Eight Secrets to Improving Your Portfolio Returns

There are a few situations where it may be okay to maintain the status quo, even if your answer is “no.” Perhaps your deferred taxes have grown so large as a result of a very small cost basis that selling and switching into an investment you expect to earn even three percentage points or more over the next decade will actually cost you money as a result of the principle value lost to the IRS. Maybe, even, it’s a simple matter of familiarity and comfort. It was Philip Fisher, author of the groundbreaking Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, who often exhorted his readers to be cautious about trading in the stock of a company they have known for many years and come to understand well for one with which they are not as familiar as it introduces different types of risk.

• Introduction
• Don’t Confuse Growth Rate with the Rate of Your Compounding
• Keep Turnover as Low as Possible
• Know the Power of Reinvested Dividends
• Do Your Portfolio an Enormous Favor: Take a College Course in Basic Accounting
• Stay Within Your Circle of Competence
• Ask the Peter Lynch Question
• How You Hold Your Investments Can Be a Multi-Million Dollar Decision
• Only Look at Market Quotations on a Quarterly Basis