The Ultimate Secret In the Stock Market

Dear Investor,

I won't say you can't find this secret anywhere else. Maybe it's there in books like You Can Be a Stock Market Genius or How to Make $1,000,000 in the Stock Market Automatically. Maybe Robert Kiyosaki writes about it in Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Maybe not.

I wouldn't know — I'm not going to read those books. I don't need to, because I already know the most important secret. And I'm more than happy to give it all away.

Here's what I saw

Expressed in easy-to-read black and white on a page or two of numbers was an astonishing demonstration of long-term investment success. Almost position by position, stocks that were trading for $30, $40, $50 a share on that day had been held for years and years, invested at cost bases of $1.57, $2.34, $0.88.
What I saw that day is what every young investor should see: Finding good companies and holding those positions tenaciously over time can yield multiples upon multiples of your original investment.That's what great investors do …

*Warren Buffett has done it with classic American brands Coca-Cola and American Express.

*Philip Fisher did it with Motorola and Texas Instruments.

*Shelby Davis did it with American International Group.

The act of doing it is part of what made them great investors. And after finding good companies, boy, do you ever work a lot less than people making dozens of trades a week, following fast-talking TV gurus or somebody's overpriced charting software.

Is the greatest secret of all even a secret?

Maybe not, but judging by the short-term mind-set of many investors — individual and institutional alike — it may as well be.
So scribble this down and put it on your fridge door:
Find good companies and hold those positions tenaciously over time to yield multiples upon multiples of your original investment.