Carnival of Investing

Welcome to this week's edition of the Carnival of Investing.

I'm sticking with my usual method of hosting a carnival -- listing a summary of each piece with the author's reason for submitting the post to the carnival (for those that submitted one) and/or a bit of the post itself as a summary -- so you readers know what to expect before you get to the post.

With that said, here we go:

• Lump Sum Payments on a Mortgage and Alternative Investments - Details a smart investment.
• Trade With Your Head, Not Your Heart - If you haven’t been paying attention to the markets these last two days, perk up, it’s a perfect example of how you should invest with your head and not with your heart.
• Say it with cash - Stock options. Sure they can be a nice benefit, but personally I'm of the "say it with cash" school.
• Are You Buying Silver Yet? - The biggest underreported investment story of the year.
• Foldera Well Ahead of Schedule - After going public via a reverse IPO, Foldera has quickly gained media coverage is gaining acceptance much faster than originally anticipated. 
• Confessions of A Street Addict - Review on Cramer's first book.
• Boomers Failing to Thrive in Retirement Savings - Most boomers aren't taking advantage of catch-up provisions in retirement savings plans.
• The Sage of Omaha and the Wayback Machine - Warren Buffett, in for the long run.  A look back 25 years.
• Stock Index Weighing Schemes - There are three types of weighting schemes used when constructing stock market series; Price-weighted series, value weighted series, and unweighted series.
• Buybacks Plus Dividends - The share buyback yield plus dividend yield is now approaching 5% for the S&P 500 index.
• Not Too Late to Invest in Japan - Steven Towns, the editor of The Japan Stock Blog, discusses various aspects about investing in Japan.  Even if you don't have any exposure to Japan in your portfolio it isn't too late to add. In light of the perceived risks, the editor believes there will be sustained buying of Japanese equities on both sides of the Pacific.
• Walmart - HOLD - Stock Analysis on Walmart.
• Gold and silver hitting two decade highs - Comments on a MSM article on recent highs in gold and silver, along with a link to a free gold course!
• The Week Ahead: Your Financial Road Map for April 3-7, 2006 - A summary of the economic indicators, select earnings releases and other financial events coming up this week. Each of the upcoming financial items with the exception of Treasury auctions and announcements will be linked in the post as they become available.
• 12 Investments Tools for your Personal Finance - I listed down some of the Money making tools that we can include in planning for personal finance
• The Fear Index - M3 repoting has ended, what does the final calculation of the Fear Index portend?
• Backtesting caveats - No matter how good the results from a historical backtest might be for any investment strategy, investors need to realize no system is "fool-proof."  In short the phrase, "past performance is no guarantee of future returns" is a sound one.
• Lies My Contrafund Told Me - Why has Contrafund done so well compared to other large-cap growth funds?  Because it's not really a large growth fund.
• Major Automotive Companies Cash Received - Another successful going private transaction deal has been completed. I received cash yesterday for the 999 shares of Major Automotive Companies that I purchased for the Special Situations Real Money Portfolio back on January 25, 2006. Let me quickly run through the performance stats. 
• Book Review: Jim Cramer’s Real Money - Jason reviews Jim Cramer's popular book Real Money and declares it a good read for new and experienced investors.

Thanks for visiting the Carnival of Investing! If you want to know a bit more about Free Money Finance, see my posts of the week for last week.

Also: special thanks to Fat Pitch Financials for forwarding this week's entries to me.

Comments

[The Dividend Guy]

Wow, two Jim Cramer books in the review. His Mad Money show must be working!! Anyway, thanks for hosting.