I am breaking my union rules by posting on a Friday. But with the one year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse this week, I thought it would be an opportune time to reflect back. Jonathon Chevreau had an interesting post last week about seven lesons from the meltdown which should be required reading. One of the more eye-opening pieces on the fall of Lehman Brothers comes from an article in Esquire outlining the fight between Barclays and JP MorganChase over the salvageable parts of Lehman Brothers and how the JP MorganChase attempted to short Barclays, oh, $7 billion (best quote from the article: “JPMorgan doesn’t want to save the universe… JPMorgan wants to profit from the destruction of the universe.”).

Watching a bunch of capitalist titans battle it out over billions of dollars is interesting but not very practical for our day to day lives.  Thus, on this most surreal of anniversary weeks, I suggest something more manageable. We, collectively, have short memories which makes us bad investors. So, here’s an exercise for you. Write down the 3 things you learned from this past year investing in turbulent times. Post it somewhere where you can see it every single day until the lesson is not lost to you. I picked 3 since it is a number you can wrap your head around. You get to 5 or 10 and its too daunting.

Here are mine:

1. Be cautious but don’t be a downer. I missed Saputo. Again. Thought about buying it at $19/share and blinked. Again. Worried about the other shoe dropping on the economy. Worried about cheese prices. Worried about the lack of cash on its balance sheet having acquired a bunch of companies. It now trades slightly over $26. The lawyer in me keeps seeing worst case scenario but there’s a different between being a prudent investor and Little Mr. No Upside.
2. Stop checking prices ever day. This is self-explanatory. It will give you an ulcer.
3. Focus, focus, focus. This is more to do with running a business but it is easy to be distracted and not finish something you started. For personal finance, if you wish to pay down debt, then do it. Don’t stop halfway and then change course.

Have a great weekend. As a heads up, I giving away stuff next week in celebration of post # 500.