Carnival of Passive Investing # 3 – Random Probability Examples Edition – February 28th, 2011

Mike Piper presents Investing Life Insurance Proceeds posted at The Oblivious Investor, saying, “How would you invest a portfolio if you were expecting to need to withdraw from it for potentially 50 years or more?”

Rob Bennett presents Valuation-Informed Indexing #28: New Research Shows Valuation-Informed Indexing Beats Buy-and-Hold in 102 of 110 30-Year Periods | ValueWalk.com posted at ValueWalk.com.

Gyutae presents What Is Asset Allocation and Stock Investment Diversification? posted at Money Crashers.

Financial Planning

Mitch Archuleta presents Automate Your Finances to Win Big in Retirement posted at RothIRA.com’s Retirement Planning Blog.

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Index Funds

FMF presents Free Money Finance: Not All Index Funds Are the Same posted at Free Money Finance, saying, “One thing to remember when investing in index funds: not all of them are the same.”

Investing

BankMan presents Are Online Brokerages a Good Deal? posted at High Yield Savings Accounts, saying, “Are online brokerages a good deal for cheap mutual fund trades, or do they skimp on the features you need most to make informed investing decisions?”

Ryan @ CML presents Investing Lessons From Warren Buffett posted at Cash Money Life, saying, “Warren Buffett is one of the world’s greatest investors. Find out some of his best investing tips in this article.”

Note from Jacob – Even though doing what Buffett did (investing in individual stocks) is against the tenets of this carnival, we can learn some valuable lessons about employing a contrarian style of investing when we need to rebalance our portfolios to purchase more shares of equity index mutual funds when markets go down.

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Probability of having your identity stolen – 1 in 200 (So, pretty likely!)

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Jim Yih presents Understanding Index Linked GIC Products posted at Retire Happy Blog, saying, “There is a new breed of GIC (Canadian investment instrument) products that continue to guarantee your capital from losing money but provide some variability in terms of your investment return. These products are commonly known as index-linked GICs.”

Boomer presents How To Invest Your Money: Part Four – Building Your Portfolio posted at Boomer & Echo, saying, “The main focus of this series of articles is to discuss the psychology of investing, how to get started, finding your strategy, and building your portfolio.”

Michael presents Advantages of Buying a House With Cash posted at Consumerism Commentary, saying, “If you can afford it, there are some extreme advantages to buying a house with cash.”

Note from Jacob – Before deciding to buy a house completely with cash, it’s important to consider your overall asset allocation. This article gives some great insight in to this decision.

Michael Pruser presents Ally Bank’s 10-Day Rate Guarantee on CD’s posted at The Dough Roller, saying, “Boring ole CD’s may not give the greatest returns, but show me something else this guaranteed.”

Note from Jacob – CDs can be a valuable tool for housing the cash portion of your asset allocation in your overall passive investing strategy.

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Probability of being on a plane with a drunk pilot – 1 in 117 (Scary! I hope this one isn’t true!)

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Mutual Funds

Hemant Beniwal presents Bond Fund – Complete Guide posted at mutualfundlab.com.

Personal Finance

Carlos Sera presents A Tale of Might posted at Financial Tales.

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Probability of being considered “possessed by Satan” – 1 in 7000 (uh, OK…? haha)

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And, if you are a serious passive investing nerd like me, you might enjoy the following articles on Passive Investing that I came across on Get Rich Slowly and Free Money Finance while reading through this month’s submissions.