Kicking The Tires

It came from the era of bad used cars. Buyers would literally kick the tires on the lot of Smilin' Sam's Auto Dealership. If the car didn't fall over, then eh, it was probably fine, right?

Yeah, not so much.

Kicking the tires in Financeland usually means "doing research." Wanna buy shares of a stock, a mutual fund or a real estate partnership? Well, how are they doing? What are the "experts" saying about them? (And yes, likely you'll want to do the opposite, because if they were in fact good at picking stocks, they'd shut up and pick stocks and not be published opining on what to pick or not to pick.)

So how do you kick the tires? Do you know enough about the financial cars to even come to a conclusion? If not, then maybe you just live in the land of Index Funds where, over time, you can do almost no wrong.