Preface: Invest in Current Wealth and Present Value
Book Serialization | Quality Value Investing: How to Pick the Winning Stocks of Enduring Enterprises
Welcome to the Preface of my next book, Quality Value Investing: How to Pick the Winning Stocks of Enduring Enterprises.
I am writing the book on Substack Finance as part of the QVI Newsletter and look forward to subscribers’ support and feedback as we produce the manuscript in real time.
A preface is the author’s introductory brief content section of the book’s front matter and is typical of nonfiction. It establishes the author’s credibility regarding the work’s subject matter and provides additional relevant information on the book’s development and mission for new and returning readers.
Preface
Invest in Current Wealth and Present Value
As a result of my renewed approach of investing solely in a company’s current wealth and a stock price’s present value, I transitioned from an underperforming, near-sighted stock trader to an alpha-achieving, far-sighted company investor.
I appreciate your commitment to read my fifth book, Quality Value Investing: How to Pick the Winning Stocks of Enduring Enterprises. The investment of your precious time is cherished.
I’m David J. Waldron, author of the international-selling book Build Wealth with Common Stocks. I am excited to introduce interested readers to Quality Value Investing, the book inspired by my subscription newsletter of the same title or its acronym, QVI.
To uncover fundamental investment value, Quality Value Investing uses a proprietary analysis to inspire readers to build and maintain portfolios of the shares of quality companies purchased at value prices.
For some background, in early 2009, following the Great Recession-induced bear market, I transitioned to bottom-up value investing after struggling as a top-down growth investor for several years. To cure my frustration, I began modeling the guiding principles of legendary investors Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch, Howard Marks, and Charlie Munger. I made alpha-achieving stock picks driven by their influential collective wisdom, which became the foundation of Quality Value Investing.
As a result of my investor reinvention over 15 years ago, our concentrated family portfolio of predominantly dividend-paying common shares of quality enterprises has achieved alpha by outperforming the S&P 500 Index based on an equal-weighted average total return per holding during the same periods since inception. Thus, I was fortunate to discover first-hand how quality-driven value investing prevails across market cycles.
Quality Value Investing’s Checklist-Driven Approach
My proprietary checklist-driven approach to stock-picking generates an actionable investment thesis summarizing why I rate a targeted company and its stock as a buy, hold, or sell.
My easy-to-read and understandable research reports in the QVI Newsletter examine the targeted company’s current wealth, including the value proposition or competitive advantage, the business fundamentals or returns on management, and the enterprise’s downside risks. Next, I uncover the stock price’s present value by analyzing shareholder yields or the equity bond rate, valuation multiples or intrinsic value, and the share price’s downside risks.
As such, I gravitated to just the facts for a more profitable approach to retail investing by putting quality before speculation. The current wealth and present value stock-picking strategy rejects near-sighted trading schemes, unreliable predictive analysis, and business modeling overkill typical of the financial services industry’s penchant for generating advisory fees more than portfolio alpha.
Quality-driven retail investors bypass controversial, unproven investment vehicles with limited utility for hopeful, albeit improbable, quick financial gains. I discovered that do-it-yourself everyday stock investors can beat the market or their investment goals over time by sticking to a simple menu of time-tested, winning investment principles, strategies, and practices.
In addition, I learned to stop placing bets on faceless stocks and instead invest in the common shares of exceptional businesses. This historical founding concept of trading equities facilitated willing participants to take affordable partial stakes in publicly traded companies. That approach remains the ideal model for retail investors seeking to build an alpha-achieving portfolio of the winning stocks of enduring enterprises.
Everyday retail investors often build portfolios to finance their life’s essential milestones, such as buying a home, paying college tuition, sponsoring a wedding, underwriting a hobby, starting a business, or enjoying a comfortable retirement.
Quality Value Investing assists readers in discovering how to keep stock-picking super simple by focusing on the more tangible current wealth and present value paradigm instead of speculative future share prices or business growth targets. We practice and master the behavioral arts of rational thought, discipline, and patience to take advantage of the magic of compounding, protected by wide margins of safety, to fund those milestones.
The Mission of Quality Value Investing
Although Quality Value Investing welcomes everyone to participate and benefit, the book best serves the following pre-retirement retail-level investors:
Everyday investors keen on the quality-driven value investing model of buying and holding the common shares of excellent businesses when their shares are trading at reasonable prices. The investors seek to open or maintain existing personal brokerages or tax-deferred accounts and need inspiration to self-manage their portfolios. In addition, they seek an easy-to-read, value-added, and timeless book in their quest for lower cost and lesser risk investing across market cycles.
To create an enduring investment reference, I use instructive narratives more than real-time examples of investment opportunities in the book, as the real-time information would inevitably become obsolete. Nevertheless, the newsletter version of Quality Value Investing publishes new and updated research reports on the winning stocks of enduring enterprises by applying the actionable principles, strategies, and practices discussed throughout the book version.
In the back matter, Appendix I: The Elements of Quality-Driven Value Investing provides readers with a built-in objective book summary for ongoing reference. Appendix II: Glossary of Investing Terms and Metric Targets summarizes the data-driven content for real-time reader reference. Appendix III: The Quality Value Investing Newsletter offers additional information on my website-based subscription service that inspired the book.
Some readers may notice a repetitious theme in the book. As a former postsecondary education executive, I can attest that mastering a subject or skill requires thousands of hours of repetitive learning and hands-on practice. Quality-driven value investing is no exception to that rule.
I humbly appreciate your interest in reading Quality Value Investing: How to Pick the Winning Stocks of Enduring Enterprises. Please read the important disclosures and disclaimers before beginning your quality-driven value-investing journey.
Disclosure: As of the Preface’s writing, I/we held long, beneficial positions in the common shares of the companies in our family portfolio, as mirrored by the QVI Real-Time Concentrated Portfolio. I wrote this book myself, and it expresses my own opinions. Other than the book’s funding campaign, its publishing royalties, and premium newsletter subscriptions, I am not otherwise compensated for it. I have no business relationship with any publicly traded company mentioned in this book or owned in our family portfolio.
Additional Disclosure: The content of David J. Waldron’s Quality Value Investing book, newsletter posts, and real-time stock picks are for informational purposes only. The accuracy of the data cannot be guaranteed. Narrative and analytics are impersonal, i.e., not tailored to individual needs nor intended for portfolio construction beyond his family portfolio, which is presented solely for educational purposes. David is an individual investor and author, not an investment adviser. Readers should always engage in independent research or due diligence and consider, as appropriate, consulting a fee-only certified financial planner, licensed discount broker/dealer, flat fee registered investment adviser, certified public accountant, or specialized attorney before making any investment, income tax, or estate planning decisions.
Disclaimer: Although Quality Value Investing takes a skeptical view of the financial services industry commonly referred to in the media as Wall Street—a euphemism for professional or institutional investing anywhere in the world—it neither implies nor expresses specific issues with or negative references to any actual organizations or individuals existing or working in the financial services industry. Any perceived connection or offense to actual firms or natural persons is coincidental and unintentional. In his general lament of the Wall Street way, the author abstains from unproven conspiracy theories and presents a narrative platform of commentary, critique, education, and parody. In this world, facts are exempt from any alternative paradigm. Thus, the subjective thoughts shared by the author throughout the book are his opinions and, therefore, independent from fact.
Book Preface is copyright 2024 by David J. Waldron. All rights reserved worldwide.
About the Author
David J. Waldron is the contributing editor of Quality Value Investing and author of the international-selling book Build Wealth with Common Stocks: Market-Beating Strategies for the Individual Investor. David’s mission is to inspire the achievement of his readers’ financial goals and dreams. His work has been featured on Substack Finance, Seeking Alpha, MSN Money, TalkMarkets, ValueWalk, Yahoo Finance, QAV—Australia’s #1 Value Investing Podcast, Money Life with Chuck Jaffe, LifeBlood with George Grombacher, The Acquirer’s Multiple, Capital Employed, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, the BookLife Prize, and Publisher’s Weekly. David previously enjoyed a 25-year career as a postsecondary education executive. He received a Bachelor of Science in business studies as a Garden State Scholar at Stockton University and completed The Practice of Management Program at Brown University.
Resources
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