Greetings, Fools!
This is the Motley Fool's support area for investment clubs. We hope that the information provided here (and in our Investment Club book) will help many of you form new clubs and inject a bit of Foolishness into clubs that already exist.
Special Feature
The Challenge of Investment Clubs
By Mark Robertson
So you've formed an investment club, or joined one, only to discover that some members aren't pulling their weight. In fact, they seem to be providing a liberal dose of gravity and it's causing some distraction. Or maybe you've joined an investment club and discovered a cabal of day traders. What do you do now?
Welcome to America. Land of the Free. It some cases, the solution is no more complicated than making a request for the clicker and changing the channel. That's right! Leave. Or ask the disruptive influences to leave. It can be done without being rude. In some cases, walking away can actually improve your lot.
Many people feel pangs of failure or guilt when they encounter this situation. Don't. Life is way too short for aggravation. Carpe diem, Foolishly.
It may seem unusual for me to be advocating abandonment, but it helps if we focus on the objective of investment clubs. Foolish investment clubs are about sharing and learning. The NAIC's Ralph Seger often emphasizes that investment clubs are learn-by-doing partnerships. Anything that impedes the process of learning is getting in the way.
Be patient. Long-term investing mandates doses of patience. In our case, we had a club member who was very, very quiet for several meetings. She didn't participate much, and actually crawled under the coffee table when I mentioned probability and ratios in the same sentence. (It had something to do with number-crunching phobias.) Frankly, she was joining me there because my club had insisted that I begin each meeting from beneath the coffee table after my sell recommendation on Intel in 1996. But, I digress, and it's potentially embarrassing.
The point is that she emerged from under the coffee table and became a substantial contributor to our group effort.
The best approach is to pick your partners carefully. Seek out a group of like-minded, strategic long-term investors. It'll minimize future troubles. But if you do look up to discover you're the only one who's NOT interested in day trading, you have two choices: (1) You can attempt to convert these Titanic passengers to successful growth stock investing, or (2) you can find like-minded colleagues who hear the same drums that you do.
Intel, a passing fad? My partners usually prevent returns to the underside of the coffee table. I count on them to do so. Intel is no passing fad, and neither are groups of individuals who gather to demystify the challenge of investing.
Foolish wishes and Better Investing!
[Mark Robertson is Senior Contributing Editor of Better Investing magazine and
Director of Online Resources at the National Association of Investors Corp. (NAIC)]
Fool Articles of Interest
Spice up your club's routine by adding regular discussions of Fool articles. Here are some that might serve you well:
Bring Your Club Online!
Every club out there should consider bringing itself online at the Fool. We'll set up for you (at no cost) an individual discussion board, where you can carry out discussions and "meet" electronically between face-to-face gatherings. Hundreds of clubs have already set up boards for themselves, and are using them to get a lot of their more routine tasks out of the way via a discussion board. This way, they're free to spend their valuable meeting time on their most important business -- discussing the merits of various companies and making investment decisions. (And enjoying some refreshments, of course.)
Check Out the NAIC
The National Association of Investors Corp. is the nation's premier authority on all things related to investment clubs. The granddaddy of the investment club movement in America, it's a non-profit association dedicated to investment education for investment clubs and individuals. See what the NAIC has to offer at its website: /FoolSite/BorderPages/boundary.htm"/FoolSite/BorderPages/boundary.htm">software package that helps clubs manage their accounting and even their tax forms!
Take Advantage of Fooldom
If you aren't aware of all that we have to offer you here in our Motley halls, permit us to highlight a few more features of interest. Think of the list below as a pop quiz, perhaps. See how many you've checked out:
Our discussion boards. Here you'll find thousands of discussion boards for individual companies. Pop into the Wal-Mart board, for example, and see what people are saying about the company. In the "Information Desk" area, you'll find places to ask all your very basic questions.
Our community. This page highlights many facets of our discussion board community, such as posts of the day, interviews with readers, and so on.
Our Investment Clubs discussion board. Here's where you can join in (or listen in) on a discussion about all things related to investment clubs. It's a great place to ask questions and get answers.
We're now offering several free e-mail subscription products. See if any of them are of interest to you.
Want to learn all about investing basics? Check out our new collection.
Our Strategies area is where you'll find our many real-money portfolios, which involve varying levels of risk. Read about these strategies and see if any have some useful perspective to offer you.
Our Dueling Fools area. Here you'll find Fools dueling about the merits of high-profile companies, such as Microsoft, Lucent, General Electric, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, Krispy Kreme, and Nokia.
Fool News is where you'll find coverage of companies in the news, some of which might make good investments. Also, make sure to check out our nightly "Fool on the Hill" feature article, discussing an investment topic in detail.
Our Fool Research area, featuring some free articles by our analysts and dozens of in-depth reports on companies for as little as a dollar or so per report, on average.
Free Book: If you haven't yet registered (free and risk-free) with the Fool, do so and we'll send you a free little book that tells you what the Fool is all about. Head to: /FoolSite/BorderPages/boundary.htm"/FoolSite/BorderPages/boundary.htm">FoolMart now and then, to see what's new. You can even download a copy of our spiffy catalog.
In Closing
We're trying to make these occasional newsletters useful for you and your clubs. If you have ideas of things we should cover in these virtual pages, drop us a line at invclub@fool.com. Better still, submit something for us to publish, such as tips for other clubs or valuable learning experiences that your club has had.
Fool On!
Selena Maranjian
See Also
