Viewpoints for the individual investor (non-professional).

Investment

An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operations not meeting this requirement are speculative.

Defensive Investor

1. Purchase of shares of well established investment funds.
2. "Dollar-cost averaging" investing same number of dollars each month or quarter.

Aggressive Investor

1. Look for stocks performing better than market average.
2. Buying stocks of companies which are expected to report increased earnings.
3. Companies that don't show promise yet but are building products or processes that will create value.
4. Strive for adequate returns instead of excellent.

A nice rule of thumb for investing for value:

Would you be comfortable owning a stocke even if you had no way of knowing its daily stock price.

Tracked Stocks

I used the GTT feature on Zerodha's Kite to buy the stocks I was interested in.

Created on	Instrument	Type	Trigger	LTP	Quantity
2021-12-19	KPITTECH NSE	SINGLE BUY	505.65 4.99%	481.60	2
2021-12-19	PANAENERG BSE	SINGLE BUY	343.15 4.99%	326.85	1
2021-12-19	EVEREADY NSE	SINGLE BUY	325.60 5%	310.10	5
2021-12-19	ZOMATO NSE	SINGLE BUY	136.00 0.48%	135.35	5
2021-12-19	ASHOKLEY NSE	SINGLE BUY	124.00 0.65%	123.20	5

The number of units purchased is less because I want to average out my cost price over time. If the prices fall, I can buy more units to correct my portfolio. If the prices rise, I would buy few units to continue to compound on my investment. I picked batteries, technology, automobile and software as my sectors because I understand these industries better (relatively) than others.

Breakdown of Foolish Four

The foolish four claimed the following can provide 10%+ over market over 25 years at minimal risk.

1. Take the five stocks in the Down Jones Industrial Average with the lowest priced stocks and highest dividend yields.
2. Discard the lowest.
3. Put 40% into the 2nd lowest stock.
4. Put 20% each into other 3 stocks.
5. Reset portfolio every year.

This isn't sound because:

1. Discarding the lowest price stock isn't sound advice [pt 2].
2. 40% into the 2nd lowest stock doesn't translate to "minimal risk" [pt 3].
3. A portfolio of 4 stocks doesn't address the diversity required for "safety of principal". [Definition of Investment].