99% of books on money and investing waste your time.
They all share the same core lessons but put it a million different ways.
Authenticity is lacking.
And the more you read, the more you’ll realize this.
That’s why you don’t need to read every book on investing available.
You’ll get the same knowledge if you understand these 10 lessons:
1. Invest With Purpose
If you want to build wealth, own appreciating stocks and index funds.
If you want cash flow, own dividend stocks and real estate.
If you want to increase your income, invest in your skillsets.
Why you invest in something is just as important as investing in it.
But don’t get me wrong, investing for investing’s sake is good, but investing with purpose will get you so much further.
2. Investing Isn’t A Scam
You just don’t know what you’re doing in the beginning.
The real scam is spending the best years of your life working a job you hate only to retire to a fragile body with negative memories of work.
Take the time to learn how to invest.
And take the time to learn about the history of the stock market.
It’s never lost money over any 20-year period.
If you bought and held for at least 20 years you were guaranteed to make a profit no matter what time period you bought.
The sooner you start the sooner you’ll realize it’s your only chance to build life-changing wealth without lifting a finger.
3. Generational Wealth Isn’t About The Money
It’s about passing down financial literacy.
Wealth is born out of financial literacy, not the other way around.
If you're serious about creating a legacy, root it in education, not money.
4. You’re Your Own Worst Enemy
How investing works in a nutshell:
Buy stocks when they’re oversold to make money.
Sell stocks when they’re overbought to take profits.
Do nothing to build wealth.
But there’s a teeny tiny issue…
Most people focus on the first 2 and neglect the 3rd.
5. Buy Index Funds
Harsh truth:
95% of professional investment managers underperform their benchmark after 20 years.
Picking stocks is fun, I do it myself.
But 90% of investors should be invested in 90%+ index funds.
This is why even the most successful day traders set a portion of their profits aside to build a long-term, buy-and-hold, portfolio.
6. Investing Vs. Speculating
Investors wait patiently for long-term profits.
Speculators eagerly hope for short-term gains.
Hope is not an investment strategy.
But buying and holding long-term is.
7. The Market Is Cyclical
Bull markets are always followed by corrections and corrections are always followed by bull markets.
The stock market is cyclical and that’s a good thing.
It lets you take advantage of low prices during bear markets to profit during bull markets.
8. Investors ≠ Speculators
The difference between investors and speculators is whether they consistently lose money.
Remember how I said earlier the stock market has never lost money in any 20-year period?
And if you waited 20 years, you made money?
Speculators do neither.
9. Less Is more
You don’t need to invest in 100 different stocks.
You need to invest in the same stock 100 times.
Over-diversification reduces risk, but it also reduces your return.
At a certain point, you need to stop diversifying and just invest especially if your goal is wealth accumulation and not preservation.
10. Know What Not To Do
Knowing what not to invest in is just as valuable as knowing what to invest in.
Everyone likes to focus on how Warren Buffett built his wealth through what he’s done.
But what about what he didn’t do?
He didn’t over-leverage.
And he didn’t give up after some losses.
He didn’t gamble or invest without a plan.
If all you did was avoid impatience, timing the market, active management, and investing on emotion, you’d outperform 90% of investors.
There you have it!
What to do instead of reading books with repurposed financial advice.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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