Research

I l @ ve RuBoard

Research is a vague term , and it could include pretty much anything. Asking people to share their experiences is research, so is requesting a copy of the company's annual report. Checking the general press is research, as is digging up evaluations of the stock on the Internet. As a result, a precise definition of "research," one that applies to every stock and/or investor, is difficult to give.

That does not mean that research in itself is impossible to determine, but rather that each individual investor needs to determine for himself or herself which "research" pertains to the type of investment decisions he or she is evaluating. Besides asking my brother for his insight into video games, I also checked the total sales of video games per year in the United States on the Internet. I read several articles on the system that was being launched and its implications on the video game market. And I number crunched the stock in question with the formulas we've just learned in Lesson 12, "Evaluating Stocks," immediately after each of the company's previous new product launches.

Any investment decision you make should require some research. The extent is really up to you, but the time you are willing to contribute toward being ultrafamiliar with your investment decision correlates absolutely with the investment's success. By cheating on investment research time, you are ultimately cheating yourself. Make no mistakes about it; this kind of cheating will cost you cold hard cash.

I l @ ve RuBoard