Some of the nation's leading business owners, investors, and thinkers share their thoughts on rebuilding your wealth.
Founder, the Corcoran Group, one of Manhattan's leading real estate firms
Best advice I can give: Bad times are the best times to move your business forward, especially if you are a small business. The big guys are back on their haunches, waiting things out. If you are willing to stick your neck out, this is when your energy and creativity can outmaneuver the big companies. This is your opportunity.
Best advice I ever got: When I was getting started with my business, my then boyfriend and business partner loaned me $1,000 and said, "You'll never succeed without me." It made me so mad it motivated me to make it. Negative comments or situations can become your best friend.
Yale economist who correctly called the bubbles in real estate and tech stocks
Best advice I can give: People are mistaken about the long-run gains they might make in real estate. I put together a home-price series going back to 1980. And it's wrong to think real estate investments as a group will have to go up much in price.
Best advice I ever got: There is a financial adviser here in New Haven, and he would say, "When you are making investments, try to transport yourself to an island and overcome bias toward home investments."
People in America invest mostly in America, but if you were on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you wouldn't have all your investments here. You would think, "Maybe there are other opportunities on the other side of the world."
CEO of Independent Means, which teaches financial literacy to families and children
Raise your children to make a job, not just take a job. If they don't know how to create a plan, they'll always be beholden to someone else.
The dean of personal-finance columnists and author of "Making the Most of Your Money Now"
Best advice I can give: Many people are now going into retirement with debt. So how about this for an old-fashioned idea? Pay off your mortgage before you retire if you want financial safety and security. There is bankruptcy among people in their seventies and eighties who had a lot of debt that they couldn't carry when the paychecks stopped.
Best advice I ever got: In the mid-1970s I met Vanguard founder Jack Bogle, who was calling up reporters to get them to write about an index fund. I had lunch with him, and he showed me studies and materials, and I said, "This can't be true -- actively managed mutual funds have always dominated."
But I took his stuff with me and called him a few times about it, and suddenly a light went off. And of course since then an S&P 500 index fund, over time, has done better than managed funds.
Author of "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," which showed the folly of trying to beat the market
Best advice I can give: The first section of my new book with Charlie Ellis, "The Elements of Investing," is titled "It All Starts With Saving." If you don't put money aside now, you won't have money later on.
Best advice I ever got: In 1958, I was discharged from the Army and was handed a $3,500 check for accumulated leave I had not taken. I had just started a job at Smith Barney and knew absolutely nothing about money. The head of research there pulled me aside and said, "Don't spend it. Save it. Invest it."
When I was in the Army, I was a finance officer and worked with IBM machines. So I invested all my $3,500 in IBM stock. I still own it, and it's worth well more than a quarter of a million dollars.
The advice to save, and save early, is absolutely still great -- though I would never advise someone to follow my lead and invest in the stock of just one company. I was very lucky that I bought IBM. I could have just as easily bought shares of an Enron of the time.
Co-founder, Wise Bread personal-finance blog
Good money management is a lifestyle. If you surround yourself with people who share the same values, you're more likely to stay on track.
Vanguard Group founder, who popularized investing through index funds
Best advice I can give: There is much that is worrisome in our economy. That's why your bond position should be commensurate with your age. In my case that means I have more than 80% in bonds. Someone in their fifties should consider 50%.
The value of the bond position is not just that it provides you some protection in a down market -- it does, of course. But its value is that it keeps you from making behavioral errors such as selling stocks during a panic.
Best advice I ever got: In the summer of 1949, I had a job as a runner at a brokerage firm. And one of the other guys working as a runner said, "Let me tell you all you need to know about the investment business: Nobody knows nuthin'."
He was right. Over the short term, we know nothing about what the markets will do.
Black Entertainment Television founder, who was the nation's first African-American billionaire
Best advice I can give: Focus on opportunities that are going to come to the table -- because prices are low, whether it's in the market, distressed debt, a foreclosed home, or a business.
Best advice I ever got: When I was just starting up BET in 1980, John Malone [now chairman of Liberty Media] agreed to invest in the business. After he gave me a half-a-million-dollar check, I said, "John, I've never run a business. What advice can you give me?" He said, "Bob, get your revenues up. Keep your costs down."
From that point on, that's the way I've run every business I've owned. Whenever people at BET would say, "What's our budget look like?" I'd say, "Tell me what your revenues are. Okay, that's your revenues -- then your costs are like 30% below that." Revenues always dictate costs. When I sold BET to Viacom in 2001, John's initial investment netted him about $750 million.
Chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab; chairs the firm's investment strategy council
Best advice I can give: One thing I see with our clients and individual investors is an aversion to risk, and a favoring of fixed-income funds and Treasuries. In the past 20 years, we've been in an environment that's been good to bonds relative to stocks. But it's rare for that to happen over an extended period -- and the last two times it happened, the subsequent five-year period favored stocks.
Best advice I ever got: The first time I was on Louis Rukeyser's show, Wall Street Week, Lou came over to me as I was standing just off set and he asked, "Were your parents finance people?" And I said, "No, they know very little about the market. This isn't their vocation."
And he told me, "Do me a favor. When you go out to do the show, get them -- your parents -- to understand what you are talking about. People are always trying to make finance more complicated than it needs to be."
CEO of FusionIQ and author of "Bailout Nation," which lays out the roots of the credit crisis
Best advice I can give: Always remember that price is the most important aspect of an investment. Today we keep hearing people talk about "toxic paper" on bank balance sheets. Well, it's toxic to the banks because they paid 100¢ on the dollar for it. To somebody who gets to buy it at 30¢ or 40¢ on the dollar, it's not toxic at all. So there is no such thing as a toxic asset. There's no such thing as a damaged property. There is only a bad price.
Best advice I ever got: My father always used to tell me, "You'll find the harder you work, the luckier you become." And that's directly translatable to investing in the market.
Employment expert
Become deeply engaged in civic, professional, and educational organizations that matter to you. And constantly build new relationships with people through these affiliations.
President of the Personal and Workplace Investing division of Fidelity Investments
Best advice I can give: Every retiree and pre-retiree should have a retirement income plan in place that incorporates a realistic estimate of anticipated expenses. And if possible, your essential expenses, including health insurance, should be covered by reliable sources of lifetime income such as Social Security, pensions, and perhaps certain types of guaranteed income or sustainable withdrawals from savings.
Best advice I ever got: The economic downturn presented us with many tough challenges. That we were able to hold up well is directly related to advice I was given long ago: Be cautious with leverage and keep a long-term perspective.
When stock and real estate prices are going up, purchasing assets with borrowed money can be very enticing. But when the bull market turns, as it always does, the destructive power of too much debt can quickly overwhelm a company's balance sheet or an individual's personal finances.
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