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The Bernie Madoff scandal made lots of people wonder if they'd checked out their brokers or financial advisers thoroughly enough. If you haven't gone through those steps yet, here's where to start.

In every real estate downturn, some home owner whose having a hard time selling their home has what they think is an original (and brilliant) idea: Hold a sweepstakes and raffle off the house! Just charge $1,000 a ticket and require that at least 300 of them be sold before you turn over your keys,...

Here's the question: What about Bill Miller? The man once hailed as "the country's greatest mutual fund manager" is now a Wall Street goat, and there's a vital investing lesson to be learned from his fall from grace.

The index that DailyFinance's Daniel Solin created based on stocks that started with the letters in his last name would have ranked among the top 1% of mutual funds, if it existed. The message: Don't trust investing pros who confuse skill with luck. Index mutual funds are still your best bet.

Bank of America and Well Fargo are expected to post losses while Morgan Stanley is seen reporting a profit on Wednesday. Less certain is what the newly minted CEOs at BofA and Morgan Stanley are going to tell investors about vision and strategy.

Want to invest wisely? Understand your goals and determine whether increasing your risk is worth the upside. Advisers focus on other things like market predictions and stock picking. Why? An educated investor might not need them if they concentrated on what matters.