How to become a successful investor

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Diversify your investments.

John Templeton

Assignment 1. Read the following Ten Tips For the Successful Long-Term Investors and complete each paragraph of the text with a proper spot of advice. The definitions of the terms printed in bold are provided in the right column.

a. Taxes are important, but not that important

b. Don't chase the "hot tip"

c. Sell the losers and let the winners ride!

d. Do not overemphasize the price/earnings ratio

e. Don't sweat the small stuff

f. Pick a strategy and stick with it

g. Focus on the future

h. Adopt a long-term perspective

i. Be open-minded when selecting companies

j. Resist the lure of penny stocks

Ten Tips For the Successful Long-Term Investor

While it may be true that in the stock market there is no rule without an exception, there are some principles which are tough to dispute. We'll review 10 general principles to help investors get a better grasp of how to approach the market from a long-term view. Keep in mind that these guidelines are quite general, each with different applications depending on the circumstance. But every point embodies some fundamental concept every investor should know.

1) _________ Time and time again, investors take profits by selling their appreciated investments, but they hold onto stocks that have declined in hopes of a rebound. If an investor doesn't know when it's time to let go of hopeless stocks, he or she can, in the worst-case scenario, see the stock sink to the point where it is almost worthless. Of course, the idea of holding onto high-quality investments while selling the poor ones is great in theory, but hard to put into practice. The following information might help: · Riding a Winner. Peter Lynch was famous for talking about his "tenbaggers", his investments that had increased tenfold in value. The theory is that much of his overall success was due to a small number of stocks in his portfolio that returned big. If you have a personal policy to sell after a stock has increased by a certain multiple − say three, for instance − you may never fully ride out a winner. No one in the history of investing with a "sell-after-I-have-tripled-my-money" mentality has ever had a tenbagger. Don't underestimate a stock that is performing well by sticking to some rigid personal rule − if you don't have a good understanding of the potential of your investments, your personal rules may end up being arbitrary and too limiting. · Selling a Loser. There is no guarantee that a stock will bounce back after a protracted decline. While it's important not to underestimate good stocks, it's equally important to be realistic about investments that are performing badly. Recognizing your losers is hard because it's also an acknowledgment of your mistake. But it's important to be honest when you realize that a stock is not performing as well as you expected it to. Don't be afraid to swallow your pride and move on before your losses become even greater! In both cases, the point is to judge companies on their merits according to your research. In each situation, you still have to decide whether a price justifies future potential. Just remember not to let your fears limit your returns or inflate your losses. 2) _________ Whether the tip comes from your brother, cousin, neighbor, or even broker, no one can ever guarantee what a stock will do. When you make an investment, it's important you know the reasons for doing so: do your own research and analysis of any company before you even consider investing your hard earned money. Relying on a tidbit of information from someone else is not only an attempt at taking the easy way out, it's also a type of gambling. Sure, with some luck, tips may sometimes pan out. But they will never make you an informed investor, which is what you need to be to be successful in the long run. 3)_________ In tip No. 1, we explained the importance of realizing when your investments are not performing as you expected them to, but remember to expect short-term fluctuations. As a long-term investor, you shouldn't panic when your investments experience short-term movements. When tracking the activities of your investments, you should look at the big picture. Remember to be confident in the quality of your investments rather than nervous about the inevitable volatility of the short term. Granted, active traders will use these day-to-day and even minute-to-minute fluctuations as a way to make gains. But the gains of a long-term investor come from a completely different market movement - the one that occurs over many years - so keep your focus on developing your overall investment philosophy by educating yourself.

Portfolio: The group of assets − such as stocks, bonds, etc. held by an investor. To reduce their risk, investors tend to hold more than just a single stock or other asset. Think of the portfolio as a pie: each piece is divided up into specific assets such as bonds, equities, etc. Active Investing/Trading:An investment strategy involving ongoing buying and selling actions by the investor. Active investors purchase investments and continuously monitor their activity in order to exploit profitable conditions. Active investing is highly involved. Unlike passive investors, who invest in a stock when they believe in its potential for long-term appreciation, active investors will typically look at the price movements of their stocks many times a day. Typically, active investors are seeking short-term profits.

4)_________ Investors often place too much importance on the P/E ratio. Because it is one key tool among many, using only this ratio to make buy or sell decisions is dangerous and ill-advised. The P/E ratio must be interpreted within a context, and it should be used in conjunction with other analytical processes. So, a low P/E ratio doesn't necessarily mean a security is undervalued, nor does a high P/E ratio necessarily mean a company is overvalued. 5)_________ A common misconception is that there is less to lose in buying a low-priced stock. But whether you buy a $5 stock that plunges to $0 or a $75 stock that does the same, either way you'd still have a 100% loss of your initial investment. A lousy $5 company has just as much downside risk as a lousy $75 company. In fact, a penny stock is probably riskier than a company with a higher share price, which would have more regulations placed on it. 6)_________ Different people use different methods to pick stocks and fulfill investing goals. There are many ways to be successful and no one strategy is inherently better than any other. However, once you find your style, stick with it. An investor who flounders between different stock-picking strategies will probably experience the worst, rather than the best, of each. Constantly switching strategies effectively makes you a market timer, and this is definitely territory most investors should avoid. Take Warren Buffett's actions during the dotcom boom of the late '90s as an example. Buffett's value-oriented strategy had worked for him for decades, and − despite criticism from the media − it prevented him from getting sucked into tech startups that had no earnings and eventually crashed. 7)_________ The tough part about investing is that we are trying to make informed decisions based on things that are yet to happen. It's important to keep in mind that even though we use past data as an indication of things to come, it's what happens in the future that matters most. A quote from Peter Lynch's book "One Up on Wall Street" about his experience with Subaru demonstrates this: "If I'd bothered to ask myself, 'How can this stock go any higher?' I would have never bought Subaru after it already went up twentyfold. But I checked the fundamentals, realized that Subaru was still cheap, bought the stock, and made sevenfold after that." The point is to base a decision on future potential rather than on what has already happened in the past. 8)_________ Large short-term profits can often entice those who are new to the market. But adopting a long-term horizon and dismissing the "get in, get out and make a killing" mentality is a must for any investor. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to make money by actively trading in the short term. But, as we already mentioned, investing and trading are very different ways of making gains from the market. Trading involves very different risks that buy-and-hold investors don't experience. As such, active trading requires certain specialized skills. Neither investing style is necessarily better than the other - both have their pros and cons. But active trading can be wrong for someone without the appropriate time, financial resources, education and desire. Most people don't fit into this category. 9)_________ Many great companies are household names, but many good investments are not household names (and vice versa). Thousands of smaller companies have the potential to turn into the large blue chips of tomorrow. In fact, historically, small-caps have had greater returns than large-caps. This is not to suggest that you should devote your entire portfolio to small-cap stocks. Rather, understand that there are many great companies beyond those in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and that by neglecting all these lesser-known companies, you could also be neglecting some of the biggest gains. 10)_________ Putting taxes above all else is a dangerous strategy, as it can often cause investors to make poor, misguided decisions. Yes, tax implications are important, but they are a secondary concern. The primary goals in investing are to grow and secure your money. You should always attempt to minimize the amount of tax you pay and maximize your after-tax return, but the situations are rare where you'll want to put tax considerations above all else when making an investment decision. Conclusion In this article, we've covered 10 solid tips for long-term investors. We started off saying that there is an exception to every rule, and we can't overemphasize this point. Depending on your circumstances, you might even disagree with some of these pointers. However, we hope that the common sense principles we've discussed benefit you overall and provide some insight into how you should think about investing.

Price/earnings ratio: The P/E ratio for an individual stock compares the stock price to the company's earnings per share. The P/E indicates how much the market will pay for a company's earnings. A high P/E usually indicates a strong belief in the company's ability to increase those earnings. A low P/E indicates the market has less confidence that the company's earnings will increase. Penny stock: A stock that usually sells for less than $1 per share, though the price may rise because of significant promotion. Penny stocks are very speculative and risky due to their lack of available information and poor liquidity. Market timing: 1. The act of attempting to predict the future direction of the market, typically through the use of technical indicators or economic data. 2. The practice of switching among mutual fund asset classes in an attempt to profit from the changes in their market outlook. Dotcom:A company that embraces the internet as the key component in its business. Value investing:The strategy of selecting stocks that trade for less than their intrinsic value. Value investors actively seek stocks of companies that they believe the market has undervalued. They believe the market overreacts to good and bad news, causing stock price movements that do not correspond with the company's long-term fundamentals. The result is an opportunity for value investors to profit by buying when the price is deflated. Information such as revenue, earnings, assets, liabilities and growth are considered some of the fundamentals. Buy-and-hold:A passive investment strategy in which an investor buys stocks and holds them for a long period of time, regardless of fluctuations in the market. An investor who employs a buy-and-hold strategy actively selects stocks, but once in a position, is not concerned with short-term price movements and technical indicators. Small-Caps:Refers to stocks with a relatively small market capitalization. The definition of small cap can vary among brokerages, but generally it is a company with a market capitalization of between $300 million and $2 billion.

(Source: Investopedia.com)

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Date: 2015-09-23; view: 376; Нарушение авторских прав

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