When Rule Maker announces an intention to trade, that trade will be made within the next five business days, as opposed to the very next day. For over a month now we've promised that the Rule Maker Portfolio would include a value component in the form of the Foolish Four or some variant of it. That decision has been fairly controversial from the get-go. While we've chosen not to rename the portfolio, we do feel the need to justify our inclusion of this more defensive approach. To answer that question, we need to review a few very basic investment precepts.
Investors are always eager to buy the highest-quality businesses at the lowest prices.
That's the ideal. The problem is, top quality doesn't often hang out at the Dollar Store. Those things don't come cheap. And the same is true in the stock market. Because the pool of investors is getting smarter by the hour.