Carnival of Passive Investing #18 – Mayday! Edition

It is the end of May, which could be a huge MAYDAY for the stock market!  You’ve all heard the saying: “sell in May and go away”.  Well, that saying doesn’t matter a bit because this is the Carnival of Passive Investing, and we’re focused on passive investing strategies for the long term.

Remember, 70% of all actively traded portfolios can’t beat a passive index fund over 5 years.  Expand that out over 20 or 30 years, and you get maybe 0.01% of actively traded funds!  This should tell you something!  If you want to learn more investing facts, check out my Investing 101 resource page.

You can find out more about the Carnival of Passive Investing, as well as read previous top picks, by checking it out here: Carnival of Passive Investing.

Top Picks

The goal of this carnival is community and wealth building knowledge.  With that being said, here are my top three picks for the month of May which exemplify this:

1. Kurt from Money Counselor highlights exactly why you should focus on passive investing and not active investing – Fund Fees: The Nest Egg Killer.  Best phrase: No, money managers are not worth their cost.  Spot on!
2. Barb from Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance talks about Why I Don’t Invest in Individual Stocks Anymore.  If this story doesn’t highlight why you should consider passive investing, I wish you the best of luck!
3. PK from Don’t Quit Your Day Job created (yes, created) an S&P 500 Return Calculator.  While this isn’t exactly passive investing, it is a tool that all investor (both passive and active) need to see how they are really doing.  I know I’ve personally wanted something like this for a long time.   Now, you can see how your passive portfolio really compares to the S&P 500.

The Best of the Rest

Here are the rest of the articles this month!  Just because they weren’t in the top three doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read them.  There are some awesome articles here as well!

• Darren from Faith and Finance presents Value Investing: How to Become an Intelligent Investor.  A lot of details on value investing and what you need to know.

• Y&T from Young and Thrifty highlights why Choosing the Latest Investing Fad is plain dumb.  Nice job sticking to ETFs!

• Kevin at Christian Personal Finance presents The Basics of Value Investing, and shares how investing in a mutual fund is a great way to earn solid returns over the long run.

• Miranda from Cash Money Life shows The Basics of Asset Allocation, which is important for the passive investing portfolio as a whole.

• Jim from Bargaineering teaches us What is a Lipper Average.  This great post highlights how it is similar to the S&P 500, except it’s based from 30 mutual funds.  Interesting stuff!

• Darrow from Can I Retire Yet writes an epic post on When and How to Re-balance Your Portfolio.  There is a ton of useful information in this post, and re-balancing is key to any portfolio.

• Mike from Wealthy Turtle presents Dividend Investing in Plain English, and shares how investing in dividend stocks or a dividend ETF over time is an excellent investment.

• Philip from PT Money highlights The Best Approach to Long-Term Savings (Non-Retirement): Building Your Nest Egg, which talks about building a passively inclined plan around stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs.

• Jacob from My Personal Finance Journey put together a little study on What is the Highest Expense Ratio You Pay on the Mutual Funds Your Own, and a Comparison with the National Average.  Interesting results, and I can’t wait for more people to share their stories.

• Roger from The Amateur Financier talks about How to Create Buckets and Buckets of Money, based on the buckets of money strategy.  There is an interesting comparison between this strategy and investing in a target-date fund.

Be sure to check out next month’s edition of The Carnival of Passive Investing, which will be hosted by LaTisha from Young Adult Finances!  You can submit your articles here.