stocks

If You’re Going to Trade Stocks, Read This First

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Regular readers of Automatic Finances will know well that we advocate long term, buy-and-hold investing. Overall, for both small and large investors, it remains the most stable and consistent approach to both wealth creation and preservation. Short-term trading, in comparison, carries considerable risks to an investor’s capital. That’s why it’s important to make that distinction [...]

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Can Monkeys Pick Stocks Better than Experts?

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We’ve spent plenty of time explaining why investing in passive, low-cost index funds will out-earn actively managed funds in the long-run, and that most fund managers can’t even outperform the indexes they’re trying to beat over time. The underlying theme of these posts is that stock market “experts” aren’t really experts at all. They may [...]

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The Pros and Cons of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)

Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are, as their name implies, funds that trade on an exchange. Traditionally, ETFs have been baskets of stocks that track broad indices. More recently, ETFs have launched that track exotic strategies or asset classes with the goal of allowing retail investors to participate in institutional strategies. Why ETFs? The ETF structure is [...]

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