I hope you had a fabulous holiday. I know I did. Every year is brighter and better than every year before. Having the family together again, even for only the very short time, was long overdue and very rewarding. I even found it instructional in one way.

My sister brought a new idea to our family get-together this year. She asked everyone to bring a low-cost gift to contribute to a gift exchange game. The game she wanted us to play involved a combination of strategy and chance. All he gifts were put in the center of the room. Depending on the roll of the dice, each player would either choose a gift from the pool of gifts, give his or her gift to someone else, or take a gift from someone else.

I mentioned this back in October, but it bears repeating: Don't buy mutual funds right now.

This month will see a huge outpouring of dividends and capital gains from mutual funds in the form of year-end distributions. Portfolio managers have spent the last month sprucing up their portfolios (your portfolios), aligning them with those hottest of the hot sectors so you'll like what you see they've invested in come annual report time. They've also just about run through all their losses from the dot com bust.

It looks like we're starting to wake up to the insane thinking that somehow corn is the answer to our energy problems. According to an article in today's WSJ profits on ethanol are down, as are stocks in companies that rushed in to try to make a buck on the idea.

See, the problem with ethanol is the cost to grow and convert the corn needed to produce it is too high. Politicians out to get the vote didn't exactly lie to us when they said ethanol would reduce our reliance on foreign oil - it did. They just didn't bother to tell us, or they didn't realize, it would drive up the cost of everything else that depends on that corn we're diverting to fuel.

It's not that I think reducing our dependence on foreign oil is a bad thing. I'd just rather do something about it on a full stomach.

I have a short and sweet rule for investing for you today. If you ever hear the words "hot" and "stock" and "tip" together in a whispered sentence. Walk away. You get bonus points if the come-on contains the word "inside".

These don't come my way as frequently as they used to. Probably because those who always seem to have these prime bits of information know I'm never in the market for hot stock tips. When they do, I always just smile, say thank you and walk away.

Today I thought it might be instructive to look at a few things some people call investments, but which I would never invest in. I happen to be of the opinion that too many things are bought and sold on the premise that "it's a good investment" when in reality they are not.

Here are six classes of "investments" which I would never invest in - at least not with my own money. Actually, I wouldn't even invest someone else's money in any of these things.

I wonder if I qualify as one of the mutual fund investors who lost money in the mutual fund trading scandal that took place about 10 years ago. I remember the noise about it and I remember that I had money in some of the funds involved. What remains to be seen is whether I had enough to warrant any kind of payback for their mismanagement of my money.

The mutual fund rapid trading scandal took place in 1990s and early 2000s. The fund managers involved with the scandal allowed certain traders to buy and sell their funds in the same fashion as day traders. These traders were taking advantage of small discrepancies between the mutual funds' net asset value and their underlying basket of stocks' value. The result for ordinary mutual fund account holders like you and me were lower net asset values in the mutual fund shares we held.

Millions of investors lost money to these guys. Dozens of mutual fund companies were cheating their customers. In total, over $3 billion in restitution has been collected from fund companies, their executive staff members and big investors who broke trading rules to profit at the expense of regular investors like you and me.

Who gets money back? The biggest offenders were Invesco, Janus and Bank of America. They will be paying out $671Million, $375M and $225M respectively. In all there were 22 companies involved in the mutual fund rapid trading scandal. Here's the most recent list:

I was reading around the web this morning and stumbled on a post titled "Looking for Prosper.com Friends" (linkage below). I wasn't so curious about the looking for friends part as I was to know what Prosper.com was all about.

Are you ready for this? It's a site which puts borrowers and lenders directly in touch with each other. The site relies on people like you and me (well, not me) to put up money to be lent to borrowers. You decide how much money you want to lend out, and how much you'll lend to any particular individual. You set the rates. You take the risk of default.

Borrowers' credit ratings are based on their performance against previous loans taken out. Right there I'd heard enough to know I wouldn't be putting up any of my money.

Why not?

Have you ever thought about the value of the regular oil change maintenance service for your car? What do you think it's worth?

I know, you roll up to your local Speedee-Lube place and tell 'em you'd like to rotate out the old grungy greasy stuff that's "in there somewhere" for some new greasy stuff... the cost is about $25. Some places and times it's a little higher and others it's a bit lower.

But is that the value?

How long would it take you to swap out your own greasy stuff? What's the value of your time and the materials you'd use getting the job done? Don't forget to factor in the cost of any tools you'll need and the clothes you might ruin. You might even need to buy a repair manual to find out how to do the job.

I'll bet by the time you add it all up you're out more than the $25. The fact that you're reading this blog about investing says you probably make a decent wage; and I'll use that fact to wager your time spent is worth more than the $25. That's time you could put to use earning income or investing in yourself to earn an even higher income in the future. What's the value of your time spent earning, or learning?

Has this happened to you? It has to me. I see a stock mentioned in the news, or someone I know and trust says she's making a killing in XYZ stock. I should get some. I buy. It goes up. I buy some more and it goes up some more.

But soon after, the stock starts falling.

With a title like that I couldn't resist poking the link to see what sage advice awaited me behind it. The link led me to the Motley Fool web site. Ah, OK, I know what this is going to be all about.

Anyone who's been an investor for even half as long as I have remembers the days when Motley Fool was an investing counter culture. They sneered at the advice of the pros and set their own course, finding and recommending companies which measured up well against their particular (Foolish) criteria. But then a few years back they decided to cash in on the Motley's popularity. They closed up the site and asked us to pay for the privilege of participating in their community.

So when I clicked the link I knew exactly what I'd be in for: a sales pitch. And that's exactly what I got.

The Most Important Investing Lesson of All was actually there; but it's pretty well hidden. Allow me to explain.