Investment Philosophy Generally speaking, most of the "investment advice" that you see, hear, or read about is really an advertisement and/or sales pitch promoting products and habits that enrich the salesperson, but do little to help you achieve financial success. Instead of touting products, we offer financial advice based on common sense investment principles such as: High-cost products should be replaced with less expensive options when available; When investing, stay disciplined and focus on what you can control: diversification, product costs, and taxes. If you're a long-term investor, the greatest threats to achieving your financial goals are inflation and taxes. This means that you should invest in stocks (which offer inflation-beating return potential in the long run) and – if held in a taxable account – consider the tax efficiency of your investments; You should invest your money to get the market's return because it's not possible to know if a specific investment strategy will outperform the market in the future; and Your portfolio should be invested in different assets to reduce volatility. This principle – referred to as modern portfolio theory – has had such a big impact on the world of finance that the researchers who studied it were awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize in Economics.