Stock Market Video
It’s a Bull Market; Don’t Waste It!
This Week’s Fortune Cookie
In Case You Missed It
In this week’s Stock Market Video, I say many admiring things about the market’s recent performance, praising its resilience and complementing the way The Bull has extended his domain from Chinese stocks to stocks from other emerging markets. I point out that an aging bull is still a bull, and I give several stock recommendations from different sectors that illustrate the opportunities out there.
It’s a Bull Market; Don’t Waste It!
With markets soaring to new highs, the average stock investor is probably happy as a clam at high tide. The major market indexes are unanimously positive, meaning that whether you favor growth investing, value investing or are looking for income, the stock market is presenting a target-rich environment right now.
I’ve written before (I’ve probably gotten a little tiresome on the subject) that the biggest mistake you can make in the stock market is to ignore a bull market. The smørgasbørd of stocks in strong uptrends is stocked with goodies.
And yet, there are people who aren’t in the market.
I know many of the reasons why that’s so.
Many people have no investible income. Either they’re living paycheck to paycheck or they’re retired and have no free cash to throw around.
Other people are tied to the investment strategy advocated by most mutual fund companies. They put money every month into a mix of index funds and rely on the passage of time to push their total investment higher. “Time, not timing,” as the big investment houses say.
But those explanations leave a pretty large population of people who have money to invest, but don’t. Some are scared that markets might go down, which isn’t at all unreasonable for anyone who has lived through the bursting of two major investment bubbles.
I feel for them. I lost a major amount of skin in both debacles (because I was still in mutual funds).
Others just don’t have enough knowledge about the market and how it works to feel confident in putting their own money to work under their own command. They can’t tell a growth stock from a value stock and don’t know an index from a moving average.
I’m also in sympathy with these folks. After all, I came to the financial industry with degrees in liberal arts fields. I wasn’t exactly born into equity investing. (My father, who lived in Arkansas for much of his life, bought Wal-Mart stock very early, but when it doubled, he sold it for the down payment on a new car. Dang!)
But there are also people who have no excuse. They have the investible income, but they leave it sitting in a bank or a CD or Treasuries where it is steadily losing ground to inflation. That’s the equivalent of leaving your milk in the refrigerator in a leaky carton because “it’s not leaking that much!”
If you’re one of those people, you need to take a serious look at your investment strategy … or get an investment strategy if you don’t have one. Because unless you’re already so well-fixed that you don’t need any more money, you’re squandering one of the most valuable assets around, which is a bull market.
Yes, it’s true that this bull market will end and stocks will lose momentum and begin to go down. But it’s not like Cabot’s growth disciplines will just leave you sitting there helplessly watching your profits disappear.
We know how to get you into an up market ahead of the crowd and out of a bear market before the damage begins to mount up.
So, if you want in on this stock market’s strong advance, you can find what you need on the Cabot website. Or you can click here to see what the Cabot growth advisories—Cabot Market Letter, Cabot Top Ten Trader and Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report—can do for you. (They all come with money-back guarantees, so there’s no risk.)
Don’t waste this bull market! And don’t ever get trampled by another bear market. I’m serious. We can help. Check it out.
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Here’s this week’s Fortune Cookie. Remember, you can always view all previous Fortune Cookies here and Contrary Opinion buttons here.
Tim’s Comment: A pleasant twist on our “Don’t believe everything you read,” which is flat in comparison. Better than not reading, of course, is to read with an enlightened mind, and the ability to filter, digest, synthesize, and sometimes reject ideas. So how does it relate to investing? Since the market delights in misleading amateurs, skepticism is a tremendous asset.
Paul’s Comment: Every once in a while, I see a bumper sticker that says, “Don’t believe everything you think.” The first time I saw it, the change in the last word actually made me laugh out loud. Now, I just nod my head, because the stock markets teach me constantly that I need to be more skeptical, think more independently and question my own assumptions more. It’s a good lesson to learn … again and again.
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In case you didn’t get a chance to read all the issues of Cabot Wealth Advisory this week and want to catch up on any investing and stock tips you might have missed, there are links below to each issue.
Cabot Wealth Advisory 9/16/13 — The Best Revolutionary Stocks: Yelp
Tim Lutts, the brains behind Cabot Stock of the Month, muses in this issue about the power of advertising in our lives, and how we might be better off without it. He also looks at the chart for Tesla (TSLA) and gives his ninth Revolutionary Stock. Stock discussed: Yelp (YELP).
Cabot Wealth Advisory 9/17/13 — Warren Buffett’s Investing Strategy
In this issue, Roy Ward, the expert who writes Cabot Benjamin Graham Value Letter, expresses his admiration for Warren Buffett and his value investing strategy and tells the Berkshire Hathaway story. Stocks discussed: GNC Holdings (GNC) and United Stationers (USTR).
Cabot Wealth Advisory 9/19/13 — When To Buy an Option Instead of a Stock
Options expert Jacob Mintz of Cabot Options Trader writes in this issue about when it makes sense to use an option to get exposure to stocks on either the upside or the downside.
Have a great weekend,
Paul Goodwin
Editor of Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report
and Cabot Wealth Advisory
