When it comes to Mutual Funds, there are today over 13,000 choices. You're going to check out each one, right? Yeah, right. And even for those you do check out, what are you going to look at? Past performance? What else can you look at? But as it says on the bottom of every prospectus, past performance is no guarantee of future results. And in these days of cockeyed cooked books, past performance is barely a guarantee of past results! So you need to decide not only what to buy, but you have to be darn sure you know when to sell it when future results of an investment don't match your expectations.
However, I believe the majority of people dread having to deal with investment matters, and tend to jump into purchases and then hold their breath hoping for the best. After a long day at work and taking care of the family, it's hard to get excited about reading up on your 401(k) options, Morningstar ratings and fund performances.
For those of us who have participated in the investment arena for more than just the past couple of years, 2000 will likely go down as "not unprecedented and long overdue." For the investors who have come to the party more recently, it was a brutal, eye-opening, and sobering experience. Buying every dip didn't work. Dot-com IPOs didn't work. This year was truly a coming-of-age experience for millions of "adolescent" investors.