Which day would you pick? What time of day? Why?
Which day would you pick? What time of day? Why?
I would pick Katurday, at 12:01pm.
Really, Chi, if you only have an hour a week to do ALL of your investment research AND place trades, you really should hire a professional.
Some may disagree with me, but I truly believe that isn't enough time to commit to something so important.
Ditto, you need more time than that to manage your own portfolio.
I would speculate that, even after you have developed your investing 'style' and have also weeded out reliable sources from unreliable ones, it still requires at least 2 hours of effort every day to stay ahead of changing trends in the economy in general, in the markets, and in just a handful of stocks.
The only thing that you can really accomplish in one hour per week is to pick the best mutual fund manager(s) ... hand them your money ... and hope for the best.
I'll admit the OP was a way to get some discussion going; it was more about investing styles than anything else.
At the same time, I am trying to "template" my investing behavor, much as I've tried lately to schedule exercise, pleasure reading, long-term planning...
Katrine is right on one score: I've spent far too little time working on my financial health, an important part of life that's always, ALWAYS befuddled me.
well I hope that those 20 minutes occurred before last week ...Quote:
You actually need only 20 minutes per year to be a fairly successful investor and beat 90% of people who spend at least 4 hours a day.
from Bloomberg ...
(snip)" The MSCI World slipped 3 percent to 1,394.23 at 4:47 p.m. in London, extending its decline from an Oct. 31 record to 17 percent. India's Sensitive Index lost the most since 2004, while Germany's DAX had its biggest loss since 2001. Futures on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index sank 4.5 percent. Trading in the U.S. is closed today for Martin Luther King Day.
``It's the worst I've ever seen,'' said Johan Stein, who helps manage the equivalent of about $14 billion at Nordea Asset Management in Stockholm. ``The financial system is in terrible shape, and no one knows where this will end.''
Today's declines follow the worst week for U.S. stocks in five years after President George W. Bush's $150 billion plan to revive the economy and expectations of interest-rate cuts failed to allay recession concerns.
The risk of European companies defaulting soared to a record today on speculation credit-rating cuts at bond insurers including Ambac Financial Group Inc. may trigger forced asset sales. European Central Bank council member Nout Wellink said economic growth in the region may slow more than policy makers had expected.
Market Crisis
``This is a stock-market crisis,'' said Alberto Roldan, head of research at Inverseguros SVB in Madrid. ``Investors believe that neither a government package nor a huge rate cut is going to help evade a recession in the U.S.'' "(snip)
Universal Truth 101: You can't time the markets.
If the market is down, you should be ecstatic because you pick more assets.
The beauty of 20 min/Year investing style is you are unaffected by these market movements.
Sleep Well and Make more money. It is a no brainer. Use your time and stress free health to earn more money or enjoy a vacation.
It is a great time to be an investor
What you are looking for is some sort of 'couch potato' portfolio... but, not CP in entirety... as you wish to put regular time into monitoring the portfolio.
You could however, subscribe to one of the leading investment newsletters that allow you to 'copycat' the author's portfolio. I'd strongly consider you subsribe to a top rated one that is listed in Mark Hulbert's finanancial newsletter:
http://www3.marketwatch.com/Store/products/hfd.aspx?
Now you don't necessarily need to subscribe to Hulbert's Financial Digest, as alot of his articles become public domain (especially on the internet)...
I'd induce myself to the luring 30 day free trial, though!
I'd look for a newsletter with a long track record of high returns.... quite a few of the newsletters have portfolios that consistently achieve 25% yearly average return.
Other things need to be considered before subscribing to a newsletter:
1. do you have the necessary cash to participate?
2. do you have a good discount brokerage account active and ready?
3. you need to know how frequent the newsletter makes transactions... 1hr per week doesn't allow you too much time, but, if the newsletter that has about 20-30 stocks and average holding period is about 4 years, then I would say that fits in with your time commitment ability.
4. consider the ethics of the newsletter... is it just a stock pumper? google the newsletter name and read reviews about the author, etc... you also want to make sure that the author does things to protect the intellectual information that you pay for. ie, doesn't go on tv the next day and spill his purchase out over bloomberg tv, etc..
5. I'd strongly suggest you have a good understanding in investing before you make any moves, whatever they may be.
Now, keep in mind that it is difficult to follow these portfolios to a 'T'... My finance professor follows one of the most influential of the bunch and says that because of the influence of the newsletter, it quickly makes big splashes on Wall Street everytime the newsletter alerts a buy or sell. Generally, the stocks pop or tank on the news. You must enter limit orders (limiting the price you wish to pay) and be prepared to wait a few days (sometimes weeks) for the stock to come back to a purchase price that is reasonable. You will miss some boats this way, though! Some stocks fly at a newsletters choice to add it to their portfolio. Just as Jim Cramer's rated buys usually pop the following morning or in afterhours trading. I'd avoid all that noise... wait till the dust settles. Back to my prof, he's able to achieve a 15 year average of 20.4% aror by tracking a newsletter portfolio that has a 15 year track record of 23.4%
hope it helps, and good luck.
Agree with most of it, but here are my words of caution.
i) Many newsletter publishers blatantly exploit the survivorship bias by excluding returns of the funds that they closed due to poor performance thus overinflating their returns when they really havn't beaten S&P 500
ii) Even if they have above average returns for some years, there is the luck factor. After all it is not unusual to get 7 or 8 heads in a row
iii) When a manager has returned more than 20% for more than 10 years, his fund would have grown really big and he can't invest in the same manner (Due to higher risk aversion due to the size of the fund)
Even if you can find a superstar fund manager, finding them is exactly like picking individual stocks. i.e It takes a lot of effort and luck
two words ... Ken Heebner
http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=...5EGSPC&a=v&p=s
If I were to ever consider the 'armchair investing' approach, Ken would be Da Man for me !
but even as a more 'active' investor I keep an eye out for which stocks Heebner's CGMFX fund is buying and selling.