About the time they told me I'd need a
teamof security guards to escort me to the men's
room, I knew I'd done it.
By
it,I mean ticked off a roomful of folks so pompous
that you couldn't tell where their silver spoons ended and
their perma-scowls began. Even worse, I committed this crime
on the holiest of grounds ...
Brace yourself for the horror!
That's right, I wore seersucker shorts, a red Ralph
Lauren polo shirt, and
flip-flopsto a local country club where I was
supposed to interview a "wealth manager" who was reading
passages from his newest book to all of his appropriately
dressed clients.
Granted, I probably looked like I'd just escaped from some
sort of white-collar Supermax where they only play pedestrian
lawn games like bocce and badminton. But in my defense, I
didn't know I was going until about an hour beforehand.
Not to mention, my boss assured me that I
wouldn'tbe openly -- and quite loudly -- called out
as "(expletive deleted) disrespectful" by the club's chief of
security.
Amusingly ironic -- and tactful, to boot
For now, I'll shelve my disdain for this eloquent ogre,
the acres of neatly manicured grass he protects, and all the
Judge Smails wannabes I encountered there. Heck, I won't even
mention this establishment by name. (I will say that it
wasn't the Bushwood Country Club, where Smails and the other
Caddyshackgoofballs hang out.)
But I will tell you that the whole experience has me bound
and (expletive deleted) determined to become the best
investor I can be so that one day I can join any golf club I
please and treat disgustingly underdressed people like ...
well,
people.
Here's how I'm going to do it ...
First, I'm going to follow my old man's lead and
read everything I can get my hands on. After all, he
belongs to
severalclubs every bit as prestigious as this one --
and he doesn't even play golf.
I've already started by reading
the 25 booksthat Motley Fool co-founder Tom Gardner
thinks every investor should read.
Now, in my ongoing quest to become a master investor, I'm
moving on to these ...
Fundamental analysis:
The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing, by
Pat Dorsey and Joe Mansueto
Security Analysis, 6th Edition,by Benjamin Graham
and David Dodd
Behavioral finance:
Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to
Correct Them,by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich
Your Money and Your Brain,by Jason Zweig
General investment wisdom:
The Aggressive Conservative Investor, by Martin
Whitman
Poor Charlie's Almanack, by Charles T. Munger
Economics and markets:
The Age of Turbulence, by Alan Greenspan
A Short History of Financial Euphoria,by John
Kenneth Galbraith
Case studies:
The Smartest Guys in the Room,by Bethany McLean
and Peter Elkind
In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street
to Washington,by Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg
These are just 10 of the 31 books on the
Motley Fool Hidden Gems
reading list. And though it might take you a few months
to plow through all of them, I'm positive it will be worth
your while.
What I'm doing in the meantime ...
I, for one, am putting that reading to work and taking
full advantage of the discounts the recent market collapse
has handed us.
Because I'm confident the world economy will continue to
recover and drive commodity prices higher, I've been keeping
an eye on both
Southern Copper (NYSE: PCU) and
Nabors Industries (NYSE: NBR).
I've also been looking into big dividend payers like
Vodafone (NYSE: VOD),
BP (NYSE: BP), and
Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). And while
I'm confident in the long-term potential of all of these
stocks, I'm also aware that none of them will be
the market's next big movers, nor will they experience
the kind of explosive, life-changing growth that has
characterized
the top 10 performing stocks of the past decade.
How can I be so sure?
Well, for one thing, they've all got huge market caps,
and tens of
billionsof dollars would have to flow into them just
for their shares to double. Continued... |