The 5 Biggest Stock Market Myths

When fiascos like the Enron bankruptcy, auditing scandals and analysts' conflict of interest occur, investor confidence can be at an all-time low. Many investors wonder whether or not investing in stocks is worth all the hassle. At the same time, however, it's important to keep a realistic view of the stock market. Regardless of the real problems, common myths about the stock market often arise. Here are five of those myths.

SEE: 5 Investing Statements That Make You Sound Stupid

1. Investing in Stocks Is Just Like Gambling.
This reasoning causes many people to shy away from the stock market. To understand why investing in stocks is inherently different from gambling, we need to review what it means to buy stocks. A share of common stock is ownership in a company. It entitles the holder to a claim on assets as well as a fraction of the profits that the company generates. Too often, investors think of shares as simply a trading vehicle, and they forget that stock represents the ownership of a company.

In the stock market, investors are constantly trying to assess the profit that will be left over for shareholders. This is why stock prices fluctuate. The outlook for business conditions is always changing, and so are the future earnings of a company.

Assessing the value of a company isn't an easy practice. There are so many variables involved that the short-term price movements appear to be random (academics call this the Random Walk Theory); however, over the long term, a company is only worth the present value of the profits it will make. In the short term, a company can survive without profits because of the expectations of future earnings, but no company can fool investors forever - eventually a company's stock price can be expected to show the true value of the firm.

Gambling, on the contrary, is a zero-sum game. It merely takes money from a loser and gives it to a winner. No value is ever created. By investing, we increase the overall wealth of an economy. As companies compete, they increase productivity and develop products that can make our lives better. Don't confuse investing and creating wealth with gambling's zero-sum game.

2. The Stock Market Is an Exclusive Club For Brokers and Rich People.
Many market advisors claim to be able to call the markets' every turn. The fact is that almost every study done on this topic has proven that these claims are false. Most market prognosticators are notoriously inaccurate; furthermore, the advent of the internet has made the market much more open to the public than ever before. All the data and research tools previously available only to brokerages are now there for individuals to use.

Actually, individuals have an advantage over institutional investors because individuals can afford to be long-term oriented. The big money managers are under extreme pressure to get high returns everyquarter. Their performance is often so scrutinized that they can't invest in opportunities that take some time to develop. Individuals have the ability to look beyond temporary downturns in favor of a long-term outlook.

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3. Fallen Angels Will Go Back up, Eventually.
Whatever the reason for this myth's appeal, nothing is more destructive to amateur investors than thinking that a stock trading near a 52-week low is a good buy. Think of this in terms of the old Wall Street adage, "Those who try to catch a falling knife only get hurt."

Suppose you are looking at two stocks: 

• XYZ made an all-time high last year around $50 but has since fallen to $10 per share. 
• ABC is a smaller company but has recently gone from $5 to $10 per share.

Which stock would you buy? Believe it or not, all things being equal, a majority of investors choose the stock that has fallen from $50 because they believe that it will eventually make it back up to those levels again. Thinking this way is a cardinal sin in investing! Price is only one part of the investing equation (which is different from trading, which uses technical analysis). The goal is to buy good companies at a reasonable price. Buying companies solely because their market price has fallen will get you nowhere. Make sure you don't confuse this practice with value investing, which is buying high-quality companies that are undervalued by the market.

Below is a chart of Nortel's decline. Imagine how much money you would have lost had you 
bought Nortel just because it kept on hitting new lows! 
4. Stocks That Go up Must Come Down.The laws of physics do not apply in the stock market. There's no gravitational force to pull stocks back to even. Over 10 years ago, Berkshire Hathaway's stock price went from $6,000 to $10,000 per share in a little more than a year. Had you thought that this stock was going to return to its lower initial position, you would have missed out on the subsequent rise to $70,000 per share over the following six years.

Below is a chart of Wal-Mart from 1997 to 2000. We've circled every time the stock chart hitresistance to reaching a new high. Those investors who were waiting for the stock to come back to earth would've missed out on a return of 500% or more. 

Wal-Mart is one example of a company that has dominated its industry by being innovative and creating value for both shareholders and customers. 

We're not trying to tell you that stocks never undergo a correction. The point is that the stock price is a reflection of the company. If you find a great firm run by excellent managers, there is no reason the stock won't keep on going up.

5. A Little Knowledge Is Better Than NoneKnowing something is generally better than nothing, but it is crucial in the stock market that individual investors have a clear understanding of what they are doing with their money. Investors who really do their homework are the ones that succeed.

Don't fret, if you don't have the time to fully understand what to do with your money, then having an advisor is not a bad thing. The cost of investing in something that you do not fully understand far outweighs the cost of using an investment advisor.

The Bottom LineForgive us for ending with more investing clichés, but there's another old adage worth repeating: "What's obvious is obviously wrong." This means that knowing a little bit will only have you following the crowd like a lemming. Like anything worth anything, successful investing takes hard work and effort. Think of a partially informed investor as a partially informed surgeon; the mistakes could be severely injurious to your financial health. 

Defining The 3 Types Of Investments

The word "investment" has become muddled with overuse. Referring to a stock or a bond as an investment is still in regular use, but now people make "investments" in their education, their cars and even their flat screen TVs. In this article, we will look at the three basic types of investment as well as some of the things that are definitely not investments - no matter what the commercial says.

The Three Types of Investment
Investment, as the dictionary defines it, is something that is purchased with money that is expected to produce income or profit. Investments can be broken into three basic groups: ownership, lending and cash equivalents. 

Ownership Investments
Ownership investments are what comes to mind for most people when the word "investment" is batted around. Ownership investments are the most volatile and profitable class of investment. The following are examples of ownership investments: 

Stocks
Stocks are literally certificates that say you own a portion of a company. More broadly speaking, all traded securities, from futures to currency swaps, are ownership investments, even though all you may own is a contract. When you buy one of these investments, you have a right to a portion of a company's value or a right to carry out a certain action (as in a futures contract).

Your expectation of profit is realized (or not) by how the market values the asset you own the rights to. If you own shares in Sony and Sony posts a record profit, other investors are going to want Sony shares too. Their demand for shares drives up the price, increasing your profit if you choose to sell the shares. 

Business
The money put into starting and running a business is an investment. Entrepreneurship is one of the hardest investments to make because it requires more than just money. Consequently, it is also an ownership investment with extremely large potential returns. By creating a product or service and selling it to people who want it, entrepreneurs can make huge personal fortunes. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and one of the world's richest men, is a prime example.

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Real Estate
Houses, apartments or other dwellings that you buy to rent out or repair and resell are investments. The house you live in, however, is a different matter because it is filling a basic need. The house you live in fills your need for shelter and, although it may appreciate over time, it shouldn't be purchased with an expectation of profit. The mortgage meltdown of 2008 and the underwater mortgages it produced are a good illustration of the dangers in considering your primary residence an investment. 

Precious ObjectsGold, Da Vinci paintings and a signed LeBron James jersey can all be considered an ownership investment - provided that these are objects that are bought with the intention of reselling them for a profit. Precious metals and collectibles are not necessarily a good investment for a number of reasons, but they can be classified as an investment nonetheless. Like a house, they have a risk of physical depreciation (damage) and require upkeep and storage costs that cut into eventual profits. 

Lending Investments
Lending investments allow you to be the bank. They tend to be lower risk than ownership investments and return less as a result. A bond issued by a company will pay a set amount over a certain period, while during the same period the stock of a company can double or triple in value, paying far more than a bond - or it can lose heavily and go bankrupt, in which case bond holders usually still get their money and the stockholder often gets nothing.

Your Savings AccountEven if you have nothing but a regular savings account, you can call yourself an investor. You are essentially lending money to the bank, which it will dole out in the form of loans. The return is pitiful, but the risk is also next to nil because of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Bonds
Bond is a catchall category for a wide variety of investments from CDs and Treasuries to corporatejunk bonds and international debt issues. The risks and returns vary widely between the different types of bonds, but overall, lending investments pose a lower risk and provide a lower return than ownership investments.

Cash Equivalents
These are investments that are "as good as cash," which means they're easy to convert back into cash.

Money Market Funds
With money market funds, the return is very small, 1 to 2%, and the risks are also small. Althoughmoney market funds have "broken the buck" in recent memory, it is rare enough to be considered ablack swan event. Money market funds are also more liquid than other investments, meaning you can write checks out of money market accounts just as you would with a checking account. 

Close, but Not Quite
Your education is called an investment and many times, it does help you earn a higher income. A case could be made for you "selling" your education like a small business service in return for income like an ownership investment. 

The reason it's not technically an investment is a practical one. For the sake of clarity, we need to avoid the ad absurdity of having everything be classified as an investment. We'd be "investing" every time we bought an item that could potentially make us more productive, such as investing in a stress ball to squeeze or a cup of coffee to wake you up. It is the attempt to stretch the meaning of investment to purchases, rather than education, which has obscured the meaning. 

Not InvestmentsConsumer purchases - beds, cars, TVs and anything that naturally depreciates with use and time - are not investments. You don't invest in a good night's sleep by buying a foam pillow, or invest in entertainment by buying an mp3 player. Unless you're very famous, and even then, it's a stretch, since you can't reasonably expect someone to pay more for your pillow than the initial purchase cost. Don't take it personally, but there's very little demand in the second-hand pillow market.

The Bottom LineThere are three types of investments: ownership, lending and cash equivalents. There is no fourth category of consumer purchases. Admittedly, it's a clever piece of advertising that removes some of the guilt from impulse purchasing; you're not spending money frivolously, you're investing! The decisive test is whether there is a potential to turn a profit. The important word is "potential" because not every legitimate investment makes money. Making money through investing requires researching and evaluating different investments, not simply knowing what is and is not an investment. That said, being able to see the difference between an investment and a purchase is an essential first step.

Investment

Investment has different meanings in finance and economics.

In economics, investment is related to saving and deferring consumption. Investment is involved in many areas of the economy, such as business management and finance whether for households, firms, or governments.

In finance, investment is putting money into an asset with the expectation of capital appreciation, usually over the long-term future. This may or may not be backed by research and analysis. Most or all forms of investment involve some form of risk, such as investment in equities, property, and even fixed interest securities which are subject, inter alia, to inflation risk.

In contrast putting money into something with a hope of short-term gain, with or without thorough analysis, is gambling or speculation. This category would include most forms of derivatives, which incorporate a risk element without being long-term homes for money, and betting on horses. It would also include purchase of e.g. a company share in the hope of a short-term gain without any intention of holding it for the long term. Under the efficient market hypothesis, all investments with equal risk should have the same expected rate of return: that is to say there is a trade-off between risk and expected return. But that does not prevent one from investing in risky assets over the long term in the hope of benefiting from this trade-off. The common usage of investment to describe speculation has had an effect in real life as well: it reduced investor capacity to discern investment from speculation, reduced investor awareness of risk associated with speculation, increased capital available to speculation, and decreased capital available to investment.

CONTENTS     [hide]  1 In economics or macroeconomics 2 In finance 3 History 4 Types of investment 5 See also 6 Notes 7 External links

IN ECONOMICS OR MACROECONOMICS[EDIT]

In economic theory or in macroeconomics, investment is the amount purchased per unit time of goods which are not consumed but are to be used for future production (i.e. capital). Examples include railroad or factory construction. Investment in human capital includes costs of additional schooling or on-the-job training. Inventory investment is the accumulation of goods inventories; it can be positive or negative, and it can be intended or unintended. In measures of national income and output, "gross investment" (represented by the variable I) is also a component of gross domestic product (GDP), given in the formula GDP = C + I + G + NX, where C is consumption, G is government spending, and NX is net exports, given by the difference between the exports and imports, X − M. Thus investment is everything that remains of total expenditure after consumption, government spending, and net exports are subtracted (i.e. I = GDP − C − G − NX).

Non-residential fixed investment (such as new factories) and residential investment (new houses) combine with inventory investment to make up I. "Net investment" deducts depreciation from gross investment. Net fixed investment is the value of the net increase in the capital stock per year.

Fixed investment, as expenditure over a period of time ("per year"), is not capital. The time dimension of investment makes it a flow. By contrast, capital is a stock— that is, accumulated net investment to a point in time (such as December 31).

Investment is often modeled as a function of Income and Interest rates, given by the relation I = f(Y, r). An increase in income encourages higher investment, whereas a higher interest rate may discourage investment as it becomes more costly to borrow money. Even if a firm chooses to use its own funds in an investment, the interest rate represents an opportunity cost of investing those funds rather than lending out that amount of money for interest.^[1]

IN FINANCE[EDIT]

In finance, investment is the purchase of an asset or item with the hope that it will generate income or appreciate in the future and be sold at the higher price.^[2] It generally does not include deposits with a bank or similar institution. The term investment is usually used when referring to a long-term outlook. This is the opposite of trading or speculation, which are short-term practices involving a much higher degree of risk. Financial assets take many forms and can range from the ultra safe low return government bonds to much higher risk higher reward international stocks. A good investment strategy will diversify the portfolio according to the specified needs. The most famous and successful investor of all time is Warren Buffett. In March 2013 Forbes magazine had Warren Buffett ranked as number 2 in their Forbes 400 list.^[3] Buffett has advised in numerous articles and interviews that a good investment strategy is long term and choosing the right assets to invest in requires due diligence. Edward O. Thorp was a very successful hedge fund manager in the 1970s and 1980s that spoke of a similar approach.^[4] Another thing they both have in common is a similar approach to managing investment money. No matter how successful the fundamental pick is, without a proper money management strategy, full potential of the asset can’t be reached. Both investors have been shown to use principles from the Kelly criterion for money management.^[5] Numerous interactive calculators which use the kelly criterion can be found online.^[6]

In contrast, dollar (or pound etc.) cost averaging and market timing are phrases often used in marketing of collective investments and can be said to be associated with speculation.

Investments are often made indirectly through intermediaries, such as pension funds, banks, brokers, and insurance companies. These institutions may pool money received from a large number of individuals into funds such as investment trusts, unit trusts, SICAVs etc. to make large scale investments. Each individual investor then has an indirect or direct claim on the assets purchased, subject to charges levied by the intermediary, which may be large and varied. It generally does not include deposits with a bank or similar institution. Investment usually involves diversification of assets in order to avoid unnecessary and unproductive risk.

In contrast, dollar (or pound etc.) cost averaging and market timing are phrases often used in marketing of collective investments and can be said to be associated with speculation.

Investments are often made indirectly through intermediaries, such as pension funds, banks, brokers, and insurance companies. These institutions may pool money received from a large number of individuals into funds such as investment trusts, unit trusts, SICAVs etc. to make large scale investments. Each individual investor then has an indirect or direct claim on the assets purchased, subject to charges levied by the intermediary, which may be large and varied.

HISTORY[EDIT]

The Code of Hammurabi (around 1700 BC) provided a legal framework for investment, establishing a means for the pledge of collateral by codifying debtor and creditor rights in regard to pledged land. Punishments for breaking financial obligations were not as severe as those for crimes involving injury or death.

In the early 1900s purchasers of stocks, bonds, and other securities were described in media, academia, and commerce as speculators. By the 1950s, the term investment had come to denote the more conversative end of the securities spectrum, while speculation was applied by financial brokers and their advertising agencies to higher risk securities much in vogue at that time. Since the last half of the 20th century, the terms speculation and speculator have specifically referred to higher risk ventures.