Lightpen - Re: your selection criteria for your personal investing choices,
The companies I go long on must have:
1) High growth potential
2) Good management
3) Strong PR
4) Proven track record
Please explain what you mean by Strong PR ... good marketing??
I find your criteria to be similar to my own though would add one thing to your list. I like Dell in part because the firm's CEO is also its largest shareholder. This aligns the interests of the firm's management with that of small shareholders such as myself. Dell enjoys the incentives and natural economies of an owner-managed firm, and in this respect behaves more like an individual proprietorship than the usual bureaucratic corporation.
Large, owner-managed "proprietorships" unfortunately are difficult to find. MSFT, Schwab, and Wal-Mart (back in the days of Sam Walton) are examples that come to mind. They do tend to make exceptional long term investments, IMO, BTW, Schwab, over the past 5 yrs. has out-performed MSFT!
All of these great entrepreneurs --Gates, Schwab, Walton and Dell -- probably think of their firms as their own. Couple that with the fact that all are, by personal disposition, naturally given to the creation and production of wealth. What you have, IMO, is a formula for successful investing, provided the stocks are not outlandishly priced when you buy in. All the aforementioned stocks over periods lasting for several years --or longer, were systematically underpriced. This suggests that opportunities to buy into such companies, while they may not be common, do at least occasionally come along.
Regards,
Geoff |
