One of the best roads to wealth is investing in the stock market. I’ve invested in stocks for over twenty years. During that time I’ve made a lot of money and I’ve also lost money as well, but I have learned many valuable lessons along the way.

Many people don’t invest in stocks because they consider them too risky. Achieving success of any kind involves risk. Starting your own business or investing in real estate is risky if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Most people today take the safe and secure road of putting their money into savings accounts or bonds. If that sounds like you, you’re missing a golden opportunity to have more money tomorrow than you have today.

There are no pat rules or formulas to guide you when choosing stocks. Bells won’t ring when you pick the right stock, and you will never be certain that a well-researched pick will pay off. You will have to work hard to find opportunities missed by the masses of people.

Still, there is a lot you can do to increase your chances of making a good pick. Before you invest in any stock, you should invest in what you understand, do your homework, and take advantage of the knowledge you have about particular companies or industries. Most of all you need to be patient.

It’s important to research the companies you believe have potential. Research is often best done in person. For example, if you’re interested in Walgreen Company, a nationwide drugstore chain, you would want to visit several stores. Look around at the products they carry and the service they provide.

The same would hold true if you were interested in buying stock in Dave & Busters, a nationwide restaurant chain. Visit one in your area and have dinner. Then go to another city and visit another Dave & Busters and have dinner as well. Take notice of everything, not just the how the meal is, but also how the service is and how it operates.

This sort of in-person, fundamental research is easy for anyone to do, you don’t need special credentials to see how fast a store is ringing up sales or whether it’s offering something new in the way of products or services. When you visit, ask an important question, “Which of your competitors do you respect the most?” Often the endorsement of a rival will lead you to purchase their stock which could turn out to be a top performer.

You don’t have to meet with company heads to get the inside scoop on an industry. If you’re in the industry already, you have a catbird’s seat. That includes producers, suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, and anyone else connected.

For example, those in the oil industry, like oil refiners, tanker salesmen, gas station owners, or equipment suppliers, can see changes coming and take advantage of them. They also know what moves the industry and what factors are the most important to watch.

Likewise, you may be in a position to take advantage of changes (like a shift in demand or a new technology) that no one else knows about, especially an investment broker.

Once you’ve chosen stocks you think are worthy of buying or keeping, it’ll be all you can do to stick with them if there’s bad news all around you. One of the basic rules of success for investing in stocks is: Never get scared out of owning them. Never sell stocks because so-called experts in the media say that the sky is falling. You should only sell if the company’s fundamentals are deteriorating.

Whenever you begin to worry about your investments in the stock market because of “big picture” concerns such as wars or deficits, it pays to consider the Even Bigger Picture. The Even Bigger Picture shows that over the last eighty years, stocks have provided their owners with an average return of 11 percent a year. Despite the wars, the recessions, the bear markets, the crashes, and anything else that might predict the end of the world, owning stocks has been twice as rewarding as savings accounts and owning bonds.

If you’re serious about making money in the stock market, you must expect drops in the market. When you favorite stocks go down with all the others that is the time to buy more shares, and look for bargains.

How many stocks should you buy? The best answer to this question is to buy a manageable number of stocks that you can get involved with. Over time you’ll learn something about the industry and your company’s place in it. For example, you learn what happens to your stocks in a recession and what factors affect its earnings. When the market retreats, you will find bargains and you can add some great socks to your portfolio.

Once you have knowledge and experience you can comfortably follow eight to twelve stocks, but it’s perfectly reasonable and profitable to have as few as five in your portfolio. Besides, not all of your stocks have to have to be great performers. If just one of your stocks performs at a high level and the others go nowhere, you will have tripled your money.

Here are some important points that will help become a better investor:

• The market, over the past few decades has been dominated by the masses. This makes it easier for you, the individual. You can make the best investments by ignoring the masses.

• In the short term, there may be no correlation between the success of a company and the price of its stock. In the long term however, there is a 100 percent correlation between the success of the company and the success of its stock. It pays to be patient, because the disparity is the key to making money.

• Don’t invest in long shots because they rarely perform well.

• Never invest in a company without first understanding its finances. Companies with weak financial statements drop the most in price.

• Never invest in hot stocks in hot industries.

• No one can predict interest rates or where the market or economy is headed. You should study and concentrate on what’s happening to the companies you own shares in.

Picking stocks is both an art and a science, but you should never rely on either one too heavily. For example a person who relies solely on looking at financial statements before making an investment will not be very successful and same goes for the person who relies solely on hunches. Many people play hunches and make investment decisions by their gut alone but to be a successful investor, you must do the research to make sure your hunch is valid.

Legwork is equally important to your investing success. It takes time to find good companies to invest in. You have to be prepared to visit the companies, observe how they operate, sample their products and services, and talk the employees who work there. You may have to look at hundred different companies before you find a good investment, but all it takes are a few big winners to make your efforts worthwhile.

Becoming a successful investor and making money in the stock market comes down to you. Always be careful whose advice you follow. It’s not smart to blindly accept the recommendation of someone even if he or she is a professional without first knowing something about the person’s background.

Some people listen to what the masses are pushing, some don’t do their homework, and some who have been successful in the past become lazy. The truly successful investor, the person who makes the most money in the stock market is the person who researches companies constantly to get ideas.

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