How To Invest

In addition, Pat thinks then beginner investors should cultivate two important qualities: a healthy sense of skepticism and patience.

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Investors should approach all investments with a healthy sense of skepticism. This can help keep you out of fraudulent stocks that masquerade as high-quality stocks. It will also keep you out of legally operated, but poorly managed, companies that promise more than they can possibly deliver.

If you are a new investor, you should also realize that losing patience can cause you to sell your best choices right before a big rise. All too often, investors buy a promising stock just as it enters a period of price stagnation. Even the best-performing stocks run into these unpredictable phases from time to time. They move mainly sideways in a wide range for months or years before their next big rise begins. (Stock brokers often refer to these stocks as “dead money.”)

If you lack patience, you run a big risk of selling your best choices in the midst of one of these phases, prior to the next big move upward. If you lose patience and sell, you are particularly likely to do so in the low end of the trading range, when stock prices have weakened and confidence in the stock has waned.

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You Can See Our WSSF Aggressive Growth Portfolio for May 2026 Here.


We designed our TSINetwork Ratings to give you an idea of the investment quality and risk in stocks we recommend, so you can build a portfolio that suits your needs and objectives.



Other rating systems use a mechanical process to make investment decisions.
A: Hexcel Corp., $87.25, symbol HXL on New York (Shares outstanding: 75.4 million; Market cap: $6.6 billion; www.hexcel.com), is a global leader in advanced lightweight composites. Its products include carbon fibre, specialty reinforcements, prepregs composites and other fibre-reinforced matrix materials for aerospace.

Most of the company’s products are directed at commercial, defence and space, and industrial applications.
A: VSE Corp., $210.00, symbol VSEC on Nasdaq, (Shares outstanding: 28.1 million; Market cap: $5.9 billion; www.vsecorp.com), is a leading provider of aviation distribution and repair services for the commercial, business and general aviation aftermarkets.

Headquartered in Miramar, Florida, the company provides aftermarket parts, along with distribution and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for components and engine accessories. VSE services aircraft in 57 different countries, and its physical infrastructure is distributed across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia.
A: Linde plc, $497.17, symbol LIN on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 463.4 million; Market cap: $230.4 billion; Manufacturing & Industry sector; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 1.3%; www.linde.com), is the largest industrial gas company in the world. Linde was created by the merger of Praxair Inc. and Linde AG in 2018. Formed under the laws of Ireland, it has principal offices in the U.K. and the U.S.

The company designs, engineers, and builds equipment that produces industrial gases. That’s on top of its core business of furnishing atmospheric and process gases.
The stock market has moved up over the last month or so—the S&P 500 has gained nearly 2% in the past week, alone. Still, some investors remain anxious.

While market downturns are generally unsettling, even new investors are inclined to view them as a natural part of the market cycle—as an opportunity to purchase quality stocks at more attractive prices.

The uncertainty of a highly volatile market—the kind the Iran war has intensified—is usually a different matter. Days, weeks or even months of price swings can be particularly challenging for many investors and leave them unsure which way to move. For some, the urge is to get off the rollercoaster ride and move all or partly into cash.