Thursday, September 15, 2011

How do smart investors make money off of the dumb ones who invest according to hype?

I always hear that a lot of people invest in a stock because it's "hot" and then turn around and loose a lot of money while the smart ones make money off of that. How do they do that?|||Smart investors lead. Average investors follow.





When the stocks go up, and gone beyond the "balance" price (what the stock SHOULD be worth without the mania), smart investors sell and get out. The average investors eventually inflate the price beyond the point it can sustain (i.e. soon people realize this stock is WAY too expensive), and start selling, and the late buyers lose a lot of money as the price tumble.





The smart people can also 'short sell' a stock, which is basically "selling something they don't have". Imagine this: I promise to sell you 100 shares of stock X at 50. Give me the money now. The stock starts falling, and at $40, I buy in the 100 shares of stock at $40, and give you the stock. I just made 100x10 or $1000. There you go.














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Kasey C, PC guru since Apple II days


Where there's a will... I want to be in it.|||The "hot" issue becomes over hyped, it's price rises loads, speculators (not dumb ones, just ones looking for quick profits) keep buying since they only look at short term signals. The short term signal analysis makes them traders rather than investors. The bubble bursts when people realise P/E value is much %26gt; P/B value and when analysts make the real value of the business clear. The value falls below P/B value, the INVESTORS go in and get stock at a bargain price pending it covers their own investment criteria.





Speculators a.k.a "dumb ones" lose money from hype, "smart investors" make money from bargain issues.|||Great question. Buy when a stock price is low and the company is 'unpopular' at the moment. Go against the grain in your thinking.|||Smart investors/traders, never start trading/investing until they have a defined written rules in place, along with a good money management program (policy) and the discipline to follow both.





Here are some trading/investing rules that I've been following successfully for years.


1.The first and primary rule should be never enter into a trade without knowing when and where you’re going to close the trade.


2. Never invest on emotions; feelings have no place in determining investments.


3. Only buy stocks with real sales and real earnings, does not apply to pennystocks since they are crap shoots and are traded as fun things and not as investments.


4. Only consider buying stocks with each of the last three years' earnings up 25%+, return on equity of 17%+ and recent earnings and sales accelerating.


5. Avoid cheap stocks, buy only higher quality stocks selling $10 a share and higher.


6. Never buy if the firm is filing or in bankruptcy.


7. Learn how to use charts to see sound bases and exact buy points.


8. Stay with up trending stocks, never buy on down trends. This does mean “the trend is your friend”.


9. Always buy companies with new ideas, styles or products.


10. Cut every loss when it’s 8% below your cost. Make no exceptions so you can always avoid huge, damaging losses. You can always average “up”..


11. Follow selling rules on when to sell and take profit on the way up.


12. Never average down


13. Always sell when management cuts sales or earnings forecasts


14. Buy when market indexes are in an uptrend. Reduce investments and raise cash when general market indexes show five or more days of volume distribution.


15. Pick companies with management ownership of stock.


16 Select stocks with increasing institutional sponsorship in recent quarters.


17. Current quarterly after-tax profit margins should be improving, near their peak and among the best in the stock's industry


18. Don’t buy because of dividends or P-E ratios.


19. Find out if the market currently favors big-cap or small-cap stocks.


20, NEVER, NEVER trade/invest on emotions|||The smart investors are wise beyond their years through education or in the case of well seasoned, experienced ones just plain wise. They know how to separate the wheat from the chaffe, the lies from the half truths, the irrelevent from the important and can put everything together in one big winning game plan.





A shorter way of putting it is their minds rule their hearts rather than the other way round. They can always think rationally while the dumb ones are misled by hype.





So self discipline aka mind over matter is a big part. Another element of their success is experience and skill. The smart investors literally have thousands of hours of study and learning as well as thousands more in experience behind them. The dumb investors are just joe blows who get cocky and think they can play the markets. Now the market when it comes to speculation is a zero sum game so the cocky ones get beaten by the professionals. It's as simple as that, I could write a whole book on this but this is the general overview.

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