Do Your Stock Homework

Editor's note: As a special bonus to TheStreet.com readers, we will be running an updated version of Jim Cramer's "Twenty-Five Rules of Investing," from his latest book, Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World.. Here's Rule 6.

My kids hate homework. They think it is punishment. Sometimes when I look at what they are studying, I have to admit that I find it easy to sympathize with them. What's the relevance of most of the things they study? How will it help them in later life? Why bother?

Of course, that's a terrible attitude, and, as a parent, I encourage them to study because I want them to do well, and because you never know what they eventually will be interested in.

I think many of you believe that the homework you do on stocks might be just as irrelevant to your own portfolios as schoolwork seems to my kids.

When I tell people that they have to listen to the Starbucks(SBUX Quote) conference call or know what the analysts are looking for from Urban Outfitters(URBN Quote) if they are going to own those high-multiple stocks, they don't want to hear it. They can't understand what a scold I am.

When I remind people that doing the homework could take as much as an hour per week per position, they look at me as if I am some sort of old-fashioned teacher who is asking for way too much in this busy world in which we live.

That's just plain wrong.

Where does the desire to own stocks with no research into the companies come from? It comes from two different views:

1. If I buy it and hold it long enough, it will come back.
2. I don't have the time -- no one has the time -- to be that diligent.

The latter point's easy to counter: You don't have the time? Give it to someone else. You don't understand how to read a balance sheet? Give it to someone else. There are lots of good managers out there who will beat you simply because they are at it every day and you can't be.

It's the first concept, though, that I find really needs debunking. Buying and holding became the be-all and end-all for many people in the 1990s.

"You know what? I am just going to hold on to that CMGI(CMGI Quote) because it has to go back to $100, where I bought it." Or, "Why sell Sun Micro(SUNW Quote) now? When it gets back to $70, I am going to sell it because all of the texts say that if you hold things for the long term, everything works out."

Huh? What text says that? I don't know of it. That's just a fictional contortion of what the texts say.

That's why I say: Before you buy any stock -- before you purchase Caterpillar(CAT Quote), before you buy Lucent(LU Quote) -- please, please, do your homework.

Listen to the conference calls. Go to the company's Web site. Read the research. Read the news stories. Everything's available on the Web. Everything.

But if you fall back on a buy-and-hold strategy for an EMC(EMC Quote) or a Microsoft(MSFT Quote), I can assure you that you will be soundly beaten by professional managers with good track records who are actively searching for good stocks all of the time.

Remember:

Buy and homework, not buy and hold.

	1.	Pigs Get Slaughtered		2.	It's OK to Pay the Taxes
	3.	Don't Buy All at Once		4.	Buy Damaged Stocks
	5.	Diversify to Control Risk		6.	Do Your Homework
	7.	Don't Panic		8.	Buy Best-of-Breed
	9.	Defend Some Stocks		10.	Don't Bet on Bad Stocks
	11.	Own Fewer Names		12.	Cash Is for Winners
	13.	No Regrets		14.	Expect Corrections
	15.	Know Bonds		16.	Don't Subsidize Losers
	17.	No Room for Hope		18.	Be Flexible
	19.	Quit When Execs Do		20.	Patience Is a Virtue
	21.	Be a TV Critic		22.	When to Wait 30 Days
	23.	Beware the Hype		24.	Explain Your Picks
	25.	Find the Bull Market
Check back for more of Cramer's Rules