Carnival of Investing

This week’s Carnival of Investing may be a little on the light side because the email forwarding is no longer working, I think Retire at 30 is MIA and I hope everything’s alright. That being said the selection of seven eleven articles below are of very high quality and since there are only seven eleven, you should read them all.

• Five Cent Nickel discusses the importance (and how you should max out) of a Roth IRA, which is something every investor should be using.
• FMF highlights parts of Dan Reingold’s Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst and how Reingold recommends/warns that individuals should be investing in individual stocks, they should be investing with index funds.
• Mighty Bargain Hunter talks about accidental investing in coins in “When’s a cent not worth a cent?” which discusses the current melt value of regular coins.
• Jason Coleman of Investorgeeks.com responds to an article by John Rhodes at WebWord.com regarding Microsoft’s place in the Web 2.0 landscape and defends the software giant after their Vista delay.
• The Canadian Capitalist talks about how investing in the blue bloods of the blue chips (GE, Home Depot, Wal-Mart) might be a smart move if you believe that the latest BusinessWeek cover story can be a contrary indicator of a turnaround in the sector.
• My Financial Journey takes a look at his excel spreadsheets detailing his retirement plan and his realistic rate of return. An eye opening calculation he discovers is that if his rate of return on the $100,000 he plans to have by the time he’s 30 appreciates at 6% instead of the 12% he originally calculated, his expected nest egg drops $4.5 million!
• Ed at A Penny Saved discusses how certificates of deposit might be coming back into popularity as a short term investment vehicle.
• Old Niu points out that the Nikkei 225 Index always seems to break out again in late March. If you believe there is still upside for the Japanese market in the next 3-4 months, there is an almost risk free investment you can use to place your bet.
• The Family CEO takes a look at the 529 saving plans she has for her two kids and talks briefly about them.
• My 1st Million at 33 discusses a less well known (at least less publicly appreciated) investing calculation known as the Kelly Criterion. Using the formula, you can discern a mathematically correct amount you should be investing in a particular stock. This of course, depends very heavily on your ability to accurately determine the probabilities used by the equation.
• Investing the Middle Way brings the investment discussion towards precious metals, in this case providing a guide to investing in gold and silver.
• Harrison Loke of Finandom Blog writes about his number 1 rule, stressing the importance of stop loss, how much you should set it at to limit your potential loss.

If you want an entry, I’ll still accept them until Tuesday night after which the Carnival shall be closed to entries. Next week’s host is Kirby on Finance, I recommend that if you want to participate then you find a way to contact Kirby directly. The Conservative Cat and Blog Carnival email forms won’t be sending the emails to the right place.