Many younger investors are simply stock traders.  Though I have traded stocks, I am not a trader. I am an investor in companies.  I’ve heard people bemoan buy and hold is dead and other nonsense that gets uttered in every bear market.  Stocks are always traded-- that makes a market, but continuously outsmarting the direction of the market is a skill I still have not run across in anyone.  Investing in the right companies will always yield the highest returns in the long run and need not be full time job of trading and deciphering chart patterns.  If that really worked we’d just have a program automatically doing it anyway--and that’s the patented software company I’d be heavily invested in.

Recently a few investors took me up on two stocks I’ve owned for the long term.  Coach and Marvel.  Now I give these stocks as examples to illustrate traders versus investors.  Neither of these stocks is in the technology portfolios I will profile in the newsletter but both are stocks I chose to own for different reasons.  Coach (COH) has yielded me a return of about 200% in two years and Marvel (MVL) more than 400%.  Of course the message board traders could have picked up 20% and 40% in just three months after I highlighted them as good picks based on analyzing the companies…then again the markets were up generally over those same few months.  But I am not a trader so I am “only” up 200% and 400% over two years in what has been a down market.  For all traders I say good luck, for all investors I say UNDERSTAND your investments.

Now obviously high returns can be found in different areas; as a handbag and a comic book company just verified.  This investment newsletter will focus however on investment returns in technology markets.