My husband and I have an investment account together that we use for long-term savings. For the most part, it consists of individual stocks of companies we invest in Iowa Wealth Management (IWM) models, the same companies that our clients are invested in. We believe in eating our own cooking! On the rare occasions, we step outside of not just IWM models, but our prudent investor process as well. These "flyers" act as investments and investment research opportunities, testing and educating us and, hopefully, providing a profitable experience as well. Let me tell you about my best and worst experiment.

So, one year is set aside for the history books while a new year begins. Like lemmings to the sea, Wall Street firms are once again publishing, distributing and rushing towards every cable TV camera that will have them to prognosticate where financial markets are heading.

These have been difficult days. That was a bad quarter, and it’s been a bad year. This is what these things look like, or more importantly, this is what these things feel like.

Growing up, I played some hockey. Most kids in our neighborhood played pond hockey (probably the best kind of hockey), with those wearing galoshes relegated to playing goalie. Some of us went on the play house league and eventually high school hockey. My brothers were all very good, and I was… well, I made the team and saw a few game minutes, but most of my ice time was during practice.