During this holiday-shortened week rather than bringing you fresh links I wanted to highlight what I call “criminally overlooked” blog posts. Every blogger will tell you that the correlation between what they think is a good blog post and what gains traction is close to zero. That is why I want to revisit some posts that are worth a second (or first) look. I asked a panel of esteemed bloggers to send me links to blog posts, their own or others, that got overlooked over time. Today’s posts focus on how best to approach the markets. Stay tuned each day this week for a fresh batch of posts.

“Don’t worry about what the markets are going to do, worry about what you are going to do in response to the markets. In the end, we should focus on only what we can control: our market exposure, equity selection, entry, exit and position size.” by Ivanhoff from 13 More Thoughts about Bear Markets.

“Studying the past can help provide context but it can never tell you exactly how things will play out in the future.” by Michael Batnick from The Iron Rules.

“Those of us struggling to be honest with ourselves, others and the investment process will be left trying to muddle through, building portfolios and managing money like Neurath’s boat — adapting on the go while trying to keep the whole thing afloat and moving in the right direction, keeping our promises and expectations grounded in the limiting reality of the data.” by Robert Seawright from Neurath’s Boat.

“Elegance can’t be for its own sake. A theory has to be predictive. This is where the EMH falls flat on its face and the behavioral model shines.” by Sam Lee from Losing My Religion.

“It’s been said that true diversification means always hating some of your investments. As a result, you never hate your portfolio.” by Isaac Presley from Six Types of Diversification.

“It seems to me that the business of fear has become a big business. The downside of the proliferation of technology and information is that we are increasingly prone to propaganda….Turn on financial news to see someone predicting the next big market crash.  This is all just attention grabbing fear mongering.” by Cullen Roche from Fear and Negativity – the Most Destructive Emotions.

“The disquieting reality is that no one’s in charge. The market just is. It’s not easy to grasp this point, but it’s true. The market is controlled by the market.” by Eddy Elfenbein from The Volition Bias.

You can also check out yesterday’s batch of criminally overlooked blog posts on indexing as well.