Expert Advice

Greed Drives Bad Decisions

Professor Burt Malkiel explains how in the quest for better returns, retirement investors often make haphazard decisions that will hurt their long-term savings.

Burt Malkiel: Warren Buffett has a wonderful expression, that “sloth is probably one of the best words to use in terms of an investment philosophy.” Yes, they buy and sell too often. And typically, at the wrong time. And typically, what they will do is, they will rush into those funds that are popular.

When they came into the market in the first quarter of 2000, they didn’t go into the so-called value funds, which actually were cheap then, but they went into the Internet funds. They went into these funds that had 20 of the best Internet stocks. And these were stocks that were the most expensive in the market.