Another pearl of wisdom from Charles Ellis

STOP ALLOWING CNBC TO GUIDE YOUR INVESTMENT DECISIONS!
We all hear short term and long term distinctions, as well as short term and long term goals. Today, the long term goals are probably what they always were. The short term, on the other hand, are probably changing every day, moving away from sticking to a strategy and moving towards not losing all of your money. Understandable, but, remember for one moment your thought process when you made one of your biggest investments to date: Your Home. Before 2007-2008, you probably felt pretty good about this decision. And, part of your equation undoubtedly had to do with the weather. But, were you looking at the daily weather? Did you say, well, it's raining today, so it will therefore rain every day and you couldn't move there, even if you loved the house? Or, did you think more of the climate and the existence of the seasons, smoothing out the day to day extremes? Thinking of the market is like thinking of where you want to move. The weather on a given day, in a given week, or for a given month means little. The long term trends, like the typical number of seasons are what is important. Most times when you invest, you don't actually NEED the money for a number of years. Remember back to that fact.