No. of Recommendations: 8
There isn't a best way to do any of this investing/trading stuff. There are only ways each would-be investor (or trader) has found to provide good-enough results, all the while being consistent with his/her means, needs, interests, goals, opportunities, and obligations, a point that Schwager drives home in his series on 'market wizards', in which he features top market participants who do the opposite of each other and each pulls a lot more money out of markets than they bring to them. A typical profile/interview goes like this. "I tried method X. Lost my *ss. Finally stumbled onto method Y. Whereas in the next chapter, the person being interviewed says, "tried method Y. Lot my *ass. Finally, stumbled onto method X."
My own personal investing history isn't relevant other than to say, when I finally stumbled my way into the bond market in late '99/ early '00, I knew I'd found my niche, and what little I do know about bond investing can all be found in books but doesn't really make sense until one "walks the walk" and buys a couple hundred bonds, one a time, good markets and bad. But bonds and how to buy them is fun to talk about and to think about, and the following is a partial list of some of the topics I intend to cover.
- How to Build & Interpret Yield-Curves for Corporates.
- Sizing Positions According to Estimated Risk/Reward Payoffs.
- Bond Ratings: Agency-assigned vs Market-implied.
- Bubble Sorting a Bond Scan.
- Investing/Trading/Speculating/Gambling: Distinctions without a Difference.
- Investing/Trading Proverbs Worth Considering.
- An Introductory Reading List on Bond Investing.
- When to Hold. When to Sell.
- Some Execution Practicalities.
- Historical Default Rates.
- Estimating the Impact of Inflation.
- Setting Goals: Preserve/Conserve/Appreciate?
There's probably a dozen more things that'll come to mind and that I'll want to talk about. But that list is good-enough for now. So let me repeat the caveat I opened with. There is no one best way to do --or to think about-- any of this investing/trading stuff. There is only what each individual investor/traded has found to be useful and not so burdensome that he/she isn't willing to do the work --and accept the risks -- that his/her chosen method requires. In short, as I'm fond of saying, "Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar".
Don't speak America's de facto second language at a basic conversational level? Then here's a rough translation: "There are no roads but by walking."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZZ1ZFUuvMand this song pairs well with that because investing isn't a team sport, but a zendo in which there's four walls of uncertainty and you alone as you try to discover who you are, all the while ignoring the monkey chatter of Wall Street and its talking heads, telling you to "Buy, Buy, Buy".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DubafeFeJ7Y 