Investor's Business Daily Articles

A discussion at the close of the meeting last night led me to look for this article on a concise and not too diversified portfolio. In short, if you really want to be broadly "diversified," just buy shares of SPY or a mutual fund.
Check it out.
Tapping The Power Of A Concise Portfolio

Also, here is an article that gives somewhat of a description of the IBD philosophy, at least the technical side of the approach, being based on a rigorous study of greatly successful stocks throughout the history of the market.
History Always Repeats Itself In Stock Market

I've recommended it before and I'll do it again. Buy William O'neil's book, How to Make Money in Stocks. It explains everything about his journey toward developing his successful approach to investing and ultimately the IBD CANSLIM approach. It's all based on the study of the past. It is very clearly written and makes a ton of sense. I think it is a fantastic complement to the Investools Education and the Investor Toolbox. Not only does it explain what to look for in a stock both fundamentally and technically, but it explains why those those criteria are significant. To my mind, the latter part is what is crucial to understand, the why. It is to this end that I feel Investools comes up a bit short and why I feel the IBD materials are a great complement.

In short, if you plan to invest time and money in the stock market on an ongoing basis, I feel that this is a MUST READ.

The IBD Website has plenty of great stuff to read even on the free site.

Quote from the January 17 Forbes Success desk calendar:

It is a funny thing about life--
If you refuse to accept anything but the
best, you very often get it.

---Somerset Maugham

Do you think that someone who refused to accept anything but the best would trade or invests without ANY kind of rules, much less a plan of some sort?
I didn't see the movie The Pursuit of Happiness. But this article on Chris Gardner paints a pretty impressive picture of determination and discipline. What did he do other than go after it? Do you think he's really made of anything different than you or I?

Start somewhere.

Even if it is super simple and basic, make a plan for what you want to do and basically how you'll do it. That plan might be to learn and understand the basic investools 5 step basic stocks approach. Maybe you want to be able to invest over the course of your life and count on beating the performance of the market. Aggressive trading could be your focus. It might be to develop a certain understanding of technical analysis. Whatever it is, now is the time to identify it.

Easier said than done, but no one will do it for you.