Canadian News Service
Sometimes it was a spur-of-the-moment comment. Sometimes it was a colourful quote that an investment professional or writer had been saving for the right column or interview. And sometimes, it was insight tapped by a well-phrased question.
Here's a collection of comments from or about the investment world that caught our eye in 2011.
Long-term Investments
"Holding for the long term only pays off with investments in high-quality, well-established companies. If you buy low-quality or speculative stocks, time tends to work against you. The longer you hold them, the likelier you are to lose money." - Patrick McKeough, www.tsinetwork.ca.

Death of Money Markets
"Once the preferred parking place for cash, money market funds appear to be on a fast track to oblivion." Their returns today "are piddling compared to the rates being offered by high interest savings accounts. That's where a lot of the cash is migrating to and there is no reason to believe the trend will be reversed in the future." - Gordon Pape, Mutual Funds/ ETFs Update newsletter, www.buildingwealth.ca.

Behind the Headlines
"Scary financial market gyrations might keep you up at night but it's the economic darkness beneath the wild trading that is the real monster under the bed, according to economists and the prime minister alike." - Craig Wong, Canadian Press, Aug. 9.

Watch Out Ahead
"With U.S. markets closed for Thanksgiving and the absence of any significant North American earnings, investors were focused on the outcome of a meeting between the leaders of ... the euro zone's top three economies. 'It's been termed a crisis meeting,' said Paul Taylor, chief investment officer at BMO Harris. 'This is the train wreck unfolding in slow motion.'" - John Cook, Reuters, Nov. 24.

Stop this Crazy Thing
"... Welcome to Fear Factor: Wall Street. Stocks' volatility since their seismic 2008 meltdown is pushing many people into poor, knee-jerk, market-timing decisions. "Extreme down, extreme up moves are just brutal for investor results," said Russell Kinnel, director of mutual-fund research at investment researcher Morningstar Inc. "You'd sell in the downturn, and then miss the rally, so you effectively sold low and bought high." - Jonathan Burton, www.marketwatch.com, Dec. 15.

Hot Tip
"Here's a hot stock tip: Don't buy hot stock tips." - Larry MacDonald, www.moneysense.ca, December.

What's Happening Today?
"'What's happening today'(on stock markets) is not particularly important, because no matter what direction the market moves or how violently it lurches, the average investor is not going to look back on the event and say 'That day is the reason why I can't retire on time,' or 'That's the day when the market made me rich.' That applies no matter what the market does on any given day.
Look at the worst days in market history or the best ones; unless you made major moves at the absolute best or worst times, they did not make or break a lifetime's worth of investing." - Chuck Jaffe, www.marketwatch.com, Dec. 21.