Don’t Let This Investing Mistake Destroy Your Portfolio

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Don’t Let This Investing Mistake Destroy Your Portfolio

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It’s one of the most dangerous investing mistakes you can make.

Crowd-seeking… that innate human reflex to follow the crowd.

It makes a lot of sense in some ways. How many times have you eaten at the “hottest restaurant in town” because it’s so hard to get a reservation?

And if you see smoke pouring out of a building and a large group of people running toward you, you’re probably wise to join them in the direction they’re going.

But making great investing decisions isn’t that straightforward. When it comes to stocks and the markets, often the crowd is just plain wrong. People overreact. They buy too late or sell too late, ending up with middle-of-the-road returns, or even losses, on stocks that were big winners for other folks.

I was thinking of this while recently listening to the financial media talking heads. Everywhere you look the talk is gloom and doom. It’s almost as if this bear market condemns every stock in the market to never-ending losses… and recovery seems so far out into the future that no one can even see it.

Indeed, the latest AAII Investor Sentiment Survey found that 52.8% of investors are bearish on the stock market in the next six months. I should also add that bullish sentiment is declining. On June 29, bullish sentiment stood at 22.8%. As of July 6, bullish sentiment slipped to 19.4%.

The negative sentiment is understandable. The fact of the matter is bear markets are brutal, and it’s frustrating to all investors – me included. It’s hard to see your hard-earned money disappear.

But there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, and I think right now is a great time to start buying stocks!

Why now?

Let’s start with the obvious: Too many people have “thrown the baby out with the bathwater.”

Longtime readers know that I pick stocks based on solid fundamentals, including sales growth and profit growth. And guess what? Some of those superior stocks – with higher sales and growing operating margins – have taken it on the chin this year, too.

But here’s the good news: Great stocks like that eventually bounce like fresh tennis balls, while bad stocks fall like rocks. So, I fully expect fundamentally superior stocks to rebound as investors flock to companies that can continue to grow their sales and earnings in the current economic environment.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a recovery today or tomorrow. We will most likely see more pain in this market until it’s clear that inflation is moderating and recession fears are decreasing.

So, it’s important that we take a step back and look at the big picture.

The stock market has averaged a positive annual return of 10% for the past 100 years, with plenty of downturns and bear markets hitting Wall Street during that time frame.

If you invest for the long term, I can guarantee you are going to have to endure even more declines and bear markets like we’re seeing now.

But if you’ve been in the market for any time at all, you probably know that these down markets can offer some brilliant bargains…

And that’s exactly what’s happening now.

As I mentioned last Friday, stock valuations are ridiculous. In some cases, stocks are going for under 10X forecasted earnings for large caps, and barely 4X forecasted earnings for some small caps.

I’ve never seen valuations like this – ever!

This is especially great news for hyperscalable companies. Remember, these are the companies that can massively grow revenues while minimally growing the costs associated with producing those revenues. And now the hyperscalable business model is about to hit all sorts of industries and create enormous long-term wealth for shareholders, no matter what happens next to the market or the economy.

And thanks to the bear market, there’s a rare chance to buy the best of these stocks at the bottom.

Legendary investor Whitney Tilson – CNBC dubbed him “The Prophet” for accurately predicting so many major market moves – and I don’t want you to miss this exciting opportunity. That is why Whitney and I just sat down for our 2 Legends Predict 2022 event. During that event, we discuss an upcoming product unveiling in downtown Houston that could reshape the market… and create millionaires on a single investment.

We predict this year’s shake-up could soon hit a major turning point that will cause some stocks to crash even further, while others could soon rise 500% to 1,000%, all following this huge event in Texas. It’s set to take place on August 29.

Also during this event, Whitney and I share a free recommendation – ticker symbol and all. In case you missed this special briefing, you can watch a replay of it here.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/market360/2022/07/dont-let-this-investing-mistake-destroy-your-portfolio/.

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