‘Doc, we better back up. We don’t have enough road to get up to 88.’

‘Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads’.

                            Back To The Future 

These lines uttered by Dr Emmett Brown and Marty McFly in Back To The Future are relevant to the investor reading a share tip or forecast. No matter what the science behind them, without a time machine and the gift of foresight share tips are nothing more than the opinion of someone else.

For a privileged insight into a future ten-bagger you will need to do it the old fashioned way, with some hard work. Read share tips, advice and forecasts, but do so with a healthy dose of cynicism and in the same way that you would listen to a bar-end genius who says he’s got a time machine.

1.     The Good

There are some useful sources of intelligence out there like the Motley Fool at www.fool.co.uk whose regular articles and discussion boards can inform your thinking about investment opportunities. It was following an article on this site that I recently investigated, researched and subsequently invested in a small cap business that doubled in value in a short time. Exercise judgement and do your own extensive research.

2.     The Bad

Apply financial literacy. Be discerning in whose share tips you value, and always take a second opinion from yourself. Share tips from the non-financial press can be ill-informed and high risk. If you knew the lottery numbers this week, ask yourself honestly, who would you tell?

 ‘Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.’

                                  George Burns

3.     The Better

Learn from talented people with a proven track record.

Warren Buffet may not own a DeLorean but like Dr Emmett Brown he also thinks that we may not need roads as much where we are going, signalled by his $44 billion purchase of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway company. The investor can learn a lot from thinking in depth about why Warren Buffet made that purchase.

Buffet doesn’t provide share tips, but his behaviours provide lessons.

‘It is a good divine that follows his own instructions.’ 

                              William Shakespeare

Many share tips you will read are written by busy people who may not have had the time, knowledge and experience to research the company being ‘tipped’ to a level required by the intelligent investor looking to make money buying shares.

In the Back To The Future film, after years of trial and error, research, and hard work the Doc exclaims ‘I finally invent something that works!’  Tips are usually short term in nature. Take time, do your research and look to the past, the present and the future in thinking about how to invest.

The best share tips you will ever find are the ones that you discover yourself, before someone else does.

Jamie E Smith is the author of Making Money From Stocks And Shares

This content was provided by one of our users, Jamie