by Bruce Helmer, President of Wealth Enhancement Group

The Federal Reserve. Will it lower interest rates? Is it focusing more on inflation or deflation? As Bill Murray said in the movie Meatballs: “It just doesn’t matter.”

Talking heads. Do yourself a favor. Stop watching CNBC. Don’t listen to or read Suze Orman or Louis Rukeyser. Get an advisor you trust, and listen to your advisor.

What your friends are doing. Their situation is different from yours — and when they brag about their great investments, they’re probably embellishing. And, by the way, in addition to tuning out your friends, tune out prominent investors like Warren Buffett. I know people pay a lot of attention to him, and he is arguably the greatest investor we’ve ever seen. I’m not dismissing Warren Buffett. But, to do what he does would make no sense for most of us. Warren Buffett is worth trillions. If he’s out of the market during a recovery, it’s not going to have any impact on his lifestyle. Believe me, his house is paid for. But those of us who need certain investment returns and rely on certain investment returns cannot afford to be out of the market if there’s a recovery. It could definitely impact our lifestyle. So don’t pay any attention to what others are doing, whether friends or a famous investor like Warren Buffett. You have to focus on your goals, your objectives, your time horizon, your risk tolerance, the rate of return you need, and what you’re going to use the money for. Focus on yourself.

The investment’s cost. Cost is only an issue in the absence of value. What features or benefits are provided by the extra cost? Are they worth it?

The calendar. Summer rally? January effect? October swoon? Again, who knows? Time — not timing.

Every single investment you own. Some will be up, some will be down. That’s normal. Don’t worry about it. If you do, ask yourself, “Do I really trust my advisor to put me into these investments?” You have to look at the big picture. You cannot worry daily about each individual investment.

Cost basis. Gains or losses are what they are. So what! If you made a lot of money, you pay some tax; your net-net is still attractive and still desirable.

Stocks you sold. After you sell them, and they continue to do well, do you kick yourself? Don’t. If your investment strategy is sound, and the sale was part of your strategy, forget about it. Even if you made the mistake of investing emotionally and were reacting to temporary market news or conditions, move on. Focus on your strategy — and promise yourself that your future actions will be based on strategy, not emotion.

Stocks you never bought. “Oh, man, I passed on ABC Widgets, and the price tripled!” Same argument as before. We’ve all done it. Every day some stocks soar, and others tumble. So what. Get over it! Mathematicians will tell you that over time, any random series of numbers will regress to the mean. That means that if you flip a coin 10 times, you could get “heads” on nine flips. If you called heads every time, you’d have a 90 percent success rate. Phenomenal! But if you continue for another 10,000 flips, you’ll be very close to 50 percent. The corollary in the investment world is that over time, your performance will be roughly equal to broader market returns. And that’s a good thing, given what we know about historical returns on investments. Of course, investment performance is not purely random. How can you improve your likelihood of success? Not with stock-picking but with asset allocation.

Short-term performance. Nothing — positive or negative — can be determined in the short term. Anything related to the stock market has got to be measured in long blocks of time — five years or more.