Staying the course and minimizing costs...are the classic characteristics of good long-term...investors. But during the financial crisis, the Vanguard study showed, men were more likely than women to trade — and to do so at the wrong times. That fits the patterns found in path-breaking research by Brad M. Barber of the University of California, Davis, and Terrance Odean, now at the University of California, Berkeley. In a 2001 study titled, "Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence and Common Stock Investment" (PDF), they analyzed the investing behavior of more than 35,000 [investors who had accounts with] a large discount brokerage firm. [The accounts were segregated into those opened by women and those opened by men.] All else being equal, men traded stocks nearly 50 percent more often than women. This added trading drove up the men's costs and lowered their returns.... Short-term financial news often amounts to little more than meaningless "noise," [Professor Barber said in a telephone interview with the Times]. Far more than women, men try to make sense out of this noise, and to no avail.

In recent decades, going off to college has become the de facto expectation for students graduating from high school. A college degree is often seen as the key to launching a successful career. But the exploding costs (and related debt) associated with getting a Bachelor's degree, along with relatively fewer attractive new jobs for college grads, should prompt parents and students to reconsider whether four (or more) years of college is the best approach to post high-school education.

The article reports on how six specific foreign large-cap value managers disagree over the prospects for a Japanese stock market recovery. This would normally merit a giant "who cares?" reaction, except for the fact that these particular managers are the absolute elite of their peer group. Six Morningstar Manager of the Year awards between them, and great long-term results from all six funds. And they happen to be split right down the middle in their opinions regarding Japan.

So how does this explain why Upgrading works? Because in this disparity of outlooks, and the resulting differences between these funds portfolios, we see how the Upgrading process can move us between winning ideas even within relatively narrow peer groups, while steering us clear of losing ideas.

If half this group is in Japanese stocks and the other isn't, it stands to reason that half of this group will do well and half will do poorly, regardless of which path Japanese stocks take. And Upgrading will pick up on whichever group is correct and steer us towards those funds.

In other words, we don't have to figure out which group is right and which is wrong (which is good, because I don't have the foggiest idea). Instead, we can simply follow our mechanical guidelines and the correct answer will play itself out in our fund rankings. We get the benefit of whichever group has this issue figured out correctly, even though right now we don't have any idea which side has the winning argument.

This example also helps illustrate why conventional funds go through periods where they put up phenomenal returns, only to stumble badly over the next few years. It's easy to get big-picture predictions like this wrong from time to time, and suffer for a year or two (or three) because the fund's portfolio was positioned incorrectly as a result. Upgrading helps us side-step those periods of poor performance, while steering us towards those managers who were the most accurate in positioning their portfolios to take advantage of the issues that matter most to the market right now.

Naturally, Upgrading isn't perfect and carries its own set of challenges. Nonetheless, it is a strategy that has beaten the market in 10 out of the past 11 years. It works not only because it steers us clear of certain challenges inherent to most "normal" funds, Upgrading actually uses those very challenges as the basis for its success.

[D]iscount devotees have formed vast online communities that collectively unearth and swap digital, mobile-phone and paper coupons. The cleverest shoppers combine dozens of coupons and go from store to store buying items in quantity, getting stuff free of charge.

The dollar is not as good as gold. Neither are 22 other currencies. A recent study by GoldMoney.com, which enables online cross-border transactions using gold as a currency, found that from 2000 through 2009, gold rose an average 10.1% a year versus the Swiss franc...14.9% against the U.S. dollar... [and] 20.0% for the Sri Lankan rupee. "Gold isn't going up, currencies are going down," says James Turk, GoldMoney.com's founder. "The purchasing power of gold remains basically unchanged against commodities. In contrast, the purchasing power of national currencies is being constantly eroded."... That's because governments are debasing currencies, he says, destroying their citizens' purchasing power by spending beyond their means and using debt to stay afloat. The U.S., as one example, is trying to goose its economic recovery through massive deficit spending, but it may worsen the situation should the dollar tank, Turk asserts.

During the second year, historically, stocks keep rising — though not as powerfully, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at S&P Equity Research. Small-cap and midcap stocks continue to outperform both large-caps and the S&P 500, which still do all right themselves, and higher-quality issues with stable and growing earnings trump low-quality names. Since 1949, Stovall said, small-caps have returned 22% on average in the second year of a rally, while large-caps rose 15%.

"First-year bulls tend to recover an average of 84% of what they lost in the entire bear market," he said, noting that this bull run has retraced about half of the loss. "So you could say that on a recovery basis, we have more room to go." Moreover, since 1949 none of the 10 prior U.S. bull markets has ended in its second year — the shortest was 26 months beginning in 1966. Since 1932, the median length of a bull market has been 50 months, according to S&P. That said, between 1932 and 1947, four of the five bulls fizzled in two years or less.

History shows that by simply passing that 12-month threshold, it will make it that much more rare for the advance to suddenly end. The 13 bull markets since 1930 that have lasted more than a year have averaged, a total gain of 153% and a total length of 4.4 years, according to data from Bespoke Investment Group. "Bull markets that pass the one year mark have almost always lasted two years or more," wrote Bespoke's analysts, in a note to clients on Friday. "The one bull that lasted more than a year and ended after 393 days was in 1948, and that bull only saw a gain of 24 percent, so it's nothing like the current one."

But why is one year the magical milestone? Perhaps it is because it takes more than a year for a bull market to prove its mettle with the often stubborn and less nimble retail investor, which has sat out most of these gains in bonds. Once they are convinced, their money comes flowing in and provides at least another 12-month lift to stocks.

Even during a decade that included unprecedented volatility coupled with two of the worst market downturns in history, analysis of employed participants with a Fidelity 401(k) plan for the past 10 years ([2000] to 2009) showed their account balance increased nearly 150 percent to $163,900 at the end of 2009 from $65,800 at the end of 1999. The increase in balance was due to continued participant and employer contributions, dollar cost averaging and market returns. The analysis also showed that these continuous participants had a median age of 51 years with a deferral rate of 10.4 percent.

While [results differ] for every employee, about three-quarters of [the increase reported by Fidelity] was from worker and employer contributions. And roughly one-quarter could be attributed to market returns and what's known as dollar-cost averaging (when investors make regular investments over time, thereby evening out their chances of buying at market highs and lows).

What it does: If something you bought with your credit card is damaged or stolen within 90 days, you can receive a refund of the purchase price. The catch: This protection has many exclusions, including items that are lost without any evidence of a wrongful act or are stolen because of a lack of due diligence. Used, antique and collectible items generally are not covered. Value: Refunds limited to $300 (American Express), $500 (Visa) or $1,000 (MasterCard) per item. American Express has an additional program with refunds of up to $1,000 on certain types of items, including clothing and electronic equipment. Caps on the total refunds received by cardholders also apply (e.g., a total of $25,000 per cardholder with MasterCard or $50,000 annually with American Express).

The gap between investor returns and total returns shows...how well investors timed their purchases and sales. (For all the details on the calculation, you can check out the two-page fact sheet here or the 10-page methodology document here.)... A couple of years ago, doing this revealed that the average investor often did better than the average fund because, while their timing was off, they often picked bigger lower-cost funds. However, the whipsaw of the past two years has meant that, in most categories and in the aggregate, investors have done worse than the average fund.... The grand total for the average investor in all funds in the [period from 2000-2009] was a 1.68% annualized return, compared with 3.18% for the average fund.... In U.S. equities, the average investor earned a scant 0.22% annualized, compared with 1.59% for the average fund.

• What you need to know to earn higher yields from foreign bonds;
• A simple strategy for getting better returns in your 401(k), even if you only have a small number of funds to which to choose;
• A conversation with Ronald Blue & Co.'s top income-tax guru about recent tax changes that may yield a few pleasant surprises when April 15 rolls around;
• Our reviews of popular personal-finance apps for smartphones.

The U.S. Postal Service estimates $238 billion in losses in the next 10 years if lawmakers, postal regulators and unions don't give the mail agency more flexibility in setting delivery schedules, price increases and labor costs.

In an effort to offset some of the losses, the agency is pushing anew for a dramatic reshaping of how Americans get and send their letters and packages. [Postmaster General John E.] Potter is seeking more flexibility in the coming year to set delivery schedules, prices and labor costs. The changes could mean an end to Saturday mail deliveries, longer delivery times for letters and packages, increases in postage-stamp prices that exceed the rate of inflation, and — possibly — future layoffs.

The agency's call last year to consolidate about 3,000 post offices drew a firestorm of protest from the public and lawmakers.