The stock market dropped 2% today. Is it time to panic? Probably, but other than panicking, what do you think you can do? Go ahead and sell all your equities. What you’ll pay in fees getting out, and then back into them when a cooler head prevails, will be far higher than any loss you think you’re offsetting.

The first question is, what do you own that you would sell? Let’s say you’ve been stock picking, and you’re going to “take profit” because that’s what you’ve heard the stuffed shirts on TV say people are doing.

“The market was down today, as profit takers engaged in a wide selloff.”

– Every dude in a jacket and tie, every day the market is down

The reality, from a wide view, is that you and I shouldn’t be regularly buying and selling equities.

http://www.ifa.com/12steps/step3/

Read that, and repeat after me, “Playing craps is way more fun than throwing darts at stocks, and probably more lucrative.”

If our best investing behavior is to not try to buy and sell stocks like a billionaire playing with other people’s money, then why look at the index on any particular day? It’s become a pastime, like movie gross is for all of the people who don’t like movies, but do like gossip magazines and really beautiful people.

Whether the stock index goes up or down tomorrow should be pretty irrelevant to you. The best money bet is to be in index funds, and ride them. Put into them what is reasonable for you, and stay away from watching the ticker every day. You’ll live a better life for it.

Do I stock pick, you ask?

Heck yeah, I’m smarter than everyone, plus, I’ve got a fool-proof system.

In a world glutted with blogs and commentary, why launch a new one? I mean, is this 1998 again, and I think this blog thing might really catch on?

Truth is, I do see a need for this blog. I’m just a regular guy who likes to watch the news and keep on top of things. As things go nowadays, even regular guys need to invest, but where can I go to get information? Sure, there’s a lot of investing advice out there, but most of it is tied to services. Either the blogger is fronting for a financial services company or they’re a consultant. I just want some straight-up news about what’s happening in the world of investing that I should care about.

Now, what I care about is that the investments I make are sound.

So, that said, in the course of this blog we’re going to talk about a lot of things; current events, earnings, 401k, real estate, and whatever interests me. We’ll talk about general things like Random Walk Theory and stock picking, what kind of indicators I should pay attention to, is everyone in the financial world full of crap. We’ll also go into specifics, are 401k’s the best place for our money, does buying a house make sense, what’s going to happen to the bond market when interest rates rise.

I have one thing really going against me as a blogger, I’m pretty even keeled and mostly willing to look at both sides of an argument. I’ll try to keep it from being Land of the Happy People, though, and keep it as spicy as I can.