Buy and Hold?

Buy and Hold is a common strategy for most smaller investor. In fact, for a good bit of time I subscribed to this notion and used it as the overlying strategy that I have held. I have recently rethought this idea and I have began to take the stance on Buy and Homework.

Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money CNBC first brought this elementary strategy to me. No, I cannot claim it as my own, but I believe it has alot of merit in the undertones of investing. Many times people believe that they will beat  the markets (make money in the markets) by buying a stocks and giving them time to just accrue money like a debt insturment. This does not work in a single security due to the nature of a business.

Businesses are like people. They grow up, they live and in many cases they die or slow down to little value. The nature of the strategy of buying and blindly holding the security does not recognize this concept.

Where I deviate from Cramer's view is in the research of the company. I believe that the investor that is taking the risk to only have a few stocks must research the companies 10K's and their financials daily for at least 30 minutes. Due to the living nature of a stock, an investor must keep a steady ear to the life beat of the company. 

One place that people can find the 10K's for a company is SECfilings.com. This free service, that you must sign up for, has a compilation of 10ks for almost every market and many over the counter stocks. 

To me key statistics are also vital. I look for ROE, EPS, P/E, volume traded and the bid and ask margin. You can find these statistics on yahoofinance.com.

I have recently taken a second look and implimented this to AAPL, Apple. Take a look at it and let me know what you would do.