There are three major different credit reporting agencies. They are Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union. Each of these agencies contain seperate reports on your credit history. Important to note is that these agencies do not share information they have between themselves, and your creditor might not send your information to all three.

Your credit report would contain following information: * Name * Current and Previous Address * Current and Previous Employer * Date of Birth * Any other variations of your personal information (other SSN, Nicknames, etc.) * Account Information * Public Information (Bankruptcy, Judgements, Liens, etc.)

While this struck me as funny, there is certainly an element of truth to it judging by number of tragic e-mails and phone calls I have received over past couple of years.

This was brought home even more so by a reader who responded with strong disagreement to one of my articles. I advocate a methodical, disciplined approach to investing in no-load mutual funds. It keeps me invested during up markets and on sidelines during down markets. It was exactly this approach that got me and my clients out of market in October, 2000 and put us back in to take advantage of April, 2003 upswing.

Judging from reader’s e-mail it appears that he works for a major bank and is adamant about Buy & Hold and Dollar Cost Averaging. Maybe it's approach he has chosen and he doesn't like hearing that emperor is wearing no clothes. Nothing personal, honestly, but I find it incomprehensible that anyone, after bear market and financial disasters most people experienced, can even consider such theories. The results are just too black & white.

Here are his three main points:

1. "There is no real feasible way to know whether market is going to be up or down and when exactly to invest.

2. "The only logical way for an investor to make money is through buy and hold approach. This method is used by Warren Buffett and he has consistently beaten best with an average annual return of 29%.

3. "Dollar cost average helps to hedge against ups and downs of market; moreover, one should have been buying up stocks during last 3 years, though I do agree with your cashing out at in 2000. I do not wish to insult you, but that seems to me more luck than intuition."

It appears that only thing that I can agree with him on is, as he says, there is no reasonable way to "know" whether market is going to be up or down. However, this statement also underscores that he is not familiar with trend tracking methodologies and idea that one does not need to "know" or "predict" in order to make profitable investment decisions.