Locator: 51020INVESTING.
Re-posting, from November 23, 2023. Link here.
Locator: 46146INV.
I don't know how this contributor ended up on my twitter feed, but I consider myself lucky he did. I've learned a bit about investing from him.
Two things Giuliano taught me today, as an investor, not a trader:
- investors don't understand P/Es; and,
- investors wait too long to pivot.
I live and breathe mom-and-pop retail investing, in which I mean I know nothing about bonds, nothing about inverted curves, nothing about short-selling, nothing about options, nothing about puts and calls. At the end of the day, all I know from the financial pages is the basic stuff -- market caps, P/Es, highs and lows. But I live and breathe mom-and-pop retail investing. I think about it 24/7.
I think about -- and live and breathe -- only a handful of things, and pretty much in this order:
- the love of my life;
- music;
- reading;
- retail investing;
- my extended family.
A
basic question I ask when investing: if I were 20 years old would I
want to work at this company for the rest of my life, for this CEO, and,
if the answer is "yes," would I be willing to invest 100% of my
retirement funds into this company's 401(k) or equivalent? If the answer
to both questions is "yes," then I will invest in that company. If the
answer to either question is "no," I won't invest. That seems pretty
simple. [Obviously that question -- actually two questions -- needs to
be re-asked periodically, not less than annually.]
In all my years of investing, I've only been really, really disappointed in three or four decisions and in all cases, I failed to pay attention to the answer to that question (or actually two questions).