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

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

While it is probably a poor idea to own actively managed funds in general, it is truly a terrible idea to own them in taxable accounts... taxes are a drag on performance of up to 4 percentage points each year... many index funds allow your capital gains to grow largely undisturbed until you sell... For the taxable investor, indexing means never having to say you're sorry.

Market risk is like taking a plunge into a cool pool ... a lot of people are finding out right now what their risk tolerance is.

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

The key thing about any fund is to make sure its expenses are low. You know, if you look at the funds in your plan and you see that they're all charging 1.5 and 2 percent,you've gota bad plan.

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