Read:

1. John Waggoner in USA Today opines that some mutual funds should carry heavier warnings about their risks, such as "Emerging markets are based in countries that are more likely to collapse than other nations are. If the fund owns stock of a company whose CEO has been hanged, it's going to take a big loss."

2. Brian finds that the hassle of creating an emergency fund beats the hassle of paying for an emergency when two new tires are needed: "A year ago, I would have been panicing. Six months ago, I would have been downright stuck. What would have ended up a year ago as a swipe of the last of my credit limit and six months ago as a desperate loan from a family member, was now easily taken care of with my baby-step-one emergency fund."

3. NYC Money lost 103K in a month, but "I'm not overly concerned since I remember when the Dow was at 6000 a few years back."

4. The Big Picture disses the S&P and indexing in general: "...something everyone takes for granted -- active managers underperform the S&P500 -- turned out to be less true than many people probably assumed. I expect this trend to continue, until the next secular bull market. Then buy and hold will once again rule, and the active managers will again under-perform. But we ain't there yet, and may not be for another 5-10 years."