There is no single right way to invest, but several coherent schools. Knowing them lets you choose your own — and above all stick to it, which matters more than the style you pick.
Value: buying below worth
Inherited from Benjamin Graham and popularised by Warren Buffett: looking for companies whose price is clearly below their intrinsic value, with a margin of safety. It demands patience and the ability to go against prevailing opinion. The risk: the “value trap”, a cheap share that stays cheap because the company really is in decline.
Growth: paying for expansion
Accepting a high multiple today because future profits will justify the price. You are betting on execution and on the addressable market. The risk: the slightest growth disappointment causes a violent fall, because the whole price was in the expectations.
Dividend: regular income
Favouring mature companies that pay out a steady stream. Attractive for the income and for the discipline it imposes on management. The risk: a very high yield is often an alarm signal — the market is anticipating a dividend cut.
Momentum: following strength
A robust empirical finding: what is rising tends to keep rising, over horizons of a few months. Counter-intuitive but documented. The risk: reversals are brutal, and the strategy demands flawless exit discipline.
The real success factor
No style dominates permanently: they alternate in cycles, sometimes for years. The greatest destroyer of performance is not the wrong style, it is changing style after every disappointing period, and so arriving systematically late.
In Earnnest
The screener lets you filter on value criteria (P/E, FCF yield), growth (revenue growth), dividend (yield) or momentum (RSI, technical score). Defining your own grid is up to you.
À retenir
- ✓Value, growth, dividend, momentum: four coherent logics, each with its own risk.
- ✓Styles alternate in cycles; none dominates forever.
- ✓Consistency over time beats picking the “best” style.