| However, just as individuals experience an awkward start (adolescence), a period of mastery and success (maturity), and then a slow or sudden decline (old age), companies have a limited number of prime years too. We saw this in June 2018 when the last original Dow Jones Industrial component, General Electric (NYSE: GE), was dropped from the index after more than a century. Hard as it may be to believe, someday other corporations will replace market leaders like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) and Google's parent, Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL). But almost certainly not anytime soon. Readers who have run businesses of their own recognize that companies often find a profitable niche and work it for all it's worth, then something changes that completely alters their outlook. That "something" could be a disruptive new technology, the rise of tough new competitors or just changing consumer tastes. But once a company starts losing market share - for whatever reason - it is often difficult (if not impossible) to get it back. That's why few companies are worth hanging on to forever. (Just ask any buy-and-holder of Montgomery Ward, Circuit City, Borders, RadioShack, Shearson Lehman, Kodak or Sears, to name just a few.) The two things every investor needs to beat the market with individual stocks are a strict set of criteria for what to buy... and a strict discipline for when to sell. In my nearly 40 years in the business, the three best methods I've found for selecting stocks are momentum investing, value investing and riding the coattails of industry insiders. Momentum stocks are companies that lead the market in sales and earnings growth, product innovation, and price action. They tend to rise faster in a bull market and fall harder in a bear market or correction. Value stocks are companies that are cheaper than most on the basis of price-to-sales, price-to-earnings and price-to-book value. They often pay bigger-than-average dividends too. These stocks may rise less in a bull market but hold up better in a bear market. They are a fine example of why the tortoise beat the hare. But there's no better indicator than insider buying... Insider buying is when the officers, directors and beneficial owners are buying substantial amounts of their own companies' shares with their own money at current market prices. Given that these individuals have access to all sorts of material, nonpublic information about their companies' business prospects, it's no surprise that these stocks tend to outperform in good times and bad. These are three different approaches requiring entirely different metrics. Yet they all work over time... and none involve trying to outguess the market. But how about a stock that encompasses all of these qualities and more? The Next Great Stock? Investors should always be on the lookout for new technologies and innovations - that's often where you'll find some of the most drastic moves in the market. And I believe one tiny company is about to skyrocket. Not only is it overhauling a niche market, but its business model all but guarantees repeat customers. It reminds me of Amazon disrupting the publishing industry with its online bookstore... Apple disrupting the music industry by putting "1,000 songs in your pocket" with its iPod... And Lululemon disrupting athletic apparel and spawning an entirely new $306 billion "athleisure" market. In short, this stock shares key characteristics with companies that went on to become some of the greatest stocks of all time. Good investing, Alex P.S. I encourage you to join me at FreedomFest July 12-15 in Memphis. I'll be interviewing investment greats Jeremy Siegel (author of Stocks for the Long Run) and Burton Malkiel (author of the investment classic A Random Walk Down Wall Street). I'll be speaking about "How to Get Rich... Fast or Slow." And I'll be debating various gloom-and-doomers, most of whom have been dead wrong for not just years but decades. Other featured speakers at this year's FreedomFest will be former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, bestselling author Mike Rowe, historians Douglas Brinkley and Amity Shlaes, economist Art Laffer, publisher and professional skeptic Michael Shermer, former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, national columnists John Fund and Stephen Moore, and many more. For more information, visit FreedomFest.com. And for new registrants signing up at the attendee rate, use the code OXFORD77 - which expires June 15 - to receive a $77 discount. I look forward to seeing you there! | 
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