Investing Strategies

Trading decisions are based on fundamental and technical projection of the past into the future. This section defines and illustrates the differences between fundamental and technical strategies.

Fundamentals

You'll do best with fundamentals if

1. You are great at finding the hidden meanings on the Internet. Use FastTrack to read company news.
2. You are always the first to know about new developments.
3. You want to buy and hold for years.

Technicals

You'll do best with technicals if

1. You have trouble staying awake when reading financial reports.
2. You don't have a lot of time to spend watching CNBC and reading The WSJ everyday.
3. You have some basic knowledge of investing and will make a serious effort to get higher returns with less risk.

• They tell you to buy-and-hold and to avoid timing.
• Then they pump you full of ever-changing lists of the "best", most of which you don't own.
• No one can actively manage their money with such input.

• setting your investing goals.
• Using technical and fundamentals together. See Timing Strategies and Selection Strategies.
• picking the right families of funds and stock sectors. See Picking Sectors.
• moving from issue to issue perhaps 2-4 times a year.

Picking the right investment is a multipart discipline that depends on:

• the risk level appropriate for you. See Risk Assessment.
• your performance objectives with regard to total return. See Investment Objectives.
• the amount of time you have to work over the selections. See Suitability.