Time
In the world of investment, time is your friend. Make sure you are good friends with time.
You become the friend of time when you invest in a company that is growing. As long as the company continues to become a stronger and stronger company, time is on your side.
Investment in a heavily undervalued company will also make you the friend of time. The day will surely come when other people recognize the value of this company and cause the share price to rise.
Always leave enough time. If you short yourself on time, you are not likely to realize the full value of your investment. To truly be a friend of time, you must be patient.
Patience requires that you be extremely reluctant to sell your winning investments. If you are reluctant to sell your winners, the passage of time will heavily weight your investment portfolio toward winners.
Weight your portfolio with winners. This is one of the great keys to success in the world of investment.
Your tendency to leave winning investment vehicles in your portfolio will weight your portfolio with winning investment vehicles. It's that simple.
This is due to The Gathering Effect: What you gather, you accumulate.
Looked it in reverse, it's The Discarding Effect: What you discard, you lose.
Discard your losers and gather your winners. This should be your motto. Time will tell you who is whom.
Your time is valuable. Why pull out of an investment prematurely? If you value your time, you will not put yourself in the position of having to go look for another investment vehicle--especially when an investment you already own will do just as well.
Time not spent looking for new investment vehicles is time saved.
©Edward Abbott 2002