The beginning of a new year is a natural time to clear your mental decks and remind yourself of the basic principles of successful investing. Don’t worry: I’m not going to spend two pages detailing my system, which I know would cause more than a few glazed eyeballs. But, for my first post of 2010, I wanted to start off with a section I like to call “How the Market ACTUALLY Works.” What does that mean? Simply that so much of the advice and so-called facts that you hear on TV and read about in financial magazines is basically...