If you read any of the financial press aimed at the individual investor you have likely run across the active investor passive investor debate. The majority of financial writers today will lead you to think that you should be very passive in your investment approach, buy an index fund and never sell. If you are in the mutual fund business, you want to convince investors to pay for your fund managers expertise, so you advocate an approach that is active in seeking opportunities in the markets.
Each side would have you believe theirs is the only way to go and that charlatans and quacks make up the other side.
Maybe neither side is right. After all they are trying to prove a future event and that is impossible. Perhaps you might want to take a passively active approach. Select a portfolio of companies you believe will provide superior return over the long run and hold on to those companies through thick and thin for a very long time. That is what Warren Buffet does after all.
Or maybe you should consider being actively passive as your strategy. That would be like buying a diversified portfolio of exchange traded index funds and rebalancing them periodically or maybe even adjusting the portfolio weightings to reflect anticipated changes in world economics. Sometimes you might overweight growth and other times overweight value, or dozens of variations in themes while always remaining fully invested in various indices.
Investing is not a black or white affair. It is a continuum of choices. Find what works for you and stick to it.
