If You Own Only One Investment, Make Sure This Is It

William Patalon III

Today I want to tell you a story.

Twenty years ago, when I was working as a business reporter in Upstate New York and covering Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: KODK) for Gannett Newspapers, I decided it was time to start saving for a house.

So I concocted a plan.

I wasn't getting rich as a journalist, but I was doing OK. Even so, I knew I'd need a detailed plan that I could commit to if I really was going to amass the needed down payment.

My plan was simple. In the years that followed, every time my bosses gave me a raise, I started a new mutual fund.

By the time I got a job at The Baltimore Sun in 1998 - and Robin and I moved to Maryland - I had more than $25,000 set aside from this plan... as well as some other money I'd saved.

Robin and I were planning to get married and start a family. And we wanted a house.

That money I'd saved meant we could start looking immediately.

I learned a valuable lesson: A little discipline can take you a long way.

I thought about this after I told you about a way to "Accumulate" your way to wealth. In that column, I detailed a strategy that involved individual stocks - and buying on weakness.

But there's another way to play this.

A way for folks of modest means to achieve the same goal.

To get rich.

And this way involves one investment.

It's the perfect intermediate- to long-term investment for a down payment for a house, for college savings, for retirement, for a vacation house, for a boat or the cruise of a lifetime - in short, the kind of big-ticket cash needs that come along a couple of times during a lifetime.

Start Making More Money Now: Get stock picks and research that could put an extra $125,000 in your pocket delivered straight to your inbox for just pennies a day. Read more...

It's also a way to build wealth - the kind of wealth you always want to have "backing you" as you use other capital streams to fund these other needs.

Radical Technology Profits Editor Michael Robinson told me about it.

He likes to call it the "one investment you should buy... and never sell."

So let's take a look at it together...

The "One Investment"

The investment that we're talking about is the Fidelity Nasdaq Composite Index Tracking Stock (Nasdaq: ONEQ) - an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that mirrors the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index.

As we're going to show you, this is a fund that you should be looking to own for many years.

"Bill, this is a great foundational type of investment," Michael told me. "You can use it to build around. You can use it to be the recipient of regular contributions and to achieve some of those long-term 'life goals' you referred to. The shrewdest investors will look at this as an investment they'll want to own for a long, long time - if not forever."

Let's show you what this fund is. Then we'll show you how to use it.

William Patalon III

About the Author

Browse William's articles | View William's research services

Before he moved into the investment-research business in 2005, William (Bill) Patalon III spent 22 years as an award-winning financial reporter, columnist, and editor. Today he is the Executive Editor and Senior Research Analyst for Money Morning at Money Map Press.

… Read full bio