Smart Money - August 2011

SmartMoney comes to you straight from the editors of the Wall Street Journal, the best financial reporters in the business. Every issue brings you the information you need to know to deal with markets and protecting your wealth. Turn to SmartMoney for no-nonsense advice you can put into action.

History and horizon. The challenge of investing is somehow to keep an eye on each: to read the often-shrouded lessons of markets gone by while simultaneously sharpening one's focus on the opportunities that lie ahead. One eye on the past, the other on the future -- it's a wonder any investor can walk at all. And yet the great ones not only walk, they fly. With that in mind, each year at this time SmartMoney reporters go through a ritual of sorts: staring out the windows of the magazine's Manhattan offices in search of any pin-striped figures soaring across the skyline. And this year, moreover, we added one more challenge to the effort: finding those who had managed to stay airborne in the tumult of the crash and recovery.