logo

Is George Soros Long Or Wrong On The Global Rebound?
By: Money Morning   Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:28 PM

So if you're a savvy investor, what steps can you take to translate moves being made by three of the best investors of our time into profits of your own?

A good place to start is by taking the time to understand precisely what drives these guys. Even though Rogers hunts for opportunities around the world, Soros tends to pursue investment plays involving currencies and macroeconomic trends, and Buffett is a deep value guy, they are more alike than they are different. That's especially true since the core elements of the strategies these three investors use to win and profit usually run counter to Wall Street's conventional wisdom.

Take the very concept of profits, as an example. Most people are surprised to learn that none of these gentlemen sits around over coffee in the morning, rolling his hands with an evil laugh as he wonders aloud how much money he's going to make on that day. But nearly all have gone on record at one point or another talking about the importance of not losing money in the first place. They've also repeatedly stressed the importance of waiting until the really compelling opportunities develop before they put their money at risk.

Rogers, once Soros' partner at the Quantum Fund, a hedge fund that's often described as the first real global investment fund, goes a step further. He describes his investment process as a little like waiting until somebody else puts money down in the corner, then "walking over and picking it up."

Another common trait is that not one of these three investors believes that you have to take big risks to make big money. In fact, all three gentlemen believe, as I do, that it's how you concentrate your wealth that matters.

This flies in the face of what Wall Street would have you believe which is that you need to diversify your assets to get ahead. Diversification as Wall Street practices it is a complete misuse of the math and a proxy for an entire establishment that doesn't know what it's doing.

The thinking is that by spreading your money around willy nilly, some of your holdings will rise in value, even as other parts of the portfolio fall. Even so, by diversifying, Wall Street says that you will be better off for it over the long run. Granted, there are some instances where taking steps to "diversify" leaves you better off than if you'd done nothing at all, but one of the critical problems with diversification as Wall Street has practiced it is that it doesn't work when everything goes down at once - as so many investors who had been led to believe they were protected found out the hard way in 2000 and again in 2007.

That's why, for example, I'm a proponent of concentrating my efforts on a few relatively high-probability choices, especially when it comes to trading services, such as the Geiger Index or the New China Trader, for example. It's a strategy that individual investors should consider, as well.

But what matters most is that people put the comments they hear from these guys into perspective and think for themselves.



(0)
No Comments
Post Comment
Name:  
Alert for new comments:
Your email:
Your Website:
Title:
Comments:
   
 
 
 
 
   
 

  
Advertisement

Related Press Releases
Popular Articles
Advertisement
Recent Articles by Money Morning
Advertisement




Subscribe to Email Alerts rss feed or RSS feeds rss feed for articles from more than 300 contributors and press releases, SEC filings and full text news from thousands of sources.
Fundamental data is provided by Zacks Investment Research, market data is provided by AlphaTrade. , and Commentary and Press Releases provided by Quotemedia