My 5 Tips to Set Your Portfolio Up for the Long Haul Dear Louis, Thanksgiving is just two days away, and I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to spending the extra time with family and friends, eating turkey and watching a little football. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'd like to share my most important investing tips to prime your portfolio to flourish in the coming months. Let's get right to it. 1. Invest in high margin companies that dominate their business. A company that's able to expand its operating margins is usually a company that has a dominant position – such as a monopoly – in its industry. This company can raise prices without seeing a drop-off in sales, and that's a nice place to be, especially in the current inflationary environment. 2. Along these lines, companies that have margin expansion tend to post bigger earnings surprises. This is one reason why I like the oil refiners right now. They have dramatic profit margin expansion and are also profiting from rising natural gas and crude oil prices. 3. Invest in companies with strong forecasted sales and earnings. Do you really want to buy stock in a company that's expecting its growth to slow? As sales and earnings dwindle, so will Wall Street's interest in the stock. You want to invest in companies that are expecting to be even bigger and better quarter after quarter. Ultimately, these are the ones that will see an increase in institutional buying pressure. As that buying pressure increases, so will the stock price.
I am a stickler about this in Growth Investor. In this service, Growth Investor stocks are characterized by 23.7% annual sales growth and 506.3% annual earnings growth. Furthermore, my Growth Investor stocks continue to soundly beat the S&P 500 this year by over 2 to 1. 4. Look for companies that see positive analyst revisions in the past three months, as these typically post earnings surprises. If a stock beats Wall Street's earnings forecast by a significant amount, share prices can rally dramatically. When I find an unsung stock that has regularly performed better than the "experts" have predicted, I recommend it on the premise that it should top expectations again – and see shares surge when it does. 5. If you're a dividend investor, focus on companies that are consistently raising their dividends. You want to be sure you're investing in dividend stocks that have the ability to increase their dividend payments. I check this by looking at the company's last four dividend payments. Are they increasing? Are they decreasing? Are they staying the same? Decreasing dividend payments is a bad sign (it often means the company isn't doing well), and you want to avoid those stocks. Where to Invest First For all investors, old and new, my Stock Grader (subscription required) is a great tool to keep in your back pocket. You simply plug in a stock you like and it will automatically grade that stock for you. An A-rating is a "Strong Buy," a B-rating a "Buy," a C-rating a "Hold," a D-rating a "Sell," and an F-rating is a "Strong Sell." You'll know right away whether the stock you're interested in is one worth buying or one you shouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. If you're not sure of where to invest, I encourage you to check out Growth Investor. This service is chock-full of fundamentally superior companies across a variety of sectors to ensure that you're investing in stocks that will "zig" when others "zag" – which will give your portfolio an extra boost when the broader market rallies, as well as protect it if the broader market turns south. So, the time to position your portfolio is now. Fundamentally superior stocks should benefit from new pension funding in the upcoming weeks and the overall seasonally strong time of year. My Growth Investor subscribers have the odds in their favor with stocks with phenomenal sales and earnings growth. Join Growth Investor today so you do, too. Sincerely, | .png)
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