What would you say is the biggest mistake investors make?
Taking a short-term view that can bring a risk of being whipsawed. A good example now is oil prices. We've seen oil prices drop, with some people looking at $60 a barrel, and many people will react and sell oil companies.That could be a big mistake, because the longer-term predictions have oil at $90 or even $100 a barrel. By making this short-term decision on stocks that, by the way, have already gone down, you're selling at the bottom and may get caught having to buy at a top when prices recover. Many companies at $60 a barrel will do very well because they're diversified, and aren't only drilling for oil but are selling gas, selling diesel. So lower oil is bad for the exploration side, but for the distribution side of oil companies it's good. Many of these stocks have gone down by 20 percent to 30 percent and pay excellent dividends, so it doesn't make sense to be selling them.
www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-10/...-long-term-investors.html