I invest according to about 15 rules I've developed over a lifetime. Most are sensible rules found in any Investing 101 Course. i.e. : "The Intelligent Investor" by Ben Graham. I mix in the thoughts of Charlie Munger, Buffett and John Bogle. And of course, my own experience.
Note that I've always found bad stocks more interesting than good ones, which is why I spend so much time bashing. There's certainly nothing very interesting about my safe 3M, UPS or Travelers Insurance. Or SPY. First rule for any investor should be to avoid scams.
About the only rule I've added since 2000 was an admonition against small cap stocks and stocks not listed on the NYSE. By the peak of the Dot Com era the NASDAQ was listing tons of utter garbage. I recognized it at the time and events of 2000-20003 proved me correct as many hundreds of NASDAQ stocks delisted back to garage status, and eventually vanished.
The 2,5000 securities on the NYSE should be enough for anyone to select from. Enron/Arthur Andersen aside, the NYSE has been a good place to pick from.
For a similar reason I like stocks that pay dividends. Scammy stocks rarely pay significant dividends. (yes, Enron paid a dividend btw).
Everything I now own has a market caps of billions. I've owned a few smaller stocks years ago but only when I knew quite a bit about the firm. Just checked and DLTH has a market cap of just $800 Million. BTW, that's much smaller than SWKS at 14 billion.
______________________________________________________________
Because the Good Life is Just a Pump or Two Away
