Investments

Buy high and sell low is a sad truth for a reason. Time and again we let panic or euphoria drive our actions in the market and wind up making big, expensive mistakes.

The disposition effect says investors tend to "sell the winners, and hold onto the losers" for purely emotional reasons. One behavioral economist fell for the classic investment mistake.

A recent report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis about the health of the economy in the fourth quarter of 2011 shows a 20 percent spike in investment -- a sign that businesses are back to spending, not hoarding, their money.

I'm a 58-year-old widow and I have been paying on a 30-year mortgage for 28 years, so I am almost there. I think I owe about $8,000. I am contracted to a job that doesn't offer a pension, but I do have investments (which I think of as retirement money). All three of my daughters moved to Seattle and I want to move there this summer. Right now, I have a little cape cod, which hopefully I can sell for $200,000+. However, my daughters live in the Ballard neighborhood, where a house even a little smaller than mine would cost nearly $400,000. They have condos. I wouldn't mind a townhouse if I get a patch of land to garden. I will be getting a job when I move, but should I just rent at this point? Should I leave the investment money alone? Laura, Ann Arbor, MI