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In The Unemotional Investor, Robert Sheard, author of the Dow Dividend Approach and Foolish Workshop for The Motley Fool, offers a way around this dilemma. He notes that the obvious requirement for making money in the stock market is to buy low and sell high, but that most people simply can't do this. "What does it take to buy low and sell high? Surprisingly enough, it takes the polar opposite of normal human emotions."
So rather than try to reverse this investor psychology, Sheard sidesteps it altogether and advances two successful systems for buying and selling stocks. The first follows the Dogs of the Dow, which looks at the highest yielding stocks in the Dow 30. The second invests in growth stocks that also have a high degree of price momentum. Both systems require no knowledge of the companies in which you're investing. Instead, decisions to buy and sell are based on easily-acquired information. Sheard demonstrates how over the years these systems have consistently beaten--by a wide margin--all of the major stock indices.
If you've never consistently made money in the stock market, or if you're tired of the measly returns offered by your mutual fund, consider this book. It's good for all level of investors (except the most jaded) and typifies the best of The Motley Fool. Sheard's writing is clear and easy to follow. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
The Motley Fool is one of the Web's most popular investment and personal finance sites. The name reflects the irreverent approach that the Fool (and all the Fools) take to the traditionally sober field of finance. And this approach has been wildly successful. More than a million people a month check into The Motley Fool to participate in the lively, ongoing, and highly profitable discussions of why, where, and how they should put their money into the stock market.
One of the most popular voices on The Motley Fool is Robert Sheard. Sheard is not your typical Wall Street Wise Man. He doesn't have years of experience as a trader or even an M.B.A. from one of the financial diploma mills. When Sheard discovered The Motley Fool, he was a regular guy -- an English professor, for crying out loud -- and a total novice investor. But what he found on The Motley Fool was the inspiration, the encouragement, and the information he needed to take his nest egg and turn it into a profitable stock portfolio.
The first challenge that Sheard faced -- just like every other novice investor -- was the uncertainty of the stock market. The Wall Street mantra is and always has been "buy low, sell high." Seems simple enough until you try to do it. Or even begin thinking about trying to reap profits from the arcane whirlwind of facts and figures that the financial gurus throw around. The uncertainty that those facts, figures, and gurus add to the idea of investing is the single most powerful force keeping the professional fund managers in business. What you'll find here is everything you need to get over that fear of the unknown and take control of your own financial destiny.
The Unemotional Investor offers you a purely mechanical set of approaches for investing in stocks. These intriguingly simple formulas for investing have yielded gains in recent years that have crushed the market averages. One, in fact, that you'll find here has returned an average of almost 40 percent a year for the last ten years. Here, all subjectivity, all emotional decision-making, all second-guessing is eliminated. If you can look at two numbers and tell which of them is larger, you have all the basic skills necessary to manage your own stock portfolio. The secret is in knowing where to look for the right numbers to compare. And that's precisely what you'll learn here in a simple step-by-step, number-by-number approach.
It doesn't matter whether you're an absolute beginner or have been working with a broker for the last twenty years, this book will show you where to find the information you need, how to evaluate it, how to buy the stocks you pick and manage the portfolio that you build. Here, for the first time, you'll learn not only when to buy but when to sell. The Unemotional Investor takes you from the most basic understanding of how the market works through buying your first stocks, to managing and diversifying your portfolio, and, finally, to a method for putting (and keeping) it all together. You'll discover here that regardless of how experienced or inexperienced an investor you are, no matter how much education you've had or money you start with, it's possible for you to build the wealth you want.
Robert Sheard has been where you are. Now he has explored these existing approaches to investing and developed new twists on them, and he's taught them to thousands of others online in the Foolish Workshop. So, take your first step toward financial independence. Take The Unemotional Investor home, and soon you'll find yourself proudly boasting that you're a Fool, a Motley Fool.
