As U.S. taxpayers consider the implications of federal medicine to prevent weakened credit markets from lapsing into a coma, the bedside investment advice is coming fast and furious.

Never blindly accept advice presented as investment truth when you reassess your personal investment strategy amid this year's uncertainty.

"While some accepted investment truths may have started with a kernel of truth, I question whether many were true in the first place," said Bryan Lee, certified financial planner with Strategic Financial Planning in Plano, Texas. "Our society wants everything in sound bites or 10-point lists, but a lot of this isn't quick or easy."

It is undeniably correct to diversify investments and keep personal debt within reasonable limits, but many other truisms can be refuted as overly simple or outdated.

There is the old saw about bonds always being safer than stocks.

"All things being equal, bonds do have less volatility, but if interest rates head back up your bond prices will go down, so you must be careful about long-term bonds right now," Lee said. "We know that, longer-term, stocks will outperform bonds, so if you own a lot of bonds you're taking on the greater risk that you might not wind up with enough money in retirement."

There is considerable chatter about needing an exit strategy.

"An exit strategy is basically something that is discussed when your stock is about to become worthless," said Angela Thomson, a certified financial planner and principal with Coastal Financial Planning Inc. in Lincoln, R.I. "A good adviser should instead establish a high and low for selling a stock long before the panic button is hit."

No one can disparage the traditional "buy-and-hold" investment philosophy because it makes good sense -- that is, so long as your financial adviser doesn't use it as excuse to neglect your holdings.

"'Buy and hold' too often really means, 'I am too busy bringing in other money to watch your money,'" Thomson said. "What your adviser should be telling you is: 'Buy and analyze.'"

As the national election draws close, some pundits insist that the market always sputters whenever the president, Senate and House come from the same party. Political gridlock is the path to market success, they contend.

A university study of market history punctures that supposed truth.

"We found there was no statistical difference in stock market performance and the idea that the stock market did better during periods of gridlock is a myth," said Gerald Jensen, a certified financial planner and professor of finance at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. "One reason people are so attracted to the idea that gridlock helps is because it fits in with their own personal belief that a 'do-nothing' government is better."

Yet Jensen's team did find validity in the presidential cycle truism that the third and fourth years of a term are better for the stock market than the first two years. Jensen was surprised to find how consistently correct that truism has been. Continued...