Media and technology afford us the ability to gather ideas and act on them very cheaply these days. We’re constantly bombarded with people selling their ideas. Whether it’s CNBC, Bloomberg, Barrons, WSJ, Twitter accounts, Motley Fool, our friends or co-workers, we have no shortage of stocks and investing ideas to consider.
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When greed and hope drive the bus, our filter for information becomes non-existent. We’ll listen to anything as long as it shows promise in making us money.
“Good idea. I’ll buy some. The company sounds promising. Chart looks good too.”
Mike asks: How much will you buy? How do you come up with that amount? Promising companies often don’t work out. How will you know when it’s no longer promising? What if you find out it’s not promising after you take a huge loss?”
“I agree with you. A recession is coming. S/he has been on the money the past few years. I’m following their lead.”
Mike asks: How do you know a recession is coming? What tells you that? What will tell you that you’re wrong? Winning streaks often go cold. Blindly following, and going all-in, on people who have been hot lately often leads to pain. How have they performed over the long run? Do they have a track record you can audit?
“You see this stock, ABC Corp.? Promising new tech. They just landed a government contract too.”
Mike asks: What does “promising” mean? “Promising” companies often make promises they can’t keep. Does landing government contracts improve the odds of long-term success? How do you go about researching this?
Stories. Opinions from your smart friends. Opinions from your wealthy friends. Opinions from professionals who work in the markets. All of it is time-wasting and hope-filling porn. It’s chit chat laced with greed.
After a while, you wind up with 100 stocks and funds in your portfolio that you either can’t remember why/when you got in or what they even do. You drunkenly amassed investments fueled by hope and greed with no risk management in place.
Not a recipe for success. In all likelihood, you’ve amassed a large group of unrealized losses — compounded by opportunity costs.
When you select investments, be deliberate.