Welcome to the 8th edition of the Carnival of Investing! For those that are new to it, the Carnival of Investing is a weekly guide to some of the best predictions, strategies, and analysis by financial investment blogs. You can view submission guidelines and the hosting schedule here.

We’ve got a great selection of reading this week. Let’s get started!

Free Money Finance submits Managing Your IRA For Maximum Gain, a discussion of how to get the most out of your IRA.

Pacesetter Mortgage discusses the free market economy and the international traffic watching it, in Bloggers: The World is Watching.

Jim from Blueprint for Financial Prosperity submits Super Bowl Stock Market Indicator. Jim says, “If the Steelers win this week, the stock market will be up on the week… we’re 85% sure of it if past performance is an indicator of future performance (which it isn’t). And the Steelers will win.”

Amanda from Young and Broke examines the foolishness of purchasing lottery tickets in Lottery, Investing at odds.

Ironman from Political Calculations offers Exploiting Child Interest Income - a new tool to help you run some numbers to see if you can cut your tax bill by investing on behalf of your kids.

Dan at Search Light Crusade says that nearly every adult that buys life insurance buys the wrong policy at the wrong time for the wrong reason. Read Life Insurance - Proper Prior Planning Prevents..

Barry from The Other Bloke’s Blog discusses some Hot Topics, noting, “some say our financial behaviour may be governed by our brain’s pleasure centres, just like sex.”

Harrison from Journey to Financial Freedom submits Invest to Financial Freedom - Put Your Money Into Bank if You Lost Your Direction!

Michael from Bike Mike’s Contrarian Investing Blog submits Why I Blog About Investing.

Mighty Bargain Hunter notes that investing in gold should get more respect than it does, and offers a discussion in The Golden Hoard.

Tom Hanna from Financial Options submits The Week Ahead: Your Financial Roadmap for February 6-10, 2006.

David Jackson from Seeking Alpha submits The Most Important Two Minutes From Google’s Conference Call.

From Old Niu’s Blog we have Statistical Investing Using the Magic Formula, a discussion of the most controversial points of Joel Greenblatt’s “Magic Formula”.

Ed from Daily Dose of Optimism compares American versus Japanese CEO salaries, and discusses Graef Crystal’s 1991 book, “In Search of Excess”, in Graef Crystal - International CEO Comp Comparison.

And last but certainly not least, Kirby on Finance submits An ETF Primer, Part #1, the first in a series that will cover the basics of investing in exchange-traded funds.

Thank you for reading the Carnival of Investing. Next week’s Carnival will be hosted at Trader Mike.

Thanks to everyone that contributed to the carnival this week! It was a pleasure hosting!