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Black Friday sales may be the harbinger of a significant surge in consumer confidence that could fuel our economic recovery.

We all enjoy playing a game we can’t lose but investing in the stock market is not one of them. However the promise of “guaranteed returns” led shell-shocked investors to pour nearly $30 billion into index annuities in 2009 even as they pulled $9 billion out of U.S. stock funds.

If buying low and selling high is the secret to investing success should you buy every time the market drops significantly?

With Paranormal Activity 3 setting records at the box office it’s a good time to talk about how fear can impede sound investment decisions. Certainly the acute market volatility we’ve experienced over the last few years has sparked a growing fear among investors of incurring additional losses. How does this attitude impact your portfolio?

Many investors believe step one in dialing down their portfolio’s risk should be reducing equity exposure. Yes stocks are riskier than bonds but that’s an oversimplification that can result in some misguided moves.

When Bank of America management decided to relieve Sallie Krawcheck of her duties as head of Bank of America’s wealth management division they put more than 16000 Merrill Lynch brokers in the hands of a new boss who presumably has a different corporate agenda.

Governor Perry generated quite a stir during a recent Republican debate when he referred to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. According to Governor Perry Social Security is a “monstrous lie…a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today you’re paying into a program that’s going to be there.”

After my niece Dorothy graduated from high school this year she spent the summer with me. She did some work in my office and we spent very enjoyable weekends sightseeing in the D.C. area.

“Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it” declared President Obama when he announced his deficit-reduction plan. “It is wrong that in the United States of America a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million.”

In their well-known and oft-quoted 1986 study of 91 large pension plans “Determinants of Portfolio Performance” published in the Financial Analysts Journal Gary P. Brinson L. Randolph Hood and Gilbert L. Beebower found 94% of portfolio returns were determined by the asset allocation plan and just 6% attributable to market timing and security selection.