Have you seen that ad on Yahoo!'s finance pages -- the one titled "Learn How to Trade Like a Pro"? Michael Parness claims to have turned $33,000 into $7 million in less than two years, and he wants to tell you his secrets.
Does that make you feel greedy? It does for me. But let's think about this for a moment.
Make-sense-o-meter
To turn $33,000 into $7 million in two years requires a 1,356% return each year. Wow! I'm not saying that's impossible, but not even renowned investor Warren Buffett ever claimed returns that good. Maybe that's just the successful trades ...
But even more importantly, why in the world is Parness willing to share his secrets with you and me? In just three more years, he could reach $21 billion. Surely that's enough to retire on.
Three chances to mess up
Parness' system uses options. These are securities that rely upon the short-term price movement of an underlying stock, not the performance of the company at all.
With an option, you have to be right three times in order to make money -- the right underlying company, the right time frame, and the right price-movement direction. Make one mistake, and you could end up losing a fortune.
Get it right once
I know it's really exciting to follow people pushing easy ways to get rich. But the tried-and-true method of actually making a fortune in the market is to find companies that do well in their niche, buy them, and hold on. Let the company's efforts make you rich.
That's what I mean by getting it right once. Only one decision -- the buy decision. It's not nearly as exciting. Sorry.
How can you find companies worth investing in? One way is to look for companies that earn high returns for their investors, meaning that the company's resources are well-managed and growing, without using a lot of debt.
Here are a few firms that fit the bill:
|
Return on Capital (TTM)* |
3-Year Average Revenue Growth |
Debt-to-Capital (MRQ)** |
3-Year Return | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) |
35.6% |
24.5% |
1.83% |
74.9% |
|
Frontier Oil (NYSE: FTO) |
46.6% |
24.0% |
12.6% |
128.7% |
|
Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN) |
29.8% |
53.5% |
0.03% |
228.5% |
|
McDermott (NYSE: MDR) |
56.0% |
38.6% |
1.71% |
876.0% |
|
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) |
30.5% |
17.5% |
5.68% |
161.8% |
|
Southern Copper (NYSE: PCU) |
45.1% |
40.8% |
26.9% |
500.9% |
Each of these companies is a leader in its field, be it clothing retail, cell phones, or GPS navigation. They are all growing revenue at a healthy pace. On average, for every dollar invested, they have returned just more than $0.37 over the past year. And few of those invested dollars come from debt. Of the six companies listed, only the two asset-intensive ones, Southern Copper (mines and equipment) and Frontier Oil (refineries), use significant debt.
And over the past three years, with each of these companies, investors only had to be right once.
Now I'm not saying that investments should never be sold -- but if you take the effort to look for high-quality companies, the need to sell will hardly ever arise. After all, didn't Warren Buffett say that his projected holding time is forever? Making the right decision the first time gives us a great chance of turning our invested dollars into fortunes.
Getting it right 26 times
These are the kinds of companies that Tom and David Gardner, co-founders of The Motley Fool, are looking for and finding in their Stock Advisor newsletter service. After nearly six years, the brothers are beating the S&P 500 index by an average of 41 percentage points per pick.
Curious about which stocks they think have a good chance of doubling or more in the future? Take a free 30-day trial and see. There's no obligation.
Jim Mueller is planning to patent his "make-sense-o-meter," license it, and make a fortune. If that doesn't pan out, maybe his holding in Garmin will instead. He also owns shares of Southern Copper, but not of any other company mentioned. Garmin is a Stock Advisor recommendation. The Fool's disclosure policy makes cents.
