Think of Your Stocks Like Real Estate
Monday December 1, 2008
This past week, I was considering buying a home near my parents so that when I was back in area, I would have a place from which to work and live. With the real estate market falling to 2004 prices, on average, it seemed a good time to buy (value investing is not limited to stocks – it’s a business philosophy). Anyway, I made an opening offer roughly 10.6% below the list price, which was more than reasonable given the current economic environment, the fact that I don’t need a property per se, and my outlook for real estate values over the next five to ten years. Continue reading ...
Well put. Interestingly, when you start running into folks that aren’t even thinking this way about their houses, than it’s probably a good sign that there’s trouble brewing.
You might be interested in a recent post on my blog entitled “Superficial Investing, Misunderstanding Under (and Over) Performance, and On Being an Optimistic Skeptic”:
http://blog.joshrichards.org/2008/12/superficial-investing-misunderstanding.html
Also, a couple years back I ran across an old book (well, 1967) called “20 Million Careless Capitalists – How To Take Better Care Of the Money You Have In the Stock Market” by Henderson/Lasher.
The inside flap starts out:
“They invest billions of dollars worth of their hard-earned savings in the stock of AT&T, GM, IBM, and smaller corporations. Yet they don’t know the names of the men who run their companies, what their sales and earnings are, whether they’re expanding or shrinking – and what’s more, they hardly seem to care.”
Seems up your alley.
-jr