The Right Path To Investment Success

Picking the right stocks involves deep research that most investors can't do on their own. Here's how the suite of Value Research products and Stock Advisor can help.

- Dhirendra Kumar

There are two radically different approaches to equity investing. One says that choosing good stocks and making money off them is supposed to be a matter of innate skill, instinct and perhaps a little luck, too. The other emphasises process, research, principles, rules, etc. For the most part, individual investors seem to believe in the former approach, while institutions and professional investors profess a belief in the latter. Obviously, that's exactly what you'd expect. However, the path to investing success is a little more complex than that.

Does this mean that as an individual, you cannot be successful in investing? After all, you have to systematically research a large number of companies; apply some standardised, rigorous process on each; pay close attention to their business, finances, management, competition, technology and more; and then choose the ones worth investing in. After you invest in them, you have to keep a close eye on them and see that there are no unpleasant surprises. Can an individual investor do all this, especially when he or she is likely leading a whole other professional life?

There is likely no individual investor in the world who manages to do this. However, there are many who manage to do the equivalent by farming out a certain part of the work to pro ssionals. The amount of work you farm out can be less or more depending on how much you want to learn and do yourself and what your skill set is, which is where Value Research Stock Advisor comes in.