10 Fundamental Steps Before You Win In The Stock Market (2024)

  • Post author:Chinedu Chiana
  • Post published:February 10, 2018
  • Post category:Investment /

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Laying a strong foundation before investing in stocks and shares.

This article may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure.

Stocks and shares for the long run

Stocks and shares should form a significant proportion of the portfolio of the long term investor.

The evidence for the out-performance of stocks and shares over bonds and cash in the long term is well established – read my blog.

Before you invest.....

Before investing in the stock market, there are fundamental steps you should take to establish a solid personal and financial foundation.

I have listed 10 of them below.

10 Fundamental Steps Before You Win In The Stock Market (2)10 Fundamental Steps Before You Win In The Stock Market (3)

1. ESTABLISH YOUR FINANCIAL GOALS

  • What are your financial goals?
  • Are your goals short term or long term?
  • If your goals are short term like saving for a holiday, buying a car or a house, then save in an accessible cash account.
  • If however you have long term goals of over 5 years, then consider the stock market either through individual stocks and shares or investment funds.
  • Long term goals include saving into a pension plan, buying a second home or saving for university/college fees.

2. BUILD CASH RESERVES

  • Financial emergencies are inevitable in life – for example replacing a faulty washing machine, car repairs,
  • Therefore before you start investing, build up cash savings.
  • This will prevent you selling your investments to meet these unexpected needs.
  • Build up an emergency fund equivalent to 6-8 months of your expenses.
  • Many USA households have less than $1000 in savings.
  • A UK survey of 1000 households showed 20% had no savings. 12% had savings of less than £250. There are over 8 million people in this position.

10 Fundamental Steps Before You Win In The Stock Market (4)

3. MONITOR YOUR PERSONAL EXPENSES

  • Keep track of your personal expenses.
  • Review your expenses regularly to see where you can make savings.
  • Do you need to buy that expensive cup of coffee daily?
  • Can you make your own packed lunch instead of buying the expensive sandwich at work?
  • Invest your savings!!
  • Use a Personal Expenses Template like the Google template.

4. LEARN TO SAVE AND INVEST

  • Spend less than you earn.
  • Avoid “Lifestyle Creep” – increasing your standard of living in order to match your increased income.
  • Develop the habit of delayed gratification.
  • Aim for financial independence & security.
  • Save at least 10% of your income. The average is currently only 1.7%
  • Save regularly. Set up automatic monthly transfer from your checking or current account into your savings account.
  • Start investing early to employ the power of compounding.
  • “Those who understand compound interest earn it and those who don’t pay it”.

5. CALCULATE YOUR NET WORTH

  • Establish a personal balance sheet.
  • Calculate all your assets and liabilities .
  • Establish your financial or economic net worth.
  • Increase your net worth by either increasing your assets and income or by reducing your liabilities.
  • Aim to move from a position of negative net worth to zero and into positive wealth.
  • Link to Google template.

6. PAY OFF YOUR DEBT

  • Do you have debts on store cards, credit cards, loans and overdrafts?
  • Do you know how much interest payments you make monthly?
  • How much leverage and debt does your household have?
  • Reduce your liabilities by paying off your debt.
  • Move into positive wealth.
  • Protect yourself and your family from unexpected loss of income from serious illness, injury, disability or death.
  • Determine your financial risks from loss of income and insure to cover them – for example children’s education costs.
  • A Family Income Benefit policy pays a monthly income.
  • Some policies pay a lump sum.
  • A Life Insurance policy is a very crucial component of financial planning!

8. BUY A HOUSE

  • A house is probably the most prudent investment most people will make.
  • Consider saving to purchase a house before investing in the stock market.
  • A mortgage provides significant leverage. For example, if the price of a property on which you put down a 15% deposit increases in value by 5%, the return on your investment is 33%.
  • Human behaviour means houses are bought as a long-term investment and can generate appreciable wealth.

10 Fundamental Steps Before You Win In The Stock Market (6)

9. KNOW YOUR RISK TOLERANCE

  • Be aware of yourself, your attitude to risk and your psychology.
  • If you prefer low risk investments then save in a cash account.
  • Stocks and shares outperform cash in the long term. In the short term they can be volatile and you may lose money.
  • To invest in stocks and shares, you should have a horizon of more than 5 years.
  • Do not invest money you are likely to need at short notice.
  • You need PATIENCE, to be a successful investor.

10. LEARN HOW TO INVEST

  • Read, read and read!!
  • Learn how to read and understand company financial accounts, financial numbers and ratios.
  • Learn how to evaluate and screen individual companies for investment.
  • Learn how to write a one-page investment thesis for each stock you buy – read my blog on how to write an investment thesis.
  • Master the principles and processes behind building a long-term portfolio of stocks and shares.
  • My book, is a constellation of the principles of long term investment in stocks and shares.
  • The principles of long term investment are simple but require hard work and dedication to master.
  • Invest in yourself to learn and understand them.

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Chinedu Chiana

Chinedu Chiana is an Investor, Entrepreneur, Business & Financial Coach and Author of 'The Smart & Common Sense Investor'. He helps business owners with skills and strategies to create, build and grow profitable online businesses particularly with funnels, social media & email marketing, business automation and marketing advice.

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FAQs

What is the 10 rule in stocks? ›

A: If you're buying individual stocks — and don't know about the 10% rule — you're asking for trouble. It's the one rough adage investors who survive bear markets know about. The rule is very simple. If you own an individual stock that falls 10% or more from what you paid, you sell.

What is the 10/5/3 rule of investment? ›

The 10-5-3 rule is a simple rule of thumb in the world of investment that suggests average annual returns on different asset classes: stocks, bonds, and cash. According to this rule, stocks can potentially return 10% annually, bonds 5%, and cash 3%.

What is Warren Buffett's golden rule? ›

"Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1."- Warren Buffet.

What is the 3 5 7 rule in trading? ›

What is the 3 5 7 rule in trading? A risk management principle known as the “3-5-7” rule in trading advises diversifying one's financial holdings to reduce risk. The 3% rule states that you should never risk more than 3% of your whole trading capital on a single deal.

What is No 1 rule of trading? ›

Rule 1: Always Use a Trading Plan

You need a trading plan because it can assist you with making coherent trading decisions and define the boundaries of your optimal trade. A decent trading plan will assist you with avoiding making passionate decisions without giving it much thought.

What is the 10 rule of money? ›

Apply the rules of 10 and 20.

Sethi says he saves 10% and invests 20% of his gross income minimum. In his book, 'I Will Teach You to Be Rich,' Sethi suggests saving 5-10% and investing 5-10% as part of a Conscious Spending Plan (aka budget).

What is the 1234 financial rule? ›

One simple rule of thumb I tend to adopt is going by the 4-3-2-1 ratios to budgeting. This ratio allocates 40% of your income towards expenses, 30% towards housing, 20% towards savings and investments and 10% towards insurance.

What is the 70 30 rule in investing? ›

What Is a 70/30 Portfolio? A 70/30 portfolio is an investment portfolio where 70% of investment capital is allocated to stocks and 30% to fixed-income securities, primarily bonds.

What is the 80% rule investing? ›

In investing, the 80-20 rule generally holds that 20% of the holdings in a portfolio are responsible for 80% of the portfolio's growth. On the flip side, 20% of a portfolio's holdings could be responsible for 80% of its losses.

What is the 70 30 rule Warren Buffett? ›

The 70/30 rule is a guideline for managing money that says you should invest 70% of your money and save 30%. This rule is also known as the Warren Buffett Rule of Budgeting, and it's a good way to keep your finances in order.

What is the Buffett's two list rule? ›

Buffett presented a three-step exercise to help streamline his focus. The first step was to write down his top 25 career goals. In the second step, Buffett told Flint to identify his top five goals from the list. In the final step, Flint had two lists: the top five goals (List A) and the remaining 20 (List B).

What is the 7% loss rule? ›

The 7% stop loss rule is a rule of thumb to place a stop loss order at about 7% or 8% below the buy order for any new position. If the asset price falls by more than 7%, the stop-loss order automatically executes and liquidates the traders' position.

What is the 11am rule in trading? ›

It is not a hard and fast rule, but rather a guideline that has been observed by many traders over the years. The logic behind this rule is that if the market has not reversed by 11 am EST, it is less likely to experience a significant trend reversal during the remainder of the trading day.

What is the rule of 2 in trading? ›

This has since been adapted by short-term equity traders as the 2 Percent Rule: NEVER RISK MORE THAN 2 PERCENT OF YOUR CAPITAL ON ANY ONE STOCK. This means that a run of 10 consecutive losses would only consume 20% of your capital. It does not mean that you need to trade 50 different stocks!

What is the 80-20 rule in trading? ›

While stock market investors rely on several rules to formulate their investment strategies, the 80-20 rule remains the most famous. Before we proceed, if you're wondering, 'what is the 80-20 rule? ' - it simply means that 80% of your portfolio's gains come from 20% of your investments.

What is the 11am rule in stocks? ›

It is not a hard and fast rule, but rather a guideline that has been observed by many traders over the years. The logic behind this rule is that if the market has not reversed by 11 am EST, it is less likely to experience a significant trend reversal during the remainder of the trading day.

What are Warren Buffett's 5 rules of investing? ›

Here's Buffett's take on the five basic rules of investing.
  • Never lose money. ...
  • Never invest in businesses you cannot understand. ...
  • Our favorite holding period is forever. ...
  • Never invest with borrowed money. ...
  • Be fearful when others are greedy.
Jan 11, 2023

What is the 20 rule in stocks? ›

In other words, the Rule of 20 suggests that markets may be fairly valued when the sum of the P/E ratio and the inflation rate equals 20. The stock market is deemed to be undervalued when the sum is below 20 and overvalued when the sum is above 20.

What is the 5 rule in the stock market? ›

This sort of five percent rule is a yardstick to help investors with diversification and risk management. Using this strategy, no more than 1/20th of an investor's portfolio would be tied to any single security. This protects against material losses should that single company perform poorly or become insolvent.

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