CONTACT CAROLINE
facebook
rss
tumblr
twitter
goodreads
youtube

  • Home
  • Write Away Blog
  • Books
    • Books
    • Trompe l’Oeil
    • Heart Land
    • Gothic Spring
    • Ballet Noir
    • Book Excerpts
  • Video Interviews
  • Press
    • News
    • Print Interviews
    • Plays
    • Ballet Noir in the Press
    • Trompe l’Oeil In The Press
    • Gothic Spring In The Press
    • Heart Land Reviews
  • Contact
  • About
  • Resources
    • Writer Resources
    • Favorite Blogs
    • Favorite Artists



Allan Sloan’s 3 Commandments For Investors

Mar 11, 2013
by Caroline Miller
Allan Sloan, Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett
0 Comment

Allan Sloan, as I’ve mentioned, is one of my favorite financial columnists. He’s funny, he’s clear and he majors in common sense. His latest column in Fortune reminds investors of the three rules they should follow to avoid losing great sums of money in the stock market. They are rules as old as the market itself and the hardest to follow, harder than “Thou Shalt Not Covet.”(Three Lessons for Apple’s Shareholders” by Allan Sloan, Fortune, 2/25/13, pg. 40).

 His first commandment is: “Thou Shalt Not Run with the Herd, Lest Ye be Trampled.” This lesson I learned from my stockbroker. In my early days, I often called him to suggest a hot stock I’d read about in one magazine or another. He’d listen patiently then sigh. “Caroline, if everyone knows about it, it’s already oversold and overpriced.” In time, I learned to appreciate his wisdom.

 Sloan’s second commandment is as difficult to follow as the first: “Thou Shalt Not Fall in Love with a Stock.” I’m guilty of this sin, too. Once I bought a hot bio technology stock with more promise than a track record. My broker advised against it but I didn’t listen. I bought at $3.00 a share and watched it bounce up to $70 during the dot com boom. When it fell back to $40, I bought more, thinking I was getting a bargain. I own the stock today at $1.58 per share.

 The third commandment is:  “Thou Shalt Not Believe in the Infallibility of a CEO.” Chief Executive Officers are like stock pundits. When the market is going up, they look good. When the market is going down, they look like the rest of us, fallible. Usually when a stock’s value drops, there are calls for the CEO’s head. Sometimes there’s justification for it. Much of the time the market is in a trend, as it was 2008-2010. Few, if anyone, could have performed well then, not even the Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett. CEO’s are important but if they’re selling widgets in a wadget world, no one can perform a miracle.

 Of course the Golden Rule of Investing everyone knows. The wonder is so few follow it: “Buy Low and Sell high.”

Allan Sloan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Allan Sloan courtesy of money.cnn.com)

 

 

 

Social Share

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

Subscribe to Caroline’s Blog


 

Archives

Categories

YouTube-logo-inline2 To access and subscribe to my videos on YouTube, Click Here and click the Subscribe button.

Banner art “The Receptive” by Charlie White of Charlie White Studio

Web Admin: ThinPATH Systems, Inc
support@tp-sys.com

Subscribe to Caroline's Blog


 

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Sitemap | Privacy Notice

AUDIO & VIDEO VAULT

View archives of Caroline’s audio and videos interviews.


Copyright © Books by Caroline Miller