Investing styles

Warning: The long post below is about investing, so if you're not interested you can just skip this post!

I'm quite into investing now cus I'm reading this book called "More Money Than God" as mentioned in the previous blog post below. The author introduced three types of investing styles so far and I have been contemplating which of the three is the best for me.

Long = buy the shares and hold, in anticipation of a rise in value of the shares.
Short = borrow shares from someone/institution and sell it, then buy back the shares some time later from the market to return it to the owner. This is in anticipation of a fall in value of the shares.

The first type of investor is a "stock picker", they believe that good and bad stocks exist. The investor finds out more about the different companies listed on the stock exchange. They also look at the company's balance sheet, the market the company is serving, the managing director and stuff. Then they long the good stocks and short the bad stocks in hope that the market forces will bring the prices to reflect the intrinsic value of the companies listed. However it's quite difficult to decide which is a good/bad stock as different people have different opinions and the market forces might not correct the pricing.

The second investor is a "trend follower", they sense the markets and go with the flow until the bubble reaches the maximum size. An example of such an investor is George Soros. If they feel that the other investors have bullish perceptions of a stock, they would long it (gain from the increase in stock price as other investors are buying) and would look for a point when "the coin flips". This is when almost of all the investors who have bullish expectation are on the bandwagon, and no one is willing to buy anymore. The price would be quite high and there is certainly the creation of an asset bubble. These investors then recognize the flip and short the shares. The difficult part of this strategy is that it's very difficult to know when the coin flips. If they short it too early and long it for too long, then they would lose money.

The last investor is "arbitrageur", which I'm not interested in so I shall not elaborate.

I feel like I'm a micro trend follower. Cus currently I'm a newbie in investing so I'm not well versed with the companies listed on SGX.

Oh and there are some people who feel that the prices of stocks just follow a random walk. Whenever I read an argument for this, I feel very sad. Cus what I'm learning now in school/books is based on the assumption that they do not follow a random walk! All that I ever learnt would crumble :( If all stocks follow a random walk, then there would be no need for a finance department in university cus the stock market would just be like a gambling den. Anyone can just try their luck at any stock!