Do you want to know how to consistently earn double digit and triple digit returns from stocks? The answer lies in information technology. Yes. Information technology.
Most of the stocks I’ve owned that have earned more than 50% returns in less than a year are not even on the radar screens of the analysts of major investment firms. How do I know? Because I’ve worked at two Fortune 500 financial services firms as a Private Banker and Private Wealth Manager and never was able to find any research at these firms on the stocks that interested me the most. Why?
Because the way to make money in investing has changed dramatically and the big investment firms have not kept up. One of the reasons big investment firms have not kept up is because most have ulterior motives as pure marketing machines. Almost every manager at every large investment firm is compensated on how much fee income and profit their office makes for the firm, not how well their financial consultants have performed for their clients. There is a huge difference between these two goals. It’s the reason why former Merrill Lynch star internet analyst Henry Blodgett once stated in a comment that he never believed would be made public, that the stocks other Merrill analysts were praising on TV as top picks were “crap" and "junk” (Source: Fort Worth Star Telegram, May 26, 2002).
Even honest financial consultants at big investment firms find it difficult to find you great opportunities among the pool of stocks that their firm tracks. Why? Because many firms mandate older age and lots of experience as prerequisites for their star analysts. They believe that a head industry analyst with a couple of grey hairs is far more credible when appearing in front of their top clients and in front of the American public on television. Personally, if I ran an investment firm, every one of my analysts would probably be under 30 years of age. Why?
Well, information technology has revolutionized the ability of analysts to find stocks with spectacular growth prospects before the general public becomes aware of these stocks. Leads can be found through internet search engines by searching the right keywords, and also through other creative methods, including the utilization of blogs. Many times, the best stock opportunities can be uncovered through non-traditional sources of information, meaning NOT Reuters, NOT Bloomberg, and NOT any of the other financial information clearinghouses that big wall street firms pay thousands of dollars for every month. Many times, the best information is free and online, but the key is knowing how to uncover it.
Typically, when you have a problem you wish to solve related to the internet, whether it is a web design problem, a problem with obtaining better search engine rankings for your website, setting up a blog, being able to understand how to search online databases, and so on, would you turn to a fresh faced kid or someone with grey hair for help? A fresh faced kid, right? Because typically the younger generation is much more up-to-date on newer technology, including knowing how to manipulate and find data. See where I’m going with all this now?
The reason you’ll never hear about the companies that in five years will be the new Microsofts and the new Dells from the portfolio managers and financial consultants at large financial services firms is because huge financial institutions have yet to realize that understanding how to source information utilizing information technology is what has enabled the best stock pickers to be right so many times about stocks nobody else has ever heard of. And don’t be impressed if your financial consultant recommended IPO plays like Google that skyrocketed because the whole world knew about Google. Your financial consultant should be uncovering the tens and tens of other Googles out there that nobody else has ever heard of.
Frankly, I could care less about how many times the top portfolio managers of big investment houses visit the companies of stocks they recommend. I could care less if these top portfolio managers have “access” to the CEOs and CFOs of these companies because of their “reputation”. I could care less about the “global reach” of these investment firms that enables them to research overseas companies. None of this impresses me as a client.
I could care less because the majority of time, the big financial services firms are not researching the right companies. By this, I mean the small and micro cap stocks that nobody has ever heard of. The big firms will spend tens of thousands of dollars to set up these conferences at fancy hotels for their biggest clients and parade their impressive access to big time company CEOs, but still, I’d rather spend almost nothing continuing to discover stocks that will give me 50% returns in less than a year versus wasting my time listening to excessive information about a huge company that will never grow more than 8% a year. But then again, that’s just my opinion.
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