There are many different investment strategies, styles, and methods. Each fills a specific need and fits a particular investor type. In this article, investor Dan Calugar identifies 10 widely used strategies.
While this article ranks and rates each investment strategy, it is essential to note that every investor will, and should, prioritize these strategies differently. Each person’s situation is unique, and they should find the method that works best for them.
1. Socially responsible investing: Socially responsible investing (SRI) is designed to direct investments toward companies that positively change society. SRI investors look for company business practices that align with the investor’s social values. Socially responsible investing receives a high rank from investors who feel that accomplishing socially responsible goals is as important as achieving strong returns.
2. Systematic Trading: System traders put their faith in algorithms. Once they find an automated system that works well over historical data, they release their model on the market in real-time. While systematic trading does not lend itself well to exceptional gains from investor intuition, if the underlying strategy has a market edge, following the strategy may provide superior long term results.
3. Growth Investing: Growth investors are looking for the “next big thing.” It’s not necessarily as much of a gamble as it sounds since a trained eye can spot several reliable indicators that may precede significant growth.
4. Value Investing: Value investors watch for stocks they believe are undervalued. This strategy can be deployed against individual stocks or with value mutual funds. Value investors should be in it for the long haul since value stocks, by definition, do not appreciate rapidly but may do so over time.
5. Momentum Investing: With this strategy, the investor is not so much predicting where an asset will increase or decrease in value as much as they react to what is happening in real-time. Like Newton says about objects, momentum investors believe that a stock in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. They see what a stock is doing and assume it will continue to do that unless something stops it.
6. Dollar-cost Averaging: Dollar-cost averaging is more of a sub-strategy than a full-fledged one. It is the method of executing your chosen strategy with regular investment over time. It is included in this list of strategies because it is one of the most effective hedges against the often ill-fated market timing strategy.
7. Active Trading: A cousin to momentum investing, active trading involves closely watching price patterns from exchange feeds to ascertain the direction and momentum of the stock. Entry and exit decisions are made from these indicators.
8. Buy and Hold: Buy and hold investors subscribe to the view that stocks are a long-term strategy. For them, it’s “time in the market,” not “timing the market.” Buy and hold investors are subject to few trading costs since they are not changing positions often.
9. Index investing: With index investing, investors often use mutual funds, index funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to fill their investment portfolios. This type of investor values the idea that funds provide access to a cluster of securities, often stocks and bonds, through a single investment vehicle.
10. Income investing: Income investors look for investment opportunities to provide income, such as real estate or dividend-paying stocks. This strategy is common among people transitioning to retirement.