Seven Secrets of Billionaire Investors

I. Safeguard Your Money

1. Make preserving capital your top primary goal (1).
2. Arrange your affairs to minimize or eliminate taxes (6).
3. Avoid or minimize risk (2).
4. Spend less than your income (19).

II. Create and Consistently Apply Your Own Method

1. Develop and rely on your own investment philosophy, criteria and method(s) (3).
2. Develop and test your own personal system for selecting, buying and selling (4).
3. Wait until your entry criteria are fully satisfied before investing. When your criteria are not yet fully satisfied, refuse to enter into the investment (8).
4. Be patient waiting for investments that fully satisfy your criteria (10).
5. Search only for investments that meet your criteria and do so continuously. Accept only advice from experts you respect and ignore opinions of others (9).
6. Act instantly to enter an investment when you find one that fully satisfies your criteria (11).
7. Hold your investment until your predetermined exit criteria is fully satisfied (12).
8. Consistently follow your investment philosophy, criteria and method(s). Don’t hesitate or second-guess yourself (13).
9. Get out of investments entered into by mistake as soon as you notice the mistake (14).

III. Concentrate, Don’t Dabble

1. Concentrate your money on a few items; do not diversify in terms of different assets (5).
2. Stick to investing in your specialized area of expertise and understanding (7).

IV. Learn to Earn

1. Accept mistakes as learning experiences (15).
2. Use learning experiences to increase returns and to make money more efficiently (16).

V. Delegate
After you have designed your own investment philosophy, criteria and method(s), delegate most or all of your investment responsibilities to other people who will apply your philosophy, criteria and method(s) (18).

VI. Make Your Work Your Play

1. Relate investing to satisfaction of your personal values (likes, dislikes, and priorities), not merely for the money (20).
2. Love the process of investing, not the particular assets purchased (21).
3. Live and breathe investing 24 hours a day (22).

VII. Put Up And Shut Up

1. Invest and trade your own money. If you are managing other people’s money, put your own money into the pool along with your clients’ money (23).
2. Keep as a secret your open positions and intended investments. Avoid telling other people about them (17).

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee, LeisurelyCashFlow.com. All rights reserved.