What is included with this book?
Preface | ix | ||||
Acknowledgments | xiii | ||||
Author's Notes | xv | ||||
Introduction | xvii | ||||
PART I. THE CONCEPT-MEAN REVERSION AND CONTRARIAN INVESTING | 1 | (22) | |||
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3 | (20) | |||
PART II. THE TOOLS-THE DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE | 23 | (76) | |||
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25 | (16) | |||
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41 | (58) | |||
PART III. THE STRATEGY-BASIC AND ADVANCED WORST-TO-FIRST STRATEGIES | 99 | (68) | |||
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101 | (22) | |||
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123 | (22) | |||
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145 | (22) | |||
PART IV. THE PORTFOLIO-PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER | 167 | (14) | |||
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169 | (12) | |||
PART V. THE COMPETITION-DOGS VERSUS UNDERDOGS | 181 | (24) | |||
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183 | (22) | |||
PART VI. THE NAYSAYERS-POINT/COUNTERPOINT | 205 | (16) | |||
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207 | (14) | |||
PART VII. CONCLUSION | 221 | (10) | |||
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223 | (8) | |||
PART VIII. THE HISTORY-TRACKING THE DOW COMPONENT PERFORMANCE | 231 | (2) | |||
Appendix: Dow Components and Return Data-1930 Through 2003 | 233 | (38) | |||
References | 271 | (2) | |||
Index | 273 |
The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
I'm about to reveal to you an investment strategy that is so powerful yet so simple and logical that it will change the way you invest. Bold statement? You bet. But it's also true.
Indeed, by following this simple strategy, since the end of 1930, an investor would have turned a $1,000 investment into $2 million. That's roughly double the return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over that same time frame. Of course, few of us have 74 years to invest. So let's look at how the strategy performed over shorter time frames:
To summarize, this investment strategy has handily beaten the Dow Jones Industrial Average
And if you don't think the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a worthy benchmark to beat, consider this: The Dow Jones Industrial Average has whipped the S&P 500 Index, Wilshire 5000, Nasdaq Composite, and most other major market indexes over the last 5 years, as the following chart shows:
The Worst-To-First Phenomenon
Everyone's favorite investment mantra is "buy low, sell high." The problem is that nobody actually buys low and sells high. Rather, we buy high and (we hope) sell even higher.
The stock market is the only market on earth where the merchandise becomes more popular as it becomes more expensive. Why? Because investors feel comfortable staying with the herd when it comes to buying stock. After all, if everyone loves a stock and its price is rising, it must be worth buying, right?
The problem is that investing with the herd is a surefire way to lose money. Look at all the technology stocks that soared in the late '90s only to come crashing down in the last 3 years. Everyone wanted to buy those technology stocks when they were skyrocketing and trading at extreme prices; nobody wanted to buy them when they crashed.
Successful investing is all about forcing you to do the smart thing even when your emotions are telling you otherwise. And the smart thing to do as an investor is to buy low and sell high. Fortunately, strategies exist that force investors to buy high-quality stocks when they are down and to sell them when they are up. I call them my worst-to-first strategies.
These strategies emerged as a product of my research into the Dow Jones Industrial Average. As an editor of Dow Theory Forecasts investment newsletter and a money manager, I've been following the Dow for more than 20 years. During my research of Dow stocks, one theme that jumped out was how the Dow's losers in one year (that is, the Dow stocks showing the greatest percentage price decline for the year) became winners the next.
This worst-to-first phenomenon has been especially pronounced in recent years. For example, in 1999, the worst-performing stock in the Dow was Philip Morris (now called Altria). An investment in the tobacco giant lost a whopping 54 percent of its value in 1999. In 2000, however, the story was much different for Philip Morris shareholders. To say Philip Morris rebounded would be an understatement; the stock was the best-performing issue in the Dow in 2000, returning 105 percent. In fact, Philip Morris's triple-digit return in 2000 was nearly twice the return of the runner-up that year, aerospace giant Boeing. Even more impressive was that while investors were more than doubling their investment in Philip Morris in 2000, the Dow actually lost money (nearly 5 percent) during the year.
In 2000, same story, different players. The two worst-performing stocks in the Dow in 2000 were AT&T (down 65 percent) and software behemoth Microsoft (down 63 percent).
Winning with the Dow's Losers
Excerpted from Winning with the Dow's Losers: Beat the Market with Underdog Stocks by Charles B. Carlson
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