Brad Castro

Fractured Wall Street Fairy Tales #1: Buy and Hold is the Best Strategy

Instead of referring to buy and hold, maybe we should talk about investing. Buying and holding an index is not investing - it's a quasi-sophisticated savings account that can just as easily lose value as gain it.

I try to approach investing in the stock market as I would investing in a personal business. If I started my own dry cleaning business, it wouldn't be with the intention of flipping the business in 6 months or less. It would be for the long haul, and my own rewards would hinge on the long term success of the business itself. The more profitable the business, the greater my profits.

That's why stock selection is so crucial. I should spend just as much time researching and considering a stock investment as I would developing my own business plan.

But what percentage of market participants are actual investors? It seems that most people in the markets are convinced that the only way they can make money is to make near term bets on whether something will go up, go down, or stay flat.

Talk about tedious . . .

Bank of America Continues to Stand Strong

Yikes - I generally try not to be negative, but this is an embarrassingly bad and poorly reasoned article. An annual low on Friday? Uh, how about an ALL TIME low?

I sympathize with employees of and investors in BAC (I actually purchased shares last year for my kiddo's account - I guess I'll be having to make some extra deposits now) but let's be honest. BAC is in no way standing strong. At best, it's on its hands and knees, battered and bruised and trying to find somewhere safe to crawl away to so it can try to mend itself. Unfortunately, right now there's no such place.