There are a lot of “Idiots” guides to investing. Why start by putting yourself down?
You play the LOTTO? Total sucker’s bet. You might as well flush your money down the toilet.
A few hundred bucks or a few hundred million, the principles of value investing are not only pretty easy to “get” but you probably already use most of them when you spend money now.
Do you clip coupons, or do the buy-one-get-one deals at the super market? Do you wait for that dress, sweater, or shoes to go on sale before you buy?
Then you understand the basics of value investing: Invest money in something when it’s cheap, and sell it when everyone else discovers (and wants) what you are holding on to.
This is not, in spite of all those nice people who make a living bamboozling people, rocket science, exactly.
If you have someone investing your money who has become fabulously rich off of their own advice, and will only recommend the stocks for you and your family that they have in their own portfolios, then you have a great investment advisor.
The other 90% of the investment professionals out there are nothing more than aggrandized order takers with a slightly better understanding of the stock market than you have, most of whom are more interested in you trading often, so they make money, than they are in your net results.
I have a bunch of friends and acquaintances who like to know what I’m thinking, and what I’m up to. I used to do this column over at Morningstar.com, but their system is just too hard to use, and it doesn’t make things easy to find.
In the coming days, you will see stock tips and tactics, along with basic explanations of how to invest (not gamble or speculate like a day trader) do far better, and sleep well, then the people playing “momentum” or systems.
I put my money where my mouth is, and only recommend stocks that I’ve already purchased, unless I tell you that I’m just mulling it over, and why I haven’t bought it yet.
Check back here regularly, and you can make significant profits from your money by doing a lot of what you already do now. It’s common sense.
– Brian Ross
The Genius Guide to Value Investing 