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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Value Investors Compatible with Growth

By Michael Swanson

So you want to make money in the stock market. To do that you have to have a method. The only way to make money is to have a plan.

There are two basic investing methods that successful investors use to make money. They either use a growth or value oriented approach to investing, which looks for companies whose earnings are rapidly growing or whose stock is undervalued, or they employ technical analysis, which examines prior price and volume movements in order to forecast the future price movements of financial assets. Some investors use a combination of strategies, such as William O'Neill who combines a growth and technical approach to investing in his book How to Make Money in Stocks and in his newspaper, Investor's Business Daily.

Growth investors invest when they see the potential for big earnings growth in a company and don't worry how about high or low a stock is valued at. All they want is to see earnings growing. William O'Neill of Investor's Business Daily is the most popular growth investor, because he wrote the book How to Make Money in Stocks that shows you how to be a growth investor. He buys stocks in companies that have quarterly earnings growth of 20% or more. If the company has a new product coming out he likes it even better. He also only buys stocks that are acting stronger than other stocks in its group, although many other growth investors do not look for this.

In bull markets it is the growth stocks that go up the most, because everyone likes things that go up and they go up the most. But there are some scary times in the growth stocks. If the earnings growth stops then the stock can fall very hard because everyone thinks everything will grow forever.

This always happens at some point with growth companies, because nothing can grow forever. Even Wal-Mart had its growth slowdown. When that happens the stock almost always stops going up and if the end of the growth takes people by surprise it can fall very hard.

Because growth stocks tend to be highly valued they are susceptible to large and sudden drops on any negative news. An earnings warning or statements from a CEO that earnings are going to grow at a slower pace are enough to crush investors. Strategies based on growth stock investing do not tell investors to sell until it is too late.

Value investing is the other way investors make money in the stock market. Warren Buffet is the most well known value investor. Value investors like buying stocks in companies that have big book value, pay out dividends, and do not have much debt on their balance sheet. In the best cases they can find a stock that is actually priced lower than the company itself, meaning the company could be sold for more than it stock price say it is worth. It is a bargain.

In a bear market or a big stock market correction you can find bargains and that is when it is time to think about being a Warren Buffett. It happens all of the time. Investors always get scared from time to time and sell stocks at a stupid price. That is when you can buy.

One problem with value investing is that even after a company's earnings picture improves often its stock does not immediately respond. For instance when the price of gold fell from over 400 to under 260 between 1995 and 1998 the stock of large producing gold companies fell to ridiculously low valuations. However, it took two years for gold stocks to start to rally after they bottomed out.

You need to know that it is the growth stocks that go up the most in bull markets, but they fall the most in bear markets too. It is the value investor who knows when to get in cheap and sell high. You have to figure out which strategy you like the most. I combine them both and talk about both. - 23159

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