I took some time to do my own study and agreed that the “market darling stocks” (high PE, low earnings and growth, etc) were riskier investments than the types of stocks we were honing into on this board (earnings, growth, management, moats, etc).
So after much study, I migrated my investing philosophy away from the “voting machine” and towards the “weighting machine”. I have a mix of stocks, high overlap with some of this board stocks, not just Saul but also with other participants on the board (lots of knowledge here), and some other stocks not as popular here (DIS, AAPL, FTR) that I’ve decided to keep and continue.
I have no doubt I’m in a better long term approach vector, but geez my timing was terrible. I just finished my conversion in late August (?) or so. October killed me. S&P (pretty representative of my previous “voting machine” approach- which I’m no longer using) has grown 10% in October. Meanwhile, my new “weighing machine” approach has dropped 10% in October. 20% negative spread in one month!
This is further exaggerated by my recent influx of available new monies which went later in the season- only to go down down down. So it over-weighted my good years/months and I’m a loss for my entire experience of investing for myself (only three years) for a lifetime result of negative 7%. Ugh.
Its weird to watch the market darlings do well (stock price increase) and the more solid investments get overly punished by good, even great (but not super-uber-fantastic-amazing) earnings. I’m guessing it’s the nature of stocks that have grown a lot and then people look for any reason to get out and profit take.
C’est la vie, I guess this is what separates the men from the boys (or ladies from the girls, as the case may be). As my Dad used to say, “If you can’t pee in the tall grass with the big dogs, stay under the porch”.
Here’s to better months… Bob