Wednesday, December 17, 2014

5 Basic Investing Tips

How To Make Your Money Work For You: Let It GROW!
            These are not really in any order you can use them as you see fit, or not at all. And actually I would prefer that you formulate your own investment strategy. However they may serve as a starting point of your own formulation.

1.   “Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful” – Warren Buffet. When others are taking ever increasingly risky means of gaining wealth you should be fearful of the stability of the market. And when everyone is afraid that the market is plummeting be greedy. Mr. Buffet is not telling you to time the market here nor is he specifically saying divest or invest when the market is way up or way down. He is just telling you to analyze market environments in order to receive the best value that you can when purchasing.

2.   Shop for investments like you would shop for a new car. You would never buy an unsafe car, so why would you buy an unsafe investment. What I am saying here is do your research. You spend countless hours and trips to different car lots to buy a vehicle that can potentially impact your future. Investments have just the same impact on your financial security as cars do with your physical security. Spend the time to find that investment that will get the 5 star safety rating of Wall Street.

3.    Every day is Black Friday in the stock market. You can always find a deal when looking for investments, you just have to be willing to dig for it and sometimes wait for it. A great example is the bear market from 2007-09 if we pick one stock, let’s say Ford (NYSE: F) and bought a modest $100 worth on 24/NOV/08 when it hit it’s all time low of $1.01 and forgot about it until now 17/DEC/14. If we sold ford today we would net $1375 after taxes for a gain of almost 1,400%! While I can’t tell you what investment will be the black market deal today I can tell you if you don’t search for it you will never find it.

4.   Don’t cut down what you are growing! If you keep eating your harvest your garden will never grow into a full blown farm. Same goes with investing as does gardening, if you keep spending your growth and don’t add it back to your principal investment, that first seed that you sowed, you will never grow it into a 1,000 acre farm. Reinvest your dividends, reinvest your stock sales, and reinvest surplus income. The more you put into it the more you will get out of it when it is time to harvest your growths.

5.   Taxes were created by the devil, don’t give him more than he deserves. Yes your investments are taxed too! And no the government isn’t the devil but to maximize your gains you should familiarize yourself with the U.S. tax code regarding investing. By doing the research you can easily increase your profit while investing. While the U.S. tax code is upwards of 70,000 pages, the easiest way to increase profit margin is waiting. If you simply hold an investment for at least 1 year the tax on your gains from investing will decrease. If you want to do your part in sticking it to the man then just wait it out a bit.


   If you want to be successful in the world of investing put the time in to educate yourself about it and what you are purchasing. Being patient will pay off in more ways than one. Let your garden of investments grow unimpeded by your own greedy fingers and water and fertilize it often. Only time will tell if your garden will grow into a full-fledged farm. 

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