Wall Street is littered with the bones of those who knew just what to do, but could not bring themselves to do it.

Wall Street is littered with the bones of those who knew just what to do, but could not bring themselves to do it.

The typical fund company services 401k plan participants in the same way that Baby Face Nelson serviced banks.

If your broker or investment advisor is not familiar with the concept of standard deviation of returns, get a new one.

There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who don't know where the market is headed and those who don't know what they don't know. Then again, there is a third type of investor: the investment professional, who indeed knows he doesn't know, but whose livelihood depends upon appearing to know.

Bluntly put, there's no chance that your doctor, dentist, or attorney is a high-school dropout. Your stockbroker, however, just might be.

A decade ago, I really did believe that the average investor could do it himself. I was wrong. I've come to the sad conclusion that only a tiny minority, at most one percent, are capable of pulling it off. Heck, if Helen Young Hayes, Robert Sanborn, Julian Robertson, and the nation's largest pension funds can't get it right, what chance does John Q. Investor have?