Reblog: Top 7 Principles of Growth Investing


Investors have many different strategies that they can follow to build wealth in the stock market. Income investors tend to prize dividends above all else. Value investors seek to buy stocks that trade below their intrinsic value. Growth investors, on the other hand, aim to buy businesses that hold the greatest upside potential and tend to de-emphasize traditional valuation metrics that generally show a growth stock to be expensive compared with the company’s current earnings.

Growth investing is highly attractive to many investors because buying the right companies early can lead to life-changing returns. However, companies that promise huge upside potential usually trade at lofty valuations. That amps up the risk that they will fail in spectacular fashion if they don’t meet expectations.

So how can investors increase their odds of buying the next Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) instead of a Fitbit (NASDAQ: FITB)? While there’s no bullet-proof solution to this conundrum, I’ve found that buying companies with the following traits can greatly increase the odds of success:

  • A large and expanding market opportunity
  • A durable competitive advantage
  • Financial resilience
  • Repeat purchase business model
  • Strong past price appreciation
  • Great corporate culture
  • Talented leadership with skin in the game

Let’s dig into each of these principles in detail to see why they work.

Coins and a roll of bills stacked to look like rocket ship

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Reblog: What To Do When Your Stocks Are Soaring?


Bull markets seem like they should be easier than the alternative but even dealing with gains can be challenging as an investor. Research shows that investors trade more often during bull markets because we don’t know what to do with gains, it’s difficult to hold winners, and there are constant temptations with even bigger winners elsewhere. This piece I wrote for Bloomberg looks at how to deal with big gainers in your portfolio.

*******Major stock indexes are hitting new highs almost daily, adding to the huge gains many securities have posted in recent years. For example, Nvidia Corp. has gained almost 1,800 percent since the start of 2013. Over the past five years or so, Netflix is up 1,375 percent; Tesla is up 835 percent; Facebook is up 590 percent, and Amazon has risen 380 percent. Bitcoin is up more than 900 percent in 2017 alone.If you’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in any of these equities or other market stars, you made the right choice. But investors would be wise to work through their options on how to handle these stocks. Large gains in your portfolio are a good problem to have, but the good news also comes with psychological baggage. Continue Reading