How To Invest Like A Shark

For possibly few lucky ones, it might have been a fruitful journey and were early to read the danger signs but for most, it's more likely to be a rocky road with encounters of many land mines! Given the current financial turmoil the world is facing, perhaps it's time to review your own investment or trading strategy.

I recently come across a fine investment book "Invest Like A Shark" written by James Deporre. Deporre was a featured writer for Jim Cramer's TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com since 2001.
In it he makes the case that you can not only beat the markets consistently, but also make money, or at the very least protect your money, even when the market is tanking.

But DePorre says the way to do it is NOT to do what the mutual funds do or what experts tell you to do - sit around waiting for a fundamentally sound stock to go up. Instead, use your advantage as a small investor to get into a stock already on the way up and hop out before it falls-getting in and out like a shark.

DePorre opines that the vast majority of investors have been brainwashed by traditional Wall Street into thinking that it is just plain foolish to approach the market in any manner other than the way a mutual fund or pension plan might. It has worked for them since the inception of the stock market so it should work for you equally well. The truth is that in most cases traditional investment advice doesn't even work that well for the big funds. The vast majority of funds never consistently beat the major indices, but the belief is still widely held that it is best approach for everyone. Unfortunately, the Whales of Wall Street really have no choice but to invest like whales. They are limited stylistically due to their size and the way that Wall Street works. The problem is that they keep trying to justify what they do by telling the rest of us that it is the best and most profitable style of investing. Maybe it is for them but not for the average individual.

DePorre also believes that investing the way many mutual fund investors did certainly is not the best way for the small investor who is investing his own funds.

The best approach according to DePorre for the average investor, who is managing his own money, is to invest like a shark. That means moving quickly, aggressively and running for safety at the first sign of trouble. It means looking at the market in a very different way than the big institutions and traditional brokers, and it means being in control and not being pushed around by powerful forces that the small investor has no control over anyway. Most individual investors have no clue and never will understand how lucrative and safe it is to be a quick, aggressive fast moving shark in an environment that is dominated by huge slow moving whales.
It is worthy to note that DePorre is not particularly interested in a stock's fundamentals or even what a company does; he just looks for the trend. While he does offers some thoughts on averaging in or doing limited stock sells along the way to take profits, this is not a book offering specific techniques. It's goal is to help you develop a mindset, to start thinking about how the market provides plenty of opportunities for big gains, and how the market often clearly signals when it's time to exit.

DePorre's technique is obviously not for everyone, but for those who are open to new ideas and do not have a good "system" yet to follow, this might be worthy to pick up.

You can get more details about his book on http://www.investlikeashark.com