7 retirement investing mistakes

The market is ricocheting all over the place, and when the boss isn't paying attention, you're online buying and selling in a frenzied attempt to dodge the bullets.

Richard Salmen, a Certified Financial Planner and national president of the Financial Planning Association, describes the all-too-common trap emotionally driven investors fall into: "Most people don't earn what the market earns. They invest too heavily in too risky investments that are doing well, then drop out when they go back down. They take all their money out of tech stocks, for example, put the money into bonds, then put money back in stocks after prices have gone back up."

His prescription is to invest a little bit of money from every paycheck, diversify, then leave it alone.