Bill Miller's Legg-Mason Fund

The numbers are out. Over the past decade, Bill Miller, the once-esteemed fund manager of the Legg-Mason fund, has trailed the market by a several percent per year. Throughout the 1990s, Bill Miller became one of the darlings of the fund industry, constantly churning out returns that stomped the market at-large. Regarded as a financial genius, Bill Miller acquired almost $1 billion in his fund. Now, the pendulum has swung in the other direction as the stocks that Bill Miller has purchased have fallen out of favor.

Not only does this demonstrate just how quickly yesterday's stars can turn into today's burnouts, they also demonstrate the futility of trying to time and beat the market. If Bill Miller, a very intelligent man who had beaten the stock market for over a decade and a half, can lose his prowess and start underperforming the market, then what basis does the average investor have for thinking that he or she can achieve market superior returns? Of course, the right answer is that low-cost index funds, such as those found at Vanguard, are the safest way to bolster your retirement savings, as your general returns will be quite similar to the overall market, minus the frictional expenses. Robert Wasilewski over at RW Investing wrote a great article on Bill Miller's falling out of favor in the fund industry, and I highly recommend that you check out his article here: http://rwinvesting.blogspot.com/2011/07/legg-mason-10-year-results.html .

How To Start Investing

One of the hardest things to do in life is getting started. It's hard to start exercising for the first time. It's hard to ask a girl out on a date for the first time. It's hard to get elected alderman for the first time as you begin your political career. Changing the status quo is hard work, and starting investing is no different. At first, the options may seem overwhelming-there are stocks, bonds, real estate, mutual funds, etc. The options may seem endless. And as you begin your path to deciding whether to invest or not, it's important to remember that getting started is far more important than making the perfect choice. Unless you make a god-awful investment decision, you're much better offer investing in an average mutual fund for a year than waiting six months to find that 'perfect' mutual fund.

If you're not sure where to begin, I would highly recommend picking an amount of money that you can regularly set aside each month, like say, $100, and set up an account with a mutual fund house like Fidelity, Vanguard, or T Rowe Price, and make regular contributions. The results will be much more impressive than  if you dilly-dally around, looking for the perfect investment. If can get in the habit of automatically deducting a certain amount of each paycheck to invest, you will be positioning yourself to be collecting a steady stream of dividends that increase (hopefully!) with each passing investment. Not Made of Money recently put out a great article worth reading that offers some advice on how to get started with investing: http://notmadeofmoney.com/blog/2011/07/how-to-get-started-with-investing.html .