PRINCIPLE 04

Buy and hold

Stock prices go up and down all day long. That’s why there’s a thing called a stock ticker – a real-time scrolling display of every stock’s current price, which you can often see at the bottom of televised newscasts.

Rather than get excited or deflated over a stock’s short-term movements, it’s better to take the emotion out of it, think about the big picture and invest over the long term.

The investors that do the best are the ones that buy a diversified collection of stocks (portfolio) and hold on to them through good times and bad.