I recently stumbled upon this article from William P. Bengen “DETERMINING WITHDRAWAL RATES USING HISTORICAL DATA”. The basic idea behind this research is that year over year fluctuations in annual returns could drastically change the standard of living of retired individuals, who rely on their investments for income.

With the amazing price action in the markets today you might just be suffering from motion sickness. The Dow traded today in a 600 point range... that's right it was down over 300 points at one time during the day, but came back and closed up 298 points in a flurry of short covering and long term bulls.

If your a long term investor, it is times like these that you need to be taking advantage of. The markets have just been terrible to start the year, losing everyday but today if your stocks are in the Nasdaq. As an investor you need to ask yourself, "does my stock have anything to do with Housing or a US bank", because if not the story behind when you invested in the first place hasn't changed.