Who is John Polomny and why should I listen to him?

Good question. My name is John Polomny and I am 53 years old. I am married and live in Texas. I am basically a regular guy. I am in the energy business and have operated and constructed power plants all over the United States and all over the world.

I have spent the last 30 years as an investor and up until fifteen years ago my results were hit and miss. I got tired of going through my tax return at the end of the year and realizing that I had another year where I lost money or barely made any money.

Oh yes, there were times when I hit a big return. However, I now realize that was based more on luck than any skill on my part. After another year of subpar returns, I finally sat down and began actually analyzing my trades.

What I found was not good. I had stocks in my portfolio that I could not recall the reason why I had bought it in the first place. I had stocks that were down 50 or 75% and that I had let fossilize in my brokerage account.

I had no investment plan, no risk control, and basically was shooting from the hip. I was winging it, I was the classic retail investor getting the low returns the “average” investor normally gets. Does this sound familiar? Is this you?

What I finally figured out was I was not investing I was gambling. I would have been far better off just dollar cost averaging into a low-cost index fund like the ones offered by Vanguard.

I realized that if I did not change the way I was approaching investing than I would never reach my financial goals.

The first thing I did was clean all the dead wood out of my portfolio. If I had a big loss I resolved to admit my mistake and sell the position. I then systematically went through the portfolio and wrote down the reason why I owned each stock.

I determined the reasoning behind the purchase of each stock, my expectations for the company, and whether the expectations were being met. If not I sold the stock.

My next step was to then construct an investment plan. I endeavored to understand what I was trying to accomplish, set realistic expectations, put risk control into place, and then execute my plan.

Since that time my performance has drastically changed for the better.
The other important thing I have done is study the best investors to determine their success formulas. Here are some of the more important pieces of advice I have learned and that helped in my success.

1. You are either a contrarian or a victim
2. The first rule of investing is not to lose money; the second rule is to never forget the first rule.
3. The price paid for a security usually determines the return over time.
4. Read 200 pages a day (continuous education) the man with the best information usually wins.
5. Take the best ideas from others. No need to reinvent the wheel, no one is that smart.
6. You must have an investment plan. It does not need to be a 30-page term paper. Just a one-page summary of what you are trying to accomplish and some rules you will follow (risk control, position sizing, etc..).

I have been blogging off and on for ten years but I have finally decided to take it seriously. I created this site so I would have a place to write down and clarify my thoughts. Along the way, I have learned quite a bit and it has resulted in my performance vastly improving.

I hope you can take some ideas away from my writing that you can find useful in your own investment journey. If nothing else I believe I can introduce you to some investment ideas and speculations that you may not have considered.

Regardless, please feel free to contact me to ask any questions or make any suggestions on topics or if I need to clarify anything. I am continually trying to improve my writing.

Also, this site will be a repository for my main articles. Most of my everyday stock and position updates that pertain to any investments I will post to my Twitter feed and Facebook page.

• Twitter
• Youtube Channel

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

Thanks for reading and please check out the disclaimer below.

John Polomny

Disclaimer:

This website is an investment journal of an individual, non-professional investor. It should be read as such.

None of the information presented on this website should be viewed as investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any stock or any other security. That includes articles that are published as premium content. Even though the author of the content might own the stock of a company profiled in an article, which explicitly does not mean the author encourages others to buy that stock or security.

When a company is profiled, the author of Actionable Intelligence Alert (AIA) voluntarily discloses existing positions in that stock or security at the date of that publication. However, changes in these positions will not be reported consistently and might not be reported at all.

Individual security prices can fluctuate dramatically and the author of AIA reserves the right to sell a stock at any time following a publication. That said, it usually takes time for a stock to reach it’s intrinsic value (as estimated by the author) and the author of “AIA” does not expect the prices of the stocks profiled on this site to be impacted immediately and significantly after a publication on this website. As such, the author of “AIA” does not expect to sell the stocks profiled on this site within a short time after the publication of a write-up on a company.

Visitors and subscribers should not rely on the accuracy of any information presented on this website, including the premium content. Visitors and subscribers should always do their own independent investment research and never base their judgment and decisions on any work done by others.