I’ve often said that I’m a boring investor. And I’m not alone. Mike Piper, The Oblivious Investor, is also a boring investor. He’s written an entire book, Oblivious Investing: Building Wealth by Ignoring the Noise on a simple buy-and-hold investing strategy that focuses on index funds. It’s not exciting, but you’re more likely to build enough long-term wealth than if you run around, trying to earn big-time returns in the short-term. The book is fairly short, only 113 pages. You can easily read it in an afternoon.
Oblivious Investing by Mike Piper
Oblivious Investing is set up as a parable. It follows …read more

Do you like index funds?

Sill hesitating to take that first step in the stock market?

Today I am pleased to answer a reader question about investing. Here it is:
I’ve heard a lot lately about the advisability of investing in index funds. What is an index fund?
If you’ve been reading advice about investing lately, you might have the same question. After all, many financial planning experts and investing analysts recommend index funds for long-term investing, as well as a good choice when it comes to riding out a down stock market.
An index fund is a mutual fund that follows a specific index. The S&P 500 Index is one of the more popular for this purpose. You …read more