Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise

I am not a software vendor promoting TA (technical analysis). So whether people believe in charts or not is not my concern. In fact the more people believe that charts do not work, the better for those who believe in them. I believe charts are useful; I always refer to them before I buy or sell.

If you don't like charts and think of them as useless, I have no qualms about that. You have every rights to your own belief. I agree to disagree. So let us not quarrel over that for nothing.

I said in my previous article that the best way to stock market success was to choose good stocks and hold them for the long term. Buy and hold is a good strategy only when you buy the right stocks. However, I think that strategy can be improved to: buy, hold, monitor and switch.

To do this, you have to be on your toes all the time. You have to be on the lookout for something good to switch to. As soon as you find one, you let go the weakest stock in your portfolio and replace it with the new stock. This process has to go on and on and on. There is no end to it.

You must have full confidence in yourself. If you need to discuss with somebody before you buy, that is a sign of weakness. It shows that you are not ready yet to be an active investor.