Strictly for Investing Novices

Dear Investing Novices, welcome to Saul’s Investing Discussions

Over the last few months the number of posts has multiplied to the point where Saul has had to engage the help of several “old-timers.” They help him patrol the board to keep the number of superfluous and off-topic posts down. Many of the posts were by beginners not familiar with Saul’s Rules of this Board, asking basic investment questions.

Saul’s board has the singular focus of analyzing and discussing individual rapidly growing stocks and nothing else. Many questions an investing novice has and which deserve an answer are, alas, not suited for this board and should not be answered by more experienced investors who often cannot resist posting replies instead of answering off-board.

To start as a novice here with Saul’s board without knowing the fundamentals of investing would be like trying to dance the Mambo without first knowing how to walk. It sure wouldn’t look like this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSaC8X7oNiA. It takes the basics of staying upright, knowing where your feet are and lots of training. The same goes for investing, the basics before any fancy footwork. It also makes following this board more fruitful and enjoyable. If you follow Saul, you’ll see it takes a lot of studying and discipline to develop a successful investing approach.

I highly recommend subscribing to one or two of the Fool’s paid services specializing in high growth companies as many of us here do. Many if not most of the companies we follow here were originally recommended either on the Stock Advisor Service or the Rule Breakers Service, see below. My advice is to read, read, read and ask questions on the appropriate boards listed below. I hope this information is helpful.

A SUMMARY OF OFF-Topics on SAUL’s BOARD

Saul’s board is solely for the for discussion and analyzing of individual growth stocks as Saul patiently reiterates in his weekly post “Monday Morning Rules for the Board” (and fewer and fewer people seem to read, recommend or heed them). Basically everything other than the discussion and analysis of individual high growth stocks is OFF-TOPIC and should not appear on this board nor should be one sentence celebrations of what the market and our stocks are doing or other non-informative exclamations, see https://boards.fool.com/monday-morning-rules-of-the-board-34…, https://boards.fool.com/saul39s-monday-morning-rules-of-the-…

INVESTING BASICS FOR BEGINNERS

A. Join the Fool Services Focused on Growth Stocks
1.1 Stock Advisor Service, https://www.fool.com/premium/stock-advisor/
1.2 Rule Breakers Service, https://www.fool.com/premium/rule-breakers/

Both services have specific boards devoted to basic investment questions and portfolio management. Their knowledgeable paid staff is very good at responding to specific questions and situations. They will take the time to answer in detail questions, s.a. “I am a new investor and have xxx USD to invest.” The answer depends on a number of things, like life circumstances, temperament, risk aversion, amount of money available, and so on.

Here are the boards that can provide answers.

B. FREE MOTLEY FOOL EDUCATION

How to Invest
https://www.fool.com/
Series of articles, see drop down menu. Here are the topics covered:

1. LEARN HOW TO INVEST
How to Invest in Stocks, https://www.fool.com/how-to-invest/index.aspx
Start Investing with $100 a Month
Investing Knowledge Center
Learn Options Trading
Guide to Index, Mutual & ETF Funds
How to Build a Dividend Portfolio
Investing for Retirement

TRACK YOUR PERFORMANCE
Portfolio Tracker
Rate & Research Stocks - CAPS

INVESTING ACCOUNTS
Compare Brokerage Accounts
Compare IRA Account

INVESTING TOOLS
Financial Calculators

2. The Motley Fool Knowledge Center
https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/index.aspx

Another excellent source with major topics covered as follows:
Accounting Terms
Investing
Personal Finance
Retirement Planning
Taxes

C. The Motley Fool Open Boards

–Investing for Beginners
https://boards.fool.com/investing-beginners-112963.aspx?

The board is not frequented much and I am not sure how helpful the advice is. I found an occasional good post.

–Portfolio Management
https://boards.fool.com/portfolio-management-100153.aspx?mid…

Also not frequented very much.

List of Other Off-Topic Boards https://boards.fool.com/i-thought-it-might-be-useful-to-prov…

Very helpful if you are new to the Fool.

D. SAUL’S INVESTING STYLE AND PHILOSOPHY

To learn Saul’s Investing Philosophy and how he invests, the first 5 references, also posted on the right under “Announcements,” are highly recommended reading. In addition, the End of Month Summaries provide insight into his investing decisions.

Saul’s three-part Knowledge-base.
Repeat reading is recommended for investing novices, https://boards.fool.com/knowledgebase-newly-revised-part-1-3….

  1. How Saul picks a Company to Invest In, https://boards.fool.com/how-i-pick-a-company-to-invest-in-33…

  2. Why Saul’s Investing Criteria have changed, https://boards.fool.com/why-my-investing-criteria-have-chang…

  3. Why it Really is Different - SaaS Companies/sub-software, https://boards.fool.com/oh-this-time-it8217s-different-33123…

  4. Category Crushers, https://boards.fool.com/category-crushers-and-my-portfolio-3…

  5. End of Month Summaries, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yF_lLGs3pI4SPcYOfIvpO5FY…

  6. Monday Morning Rules of the Board, posted every Monday

Success and Fun!

I. M.

69 Likes