Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune

A good rule of thumb is that any investment choice that feels good is a bad one, and anything that seems scary or boring is often a good one.

This book explores one of youth’s greatest advantages: the chance to build a fortune by making early investments in the stock market. Unfortunately, this is an advantage that is too often wasted on the young.

I will create a rule for each of these five attributes. As we shall see, each works well on its own, but they are even more powerful when combined together into the Millennial Money strategy. The strategy identifies companies that: Have shareholder friendly practices (pay dividends, buy back shares, and pay down their debt) Earn strong returns on t

Real risk is the chance that (1) you won’t achieve your financial goals and the dreams associated with those goals and (2) that you won’t be able to support yourself (and your loved ones) comfortably later in life. If you define risk as I do, then stocks become the safest place for your money.

As Ben Graham said, “bear markets are when stocks return to their rightful owners.”

When making any investing decision, the two biggest mistakes you are likely to make are (1) focusing on the short term and (2) acting on greed or fear.

As I will explore, successful investing is often contrarian and counterintuitive. If you go against the crowd, buck the current trends, and ignore your emotions, you will succeed.

It’s funny that we spend so many hours each week working hard to earn money and build our careers, but then spend very little time thinking about how to put our money to good use. This is a shame, because your young money—even in modest amounts—has tremendous potential.

Most success stories boil down to two simple things: strategy and perseverance. Develop a great plan and then stick to it—always be consistent. Strategy is more interesting because it is varied, nuanced, and unique to a given goal.