The modern world makes it easy to forget what's really important. But slow WiFi interrupting your favorite Netflix show doesn't seem nearly as annoying after you've spent a few days shivering inside your house, wondering if it's safe to drink the tap water.

A Reddit-fueled trading drama captured the world’s attention last week as thousands of individual traders banded together to drive up the stock of a company many had never heard of before -- GameStop (NYSE: GME). This strange episode makes for great socially-distanced dinner party chit-chat, but it's not a template for good investing.GameStop is a video game retailer that has spent years on the wrong end of an economy that continues to pivot away from physical stores and physical video games.

December is here and what a year it's been. From the pandemic to the market crash to the election, this has simply been the craziest, most turbulent year in living memory. Here's one thing you can do to make 2021 a little bit easier.

With early voting already underway around the country, you can probably guess the questions I’m hearing most often: “Who is going to win?” and “What does it mean for the market?”

There are several ways a portfolio can truly fail. Luckily, you can avoid many of the pitfalls by simply checking your behavior.First, don't try to time the market. If your plan is to jump out of the stock market before it falls (or even worse, during a crash) and then buy back in when prices reach the bottom, you are setting yourself up to lose a lot of money. Don't do this. No one can predict the market. Stay in for the long run.

I can't remember a time when so many extraordinary events were unfolding simultaneously. Not surprisingly, people have been asking a lot of questions about why the markets have done what they've done over the last few months. Here are my responses to three of the questions I've heard most frequently since the recovery began.

Last month I recommended that folks with investing timelines beyond five years should hang in there and hold on to their equity investments, if possible. Today I'm sharing thoughts for anyone who moved to cash and is trying to figure out how and when to get back in.

Many people have an idea of investing in stocks that sounds like this:

1. Buy stocks, preferably at a low price.

2. Sell if you think prices are going to drop.

3. Buy everything back after prices have fallen, but before they start rising again.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you retire.

The problem with this strategy is that you'd need to be able to consistently predict the future in order to pull it off.

At the end of January, coronavirus news sent the markets into a tumble. But last week's collapse made the January slump look like small potatoes.

Historic market drops remind us that markets are volatile and unpredictable. Bear markets and recessions happen. And unfortunately, there's no way to predict exactly when they will happen, how bad they'll be, or how long they'll last.That's why you should protect any funds that you expect to use in the next 5 years from risk.