{"id":2272,"date":"2009-01-15T11:00:08","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=2272"},"modified":"2020-12-12T18:56:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T02:56:54","slug":"interview-the-motley-fools-david-gardner-talks-about-stock-market-investing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/interview-the-motley-fools-david-gardner-talks-about-stock-market-investing\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: The Motley Fool’s David Gardner talks about stock-market investing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, I reviewed the new book<\/a> from The Motley Fool, Million Dollar Portfolio<\/i><\/a>. I had the pleasure to interview author David Gardner at the end of December. This post contains excerpts from that interview. The complete interview will be included as part of the hypothetical future Get Rich Slowly podcast.<\/p>\n

J.D.<\/b><\/i>
\nEarlier this year, you met with Stephen Popick, a government economist who writes for Get Rich Slowly. During the first part of your interview, you talked about teaching children about personal finance and investing<\/a>. You talked about a long-term version of the stock-market game.<\/i><\/p>\n

I like the idea of a stock-market game, and I’ve had some people ask me about similar things. They want to know if there are similar tools or methods for adults who want to learn about investing without risking their capital just yet.<\/p>\n

David<\/b><\/i>
\n\"\"<\/a>First of all, I enjoyed meeting Stephen a lot. He’s a very nice guy. I think at the time, he and I were talking about CAPS<\/a> and about what we’re doing on our site with that, and that’s what’s coming to mind as you ask me the question.<\/p>\n

I think the purpose of a site like CAPS<\/b><\/a> is to enable people to score themselves. You know, to actually step up and instead of at a cocktail party saying “I think CROX<\/a> is going down<\/i>!”, if you think CROX is going down, type it in. Put it right into this transparent open platform where you thought CROX at this date at this price was going to lose to the stock market. And that’s what CAPS does.<\/p>\n

The way I sometimes describe it is that it’s like one big stadium. All the world’s invited to sit, all the world’s invited to play right out on the field. Anything you do on the field, the whole world will see and will always know about from here on.<\/p>\n

J.D.<\/b><\/i>
\n\"\"<\/a>The Motley Fool in general and Million Dollar Portfolio<\/b><\/a> specifically [are] about picking stocks. [The book] is written for the individual investor who wants to own individual stocks. Yet early in the book you write that, “If you’re a beginning stock investor, your portfolio should be built upon a sound asset allocation plan and a set of carefully chosen mutual funds.” <\/i><\/p>\n

I was wondering if you could elaborate on this. What’s the relationship between mutual fund investing and investing in individual stocks?<\/b> At Get Rich Slowly, as I’ve been learning about investing, I’ve stuck pretty close with index funds<\/a>. But I’m wondering if you can talk about the relationship between mutual fund investing, or index fund investing, and investing in individual stocks. When do you make the transition from one to the other? Do you do both at the same time?<\/p>\n

David<\/b><\/i>
\nThat’s an excellent question. In fact, it’s really the<\/i> question that each of us has to ask ourselves. Part of what we’re trying to do with the book is to show people that there are multiple ways to invest successfully<\/b>.<\/p>\n

The truth is there are innumerable ways to invest. It more comes down to figuring out what color your parachute is<\/a>. That’s really largely based on three factors:<\/p>\n