Stock Investing Styles

At this point, it is important to keep an open mind since there are a variety of investing styles to consider before deciding on a personal investment strategy. Rather than being sidetracked by selecting a style, consider all your options.

Since the tongue-in-cheek style recommended by Will Rogers is not really possible, we are left with 2 basic approaches - technical and fundamental.

The type of data used to identify opportunities broadly classifies the style of investing.

Technical Analysis

Technical analysis (TA) relies on the price action of the stock. TA is most often identified with trading, not investing, since the financial merit of the company may not be a consideration.

Technical analysis can be broken down further as:

• Charting
• Momentum Investing

Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis relies on the financial data supplied by the company. Perhaps because it considers the financial merit of the company rather than price action, fundamental analysis is usually associated with investing.

Fundamental analysis can be broken down further as:

• Value Investing
• Growth Investing
• Growth and Value Investing (GARP)
• Income Investing (aka dividend investing)

Are these styles Oil and Water?

No. It is common to use both fundamental and technical analysis within a strategy. For example, you might adopt a growth investing strategy and use technical indicators to identify entry and exit points. On the other hand, you might use value investing to create a list of acceptable stocks and then apply technical analysis to determine which ones to trade.

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