There’s little to report in the markets. They’re going lower over the summer, as I expected and wrote about over the past few months.
Readers are getting antsy as sometimes a month goes by without my posting anything in this space. In the world of the internet, a month is an unforgivable lapse of time. Why some have even taken to calling my site a member of the “cobweb”.
Though cobwebbed this space may be in the eyes of the constantly upated internet and the need for Wall Street to pretend that everything changes with each sunrise, I refuse to submit. The market does not change. The only thing for you to ever focus on getting right is your ability to know what price is cheap for a stock. The only character traits you need to develop as an investor are patience and serenity. You must wait for prices to reach prudent levels. You want them cheap enough to provide some cushion in the event of a downturn. That is to say, a stock bought on the cheap has less chance of plummeting than a stock bought at a premium. Benjamin Graham called that a margin of safety.
What about serenity? That’s the most important investor character trait, in my view. Being patient is good, but sometimes the market simply doesn’t reward your patience. Sometimes prices don’t come down to where you want to buy or quite rise to where you want to sell. You have to let those times go. You have to be serene. There is another day. There is much more to the world than the stock market. There are many, many ways to make money and the market is one of the least reliable.
So, I won’t use this space to compete with mainstream investment sites, either in tone of voice (too shrill at most places) nor in volume (too much at most places). In my view, there isn’t enough new information to warrant rapidfire commentary where opinions change from Tuesday to Thursday. Of course, the very best ways to invest are the most boring. However, they work over time. To see some of those in action, go to my strategies page.
To do some low-stress swing trading, keep reading here. I come across ideas from time to time. On your own, the thing to do is make a buy list. As stocks meander lower, what do you want to buy? I’ve mentioned several stocks to watch since May. You might include some of them on your list, such as Sun Microsystems below $4 or Maxtor below $6. They’re edging around those levels.
