Most women outlive their spouses. Divorce remains at record rates. It's important for a woman to be able to control her finances.

News is important information that may influence your investments. Noise is talk or buzz or some headline that prevents you from seeing a story clearly. News is useful. Noise is a distraction. Calling what's noise and news after the fact is easy.

If you or me go to the gas station to fill up our car and it costs us much more than we expected, it will zap our discretionary income. We won't have the extra money to buy that washing machine or new winter coat-all big ticket items that are important to economic growth.

The most important thing is winning, not breaking the world record.

While it's wonderful that investors have access to all the data now available to them, it has become a full-time job to sift through it and separate out the valuable news from the useless noise.

Having the opportunity to follow the market frequently gives you the opportunity to see if you need to reevaluate your portfolio. But reevaluating your portfolio shouldn't trigger a sell signal so frequently.