With economic pessimism becoming a growth industry, it’s interesting to note that the glummest of the glum work in a field with the most potential to influence how everyone else is feeling: the media.

Pollsters Ipsos MORI recently asked the British to cite the most pressing issue facing their country. Out front by a country mile was ‘the economy’, with two thirds citing it as the most important challenge (1).

And in terms of occupations, Ipsos found journalists were the most negative, with 96 per cent of that grouping believing the economy would get worse. There may be many reasons why journalists are so gloomy. Perhaps, things really are that bad.

But if that were the case, why are investors expressing greater optimism, as reflected in the large bounce in risk assets recently? As of early May, the US S&P-500 was 34 per cent above the lows struck two months before. Other major world indices were up by between 20 and 40 per cent.

Of course, no-one knows whether the bottom really has been reached. But it seems for now that there are enough seeds (I’ve grown tired of the phrase “green shoots”) of recovery to encourage those risking their capital to move back into the market.

(1) Economy Still the Most Important Issue Facing Britain, Ipsos MORI, May 1, 2009

With last weeks rally, many of us may be eagerly awaiting to find out if this is the bottom.  Please view these clips before making this determination based on expert opinion.

Remarkably, it is a very sobering piece by the Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart as he interviews a humbled Jim Cramer.

The Washington Post’s Weekend Outlook section recently contained a much needed article that was a revelation in self-reflection. I would like to take a moment to thank financial writer Joel Lovell, who pens a monthly column for GQ magazine titled “Men + Money,” (I am curious, however, to know what “Men + Money” equal). In his contribution for the Post, he wrote What Do They Know?- True Confessions Of a Conflicted Money Guru.

It is an honest appraisal about the lack of ability for anyone to accurately forecast the markets even though this is precisely what individuals want. But because individuals crave this ability then “the more terrifying and destabilizing the news, the more the financial news sages seem to commit themselves to dispensing advice with unblinking certitude.” In essence, his message is they (financial gurus) don’t really know what they are talking about and they are equally as surprised that you think they do and continue listening and acting on their advice.

We don’t pretend to know all or any of the answers of what is going to happen next. We don’t think that is a very good use of our time or your investment allocation. I could provide a laundry list of examples of how expert opinion, such as those offered by Joel Lovell or the Jim Cramer’s of the world, was spectacularly wrong over the past year but it wouldn’t get us anywhere. This article provides such a laundry list of examples.

To achieve investment success we need to focus on the things we can control. Those factors are deploying your capital across asset classes with long-term expected rates of return, allocating across these asset classes in a diversified manner, maintaining contribution levels needed to achieving an objective, and maintaining sensible distributions that allow a portfolio to pace inflation and perhaps achieve secondary and tertiary objectives.

None of these concepts are groundbreaking but things of significance rarely are. It is the manner in which you apply them that requires strength and discipline.