10 Percent

As I was sitting in Barnes & Noble last night reading an exceedingly boring book about high yield investing strategies, I sat back and thought about the golden 10% assumption. I always use it..and why not...historically it is been proven to be reasonably accurate over the long haul. But when taken a bit further, if you deconstruct that into monthly gains required...amazingly it is only a paltry 0.8% per month return! Honestly that stuck me as a pretty low bar to try and cross every month. I think that we can do better ;-)


Now I know that we won't always pick stocks that go up...but geez...on any given day the price of a stock can go up or down a percentage point or two. Even the 3 GenX holdings are already up about 1% from the last update post I gave...just 4 trading days ago.

Having said this...I have absolutely no desire to become a day trader, seeing as the commissions tend to eat you alive and make profits exceedingly difficult. BUT... it does stress the point that if you can pick some good quality stocks which are cheap, and be selective in your holding of positions...you will likely see them rise. And when they do, you need to be willing to cash in and sit on the sidelines for another great opportunity to present itself. If this is the case...then it would appear to be reasonable to assume that we could beat that 10% assumption in any type of market.