Ramit Sethi pulled out a quote from his archives that he made when doing an interview for Free Money Finance last year. Here it is:

"When you invest, there's a difference between being sexy and being rich. When I hear people talking about the stocks they bought/sold/shorted last week, I realize that my investment style sounds pretty boring: 'Well, I bought a few good stocks 5 years ago and I haven't done anything. All I did was buy more when the price went down.' But investment isn't about being sexy--it's about making money, and when you look at the investment literature, buy-and-hold investing wins over the long term, every time. Forget what CNBC or the magazines say about the stock-of-the-month. Do a rigorous analysis, make the right decisions up front, and then re-evaluate your investment every 6 months or so. It's not as cool as those guys in red coats shouting and waving their hands on CNBC, but as an individual investor, you'll get far greater returns."

This comment made me think of something that I've known for a while but haven't thought of recently. When taking into account investing in stocks or bonds and all the variables connected with them, the great majority of information you read about is connected to things that only the 2 to maybe 5% of your money should even be in.

The great majority of stories don't talk about the long-term investing and holding in the mold of Warren Buffett and others, rather they talk about the endless, emerging new company that is going to bust through at any moment that must get a piece of it.

The truth is that if you are hearing the story about some rising company that is reaching star-status, you can bet that most of the money has been already made on it.

The news always follows after the reality. I remember, as far as stocks go, Warren Buffett's great observation that it's not something called the stock market you invest in but a company.

He was not referring to index funds or mutual funds here, he was commenting on when someone reports that the market is up today or the market is down. The point was that when you think in terms of the stock in a company that you own, it has absolutely nothing to do with the up and down fluctuations of the DJIA or any other measuring exchange.

Don't pay attention to those market swings, it is a company you own, not a measuring stick.