is it that they don’t break up the government monopolies as well? How can we make government more competitive?

Canadian Mortgage Trends: BoC To Front-Run Fed

Economists are predicting that due to Canada’s stronger economy, the Bank of Canada is going to keep its key lending rate at up to 75 basis points above the Federal Reserve.

Real Clear Markets: What Do We Do If the Rich Start to Leave?

This is an interesting essay on one author’s view of what would happen if the wealthy decided to start packing up their bags and leaving to greener pastures.