Hitting home runs with stock picks = Excitement
Long-term investment strategies = Boring
One relies on speculation and the other relies on sound, investment planning. Can you guess which is which?
Speculative investing, by nature, is guessing (educated or not) on a specific stock/industry/geographic region/asset class with the intent to take advantage of mispriced securities or “new” information. I do see the excitement in potentially making a huge return from a “unique” investment idea. However, the risk associated with this is too much to bear for a retirement income plan.
The link below is an article by Jim Parker of Dimensional Fund Advisors. Jim addresses the who’s and why’s of speculative investing and also touches upon how to satisfy the innate need to “out-perform the market” while not compromising one’s long-term investment plan.
