Revisiting Fund Basics: Time to Jettison Some Conventional Wisdom

Conventional wisdom often isn't. Wise, that is. When times change, basics need to change, too. Some hard-and-fast rules are as old as the days when the Dow ruled.

You hear about investing "laws" when you're getting started. But the truth is that a lot of do's and don'ts are just plain junk.

I'll admit I have been a proponent in the past of some of them. After all, who could argue with such ABCs as "diversify to avoid risk," and "it's allocation, allocation, allocation." And if my editor had asked me a decade ago to revisit my series How to Get Started at Mutual Fund Investing, I could have popped in a few new examples and pretty much kept the basics. ...