Peter Sander - The 100 Best Aggressive Stocks You Can Buy 2012

THE
100 BEST
AGGRESSIVE
STOCKS
YOU CAN BUY
2012

PETER SANDER AND SCOTT BOBO

Copyright 2011 by F+W Media, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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ISBN 10: 1-4405-2594-3
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-2594-0
eISBN 10: 1-4405-2611-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-2611-4

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We welcome you to the intrepid, adventurous, and, if all works as intended, ultimately lucrative world of aggressive stock investing.

You are holding a copy of the first edition, the 2012 edition, of what we hope to be many to come for this new title, The 100 Best Aggressive Stocks You Can Buy. As the tired old clich goes, life isnt just about the destination, its about the journey. So true. But we wont bore you with tired old clichs; if youre a seeker of truth and light about individual, do-it-yourself investing, youve probably seen enough of them already.

That, in fact, is why weve put together this new series that we hope to update every year. In fact, we aim to offer not only a fresh perspective on one of the most difficult arenas in investing, but we also offer our picks, for 2012, of the best aggressive stocks to invest in. We offer fish and we teach you how to fish.

Okay, another tired clich, perhaps. And perhaps, not even accurate, for the fish we offer arent really cooked and ready to eat. The 100 fish we offer in the form of selected companies, their stories, and their upside and downside potential are meant perhaps to be bait, not fish. They are ideas for you to pursue further, to research further. They are ideas to consider against your own interests, intuitions, and investing strategies. They are food for thought.

Okay, more clichs. Perhaps its time to get down to business and talk about the phrase Best Aggressive. What does Best mean? What does Aggressive mean? For that matter, just why are we doing this book?

The story starts with the mother ship from which this book sailed: The 100 Best Stocks You Can Buy. Manyperhaps mostof you have seen that book. You may have the 2012 edition already; you may have even purchased it along with this book. You may be one of the loyal readers who have followed 100 Best Stocks and all of its lessons and recommendations from its inception fifteen years ago.

We are by no means setting out to replace 100 Best Stocks You Can Buy. This is not some transition between an old, tired approach and some new sexy cant-miss secret sauce for investing. Both books have their place, andforgive us for being boldboth books belong on your investing bookshelf. Well explain this a bit more later.

The 100 Best Stocks You Can Buy2012 and all previous editions set out to pick, and give you the knowledge and ability to pick, what we feel are the 100 overall best stocks you can own. They balance safety and current income with long-term success and growth. They represent the best of all worlds, companies youll do well with primarily over the long term. They dont necessarily represent the least risk, but risk commensurate with the returns to be gained. They arent investments you can make one day and ignore for twenty years; all investments these days must be watched and managed as you would manage a business. The world just changes too fast to do anything else.

In our naturally biased opinion and worldview, we all should own some of the 100 Best Stocks. They should be somewhere in our portfolio. In fact, perhaps they should comprise a large portion or even a majority of our portfolios.

In our worldview, one of the major premises of owning stocks is to keep up with economic progress. Buy a bond, and what are you doing? You are lending a company money to do something with it, and youll eventually be paid back with interest. But do you participate in the growth of that company? Growth in its business? Productivity? Market share? Better ideas? New products? No, not at all. You get a fixed, predetermined return, the value of which may well be diminished by inflation, the interest rate climate, or God forbid, an all-out default if the company goes belly-up.

Put your money in a CD or some other fixed investment and you avoid the last risk, but still incur the first two. Buy a commodity or commodity future, and your success is left to the whims of supply and demand, with no management team or any other guidance working to make sure that things turn your way. And real estate? Well, we all know what happened with that one.

Not that these alternative investments are necessarily bad; they have their place. Companies have risks, too. Bad management, technology changes, poor response to competitionthe list is long. Any shareholder in Enron, Eastman Kodak, or E*trade can tell you from experience.

But if you want to participate in growthand that growth can come in the form of company value and in actual cash dividends returned (which can grow too, as so many forget), you should buy companies. That is, if you dont have the whim and wherewithal to start your own. (Or even if you do, for you shouldnt put all your business eggs in one basket.)

So, we feel that you should own at least some stocks. They offer not only the best chance to get ahead but also the best chance to keep up.

Now, assuming youve come on board with the idea of hitching your wagon to companies, American companies primarily, to keep up with or even get a little ahead of the pack, the question arises: Do you participate in the real growth opportunities in todays economy? Technology? Productivity? Efficiency? New, cool technologies like digital music, digital photography, and alternative energy, or less sexy but still new ideas like plastic composite backyard decking? Do you participate in recently realized economic necessities like replacing old water, sewer, and electric infrastructure? Do you participate in new business models such as streaming video, mobile wallets, or Fresh Mex?