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Most of us believe that money making is a game that is played with forces outside ourselves, forces such as the economy, the stock market, interest rates, the Fed, government policies, employment statistics and the like. But as you move along a spiritual path and begin to get a taste of the power of your invisible self, you discover that money making is merely a game that you play with yourself. Dr. Wayne Dyer |
Personal Vision means to take what you know, and what you think will happen in the future, and let this guide your final investment selections. You start by looking at all of the companies involved in the fields that you know, and based on this knowledge, start to predict which companies are most likely to improve, to grow the fastest and have the greatest impact. The idea essentially is to invest in what you know and believe in. This step is called Personal Vision, and not just Vision, because it should be based on your own knowledge and experience, not that of the latest economic guru or fad. Personal Vision is based on your ideas and intuition of a positive future and social trends, using your understanding and insights. As Warren Buffet, one of the world's greatest investors, is famous for saying, never invest in a company you don't understand. All of us have some kind of experience and understanding we can capitalize upon, no matter how humble. It doesn't have to involve an insight into genetic engineering techniques to be profitable. For instance, a plumber knows plumbing, knows which company makes the best pipes, and which is most likely to build the ideal bathroom of tomorrow. There's a lot of money in plumbing. Its something we all have to have. If you just stop to think about it, you'll find there is something that you know a lot more about than the next person. Be it ever so humble, we are all special in some way. We all have personal knowledge which we can put to work in our investment selections. Take the time to select and carefully study the companies you know from experience are the best in their field, and most likely to stay there. Alternatively, look for promising companies that you think can become great. The Personal Vision step is akin to positive screening, but more personal and creative. It allows you to take the universe of companies that survive both your negative and positive screens, and focus in on several dozen companies personally tailored to you. Conversely, start with the universe of companies that fit your Visions, then screen out the negative, and screen up the positive. One way to find companies in the industries that are a part of your vision is to use the various Yahoo Finance directories. You can start in the Market Guide Industries page which provides an alphabetical list of 102 different industries. You can also start in the Market Guide Sectors page which lists 12 different markets sectors. From either start you will be lead to narrower and narrower classifications until you arrive at a particular segment of the total list of over 9000 public companies. Then you can go to the Yahoo web on each company where you will find a plethora of additional information sources. For instance, one of the 12 Market Guide Sectors is Technology. This brings you to a list of 11 different technology industries. One of these industries is Computer Hardware. This brings you to a list of several hundred computer hardware companies. From there you can select one, like for instance Apple, where you go to a profile on Apple Computer, Inc. When the Yahoo Finance tools are combined with the other information and tools provided here, you can get a pretty good picture of a company before you invest. In that way you can learn whether it fits into your vision of a good investment. In your research don't neglect to try out the Yahoo Message Boards. You'll find a connection to a message board for each company at the Yahoo profile page for that stock. You can read messages from other investors interested in the stock. You may have to sort through a lot of misinformation, some of it intentional and even fraudulent, but you can still get some valuable information from time to time. Just beware of free stock tips; they are almost always wrong! In your search for whether a company really fits into your Vision, don't neglect research in the "real world" outside of Cyber-Space. For instance, before you invest in Apple, go visit an Apple dealer, try out their computers, talk to Mac enthusiasts, etc. There is nothing better than hands on experience and face to face exchanges. |
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The Founding Fathers placed the eye on top of the Pyramid on the dollar bill for a good reason. Personal Vision is the key step on the Way of Money Wisdom, the one that can bring the greatest profits and personal satisfaction. Here you choose to invest in those industries and companies that reflect your vision of a better tomorrow. In this way even your passive investments can play an active role in the world's future. You can use your pension money, your IRA and 401K, to help make the world a better place to retire in. At the same time, if your intuition is right, and you pick a rising star company or industry, the highest profits will be yours.