I haven't heard of another story recently that reinforces the need to check and double check information before making financial decisions. On Monday an investment newsletter mistakenly sent out a story about United Airlines (UAL) filing for bankruptcy which caused the price of the stock to drop as worried investors banged out, "sell, sell, sell!" on their keyboards.

The only problem was that the bankruptcy story, passed off as a current event by the investment newsletter, actually happened back in 2002. Something that investors could have figured out if they took a minute to read the article or confirm information.

United denied the rumor that it was undergoing bankruptcy after it became clear that this old news had caused its stock price to drop Monday. Analysts expect United's stock to make a recover as the market opens on Tuesday, which could cause the investors who pulled out on Monday a loss if they haven't been paying attention to today's news.

Slightly more troubling is the fact that Income Securities Advisors Inc, the company who published the item sees nothing wrong with the action and doesn't plan to put any measures in place to prevent old news from being republished in the future.

Don't get me wrong, the losses on this one lie at the hands of investors who didn't adequately research a piece of information before acting on it, and I am sure some of them will suffer financially for their rashness. In another example of market forces, I'm sure that by not addressing the issue, Income Securities Advisors Inc's newsletter will be dealt with accordingly as readers look for more reliable sources of information. Don't forget a hot tip to sell stock should be given the same research that a hot tip to buy stock gets. Don't get burned by your own lack of ignorance.

Mutual fund investors pulled $26 billion out of stock funds in July, the Investment Company Institute (the fund industry trade group) says. That's a net figure: we actually put in put in $108 billion, exchanged in $17 billion. We just withdrew $26 billion more than that.

To have any net negative month is peculiar. Think of all the money that just flows automatically into stock fund in retirement accounts. In June we collectively took out $5 billion. Just back in May we were putting in net $16 billion. (April was up $16 billion and March down $10 billion).

What's strange about these numbers is that we're pulling money out when the market isn't so bad. July, when we dumped stock funds, the S&P was down about 1%. So far this year we've actually pulled out $47 billion. By this time last year we had added $97 billion to stock funds. Meanwhile we're still putting money in hybrid and corporate bond funds, just not as much as last year.

If this isn't the typical story of investors getting spooked by short-term prospects, what is it? I think we all are getting nervous about the economy in the intermediate future, like the next five years. Second, maybe we're seeing the first impact of the baby boomers retiring. If they aren't pulling the money out to live on, they may be shifting it out of stocks or funds altogether.