It amazes me how people tend to rely on their "gut" instincts when it comes to very important decisions.  I'm pretty sure that if all of us actually charted out every "gut" decision we've made throughout our lives and then wrote down each outcome we would be devastated.

I caught an article on CNN Money that further illustrated the same facts.  The University of Texas did a recent study  where they showed one group a headline that read "Rough Seas Ahead for Investors" and showed another group the headline "Smooth Sailing Ahead for Investors." The two groups then received some fragmentary information about a couple of companies. You guessed it: The group that was worried about "rough seas" spun out more unwarranted theories about what was going on with the companies than the other group did.

These studies reconfirm what psychologists have been saying for years now: The more we feel out of control, the more our brains imagine patterns that don't really exist.

The truth is we must stick to the fundamentals.