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To improve the quality of your investment advice 1000% in an instant, follow one rule:

When speaking of an investment plan, an investment, or a portfolio, never use the past tense of the English language — or any language for that matter; never an "investment did...," or an "investment was...", or an "investment has...," only an "investment is...," an "investment should...," and an "investment will..."

There is a big difference between saying, "Buy because of the future," as opposed to saying, "Buy for the future because of the past;" the first requiring thought and the second requiring an historical investment data source.

The only exception is if the person you are speaking to asks for an historical perspective.

Provide the information; but, without a hint that the past will explain the future.

If you are up to the challenge, it won't be easy at first, this rule will change your investment advising life.

Why, because it will force you to use your greatest investment advising assets — the reasoning and judgment portions of your brain rather than just the memory and recall portions — to think about the present and the future rather than to rely on the past for your perspective of the present and the future!

For the lingering Modern Portfolio Theory doubters who are lagging behind and who have not yet been swayed, the key word is system; there is a solar system, there is not a financial system.

To use the science of one to explain or predict the behavior of the other is, well, should I say, neither scientific nor systematic.