The Girl$ on The Money Approach To Investing

We live in a world where investing in stocks is often viewed as a “fast and furious” path to riches. Almost daily there’s a new way to invest, a random market, or a  “hot new stock” that no one really understands or knows anything about but everyone wants to be a part of.

Because of this, I felt it would be appropriate to share the Girl$ on The Money approach to investing (which is my own personal approach). Next month is my 9th year anniversary as a stock investor and I strongly believe that focusing on a set strategy and core approach towards investing has made me a successful investor so far.

In building my portfolio, I’ve been able to benefit from becoming a part-owner of incredible businesses. I’ve also learned to quickly identify and eliminate the stocks that did not perform as I had originally expected them to. The learning experience has been incredible and I continue to learn more and more as time goes by which is what makes this journey even more exciting.

In this post, I’d like to elaborate more on how we approach investing here in Girl$ on The Money headquarters. If you’ve followed me for a while some of the information below may seem familiar to you. If so, hope you still check it out as a refresher :).

While I can probably go on and on in this post, I have decided to narrow down the approach to four of the core strategies I believe to be the most important and that have personally worked for me.

And here we go…

#1. I stay away from investments I do not understand.

To be completely transparent and clear I stay away from penny stocks, the FOREX market, Marijuana stocks (at least for the time being), and pretty much anything that I don’t fully understand and/or that appears too risky.

If I can’t find the motivation, the time, or the brainpower to sit down and try to figure out how to make money from a type of investment that is not familiar to me and I know nothing about, I stay away. I work hard for my money and I want my money to work hard for me while also allowing me to sleep well at night. If I invest in something that starts making me anxious, worried, or concerned about what will happen to my money, that is not the type of investment that is worth my peace of mind.

Side note: If you missed it, I wrote an entire post on penny stocks.

#2. I stick to companies that have been public for a while, have a solid track record, and have a clear plan for continuous growth that is clear and makes sense.

If you are a member of our Facebook group or follow me on social media you probably know by now that I do not invest in IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). An IPO is the name given to stocks of a company when it first becomes public.

If I am remotely interested in a company that is becoming public, I wait at least a year (often longer) and observe the business from a distance in order to see how it performs as a public business and how exactly it plans to make money for shareholders. I also want to see if the company is profitable at all or not (it is quite common for a company to become public without being profitable).

I rather “lose out” on any “initial gains” than see my investment down 50% six months later simply because I rushed to buy. Patience is seriously a huge virtue when it comes to IPOs. If a company is going to be successful and thrive for years to come, you can still make a whole lot of money even if you wait things out.

#3. I like strong leaders and prefer businesses with very minimal (if any) competition. 

Most of my portfolio is composed of strong leaders in various industries across the board. If I am invested in a particular company and see a lot of “copy-cats”  emerging out of nowhere and also growing market share in a said industry at a fast pace, that is usually one red flag for me to get out. This is especially relevant when it comes to consumer services.

To give you a general example – I wouldn’t invest in music streaming business if that’s the business’s sole source of income and is competing with other companies doing the exact same thing and with more advantages such as more cash or other sources of income.

In a nutshell – I try to stay away from any kind of business where the customer’s main concern is to find the cheapest option and there is no brand loyalty, moat, or competitive advantage. There’s a whole lot more I can say about this but I’d like to keep this brief.

#4. Healthy Financials are Important to Me.

Before investing in anything I like to take a very close look at financial statements. I look at a lot of ratios and valuation metrics but I also put a major focus on things like sales, net income (profits), and cash. I also like to check out debt and see what’s going on in there.

To put this into perspective, you can think of a public business (or stock) just like a person. Let’ss say someone you know asks you to borrow $2,000 and tells you they will give you that money back “with significant interest” in a year’s time. However, you know for a fact that they are in deep debt, have no job or a low paying job (low income or no income), can’t make ends meet (no profits), and have no clear plans on how they will get back to profitability- would you lend that person the $2,000? Probably not. The same goes with stocks!

As I’ve always said – I respect each individual’s approach to the stock market and investing and believe that everyone should find the approach that works the best for them and that makes them money. At the end of the day, the reason we put money in the stock market is to be able to increase our wealth at a quicker and more efficient pace than just having money sitting under the mattress or in a bank doing absolutely nothing for us.

As investors, it is important we find the balance between profitability and being able to allocate our money in a way that allows us to sleep soundly at night.

What is YOUR personal approach? Does it look similar to ours or would you do anything differently? Share below or head over to the Facebook group to share with our community! 🙂

Have a fantastic weekend and cheers to profits!

Love,

Mabelle ❤

 

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