GIVE YOURSELF AN EDGE
1. Believe in the power of the markets as a whole: Avoid distractions from media news or market reactions to make inefficient and costly emotional decisions.
2. Focus on what drives higher expected returns: Diversification, company size, relative price and profitability
3. Diversify among different stocks and bonds: Capture the broad market and its total return, but with a tilt towards stocks that encompass the drivers of higher expected returns, to benefit. This implementation has created a higher chance of earning a rewarding long term result compared to a more traditional, small grouping stock portfolio with over-weightings in select stocks and bonds.
4. Don't try to outguess the market: Active mutual fund managers try to do this. Research has shown most active stock and bond picking strategies close down their funds due to under-performance over time. Instead, implement strategies that have been proven to create a higher chance of working long term in your favor.
5. Keep fees and costs low: Fees and investment costs can cause a large difference between actual performance and benchmark (average), resulting in lower than expected investment returns. A successful investment experience also requires the opportunity to invest at a low reasonable price.
6. Incorporate education, not speculation: No one can predict where the markets or an individual stock are going to go, so there is no point in speculating. Instead, focusing on the above items as well as what can create more odds in your favor of positive outcomes from proven research, will likely give you a better long term investment experience.