Short Takes: Pleasure from Following the Crowd and more

1. Jason Zweig at the Wall Street Journal reports on research into why it feels good to follow the crowd. Unfortunately, following the investing crowd is a formula for losing money.

2. Preet explains that the cost of the fake lake is barely a drop in the bucket of the total cost of the G8 and G20 summits.

3. Larry MacDonald isn’t taken by the “sell in May and go away” investment strategy.
 
4. With the earthquake in the nation’s capital, Big Cajun Man takes a look at earthquake insurance.

5. Frugal Trader got quite a response to the question of whether it makes sense to increase the Canada Pension Plan.

6. Canadian Mortgage Trends reports on the disagreement between Canada’s Privacy Commissioner and the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals over whether Social Insurance Numbers should go on mortgage applications.

7. Financial Highway explains some of the pitfalls of using debit cards.