CEO Tom Gardner: Be "More Curious Than Greedy" to Escape Lottery Thinking

Key Points

• Tom Gardner was recently asked about five tips that he would give new investors.

• The first four tips were specifically about what not to buy, but the last one was more general.

• Gardner's tip to be curious and not greedy speaks to the need to think about the long term.

• 10 stocks we like better than Altria Group ›

As CEO of The Motley Fool, Tom Gardner gets asked about investing a lot. He's been around the Wall Street block a few times, so he's a good person to look to for answers to investing questions. The answer, "You've got to be more curious than you are greedy" to a recent question about what new investors shouldn't do speaks volumes about Gardner's belief that investing is about building long-term wealth, not achieving instant success.

What not to do, according to Tom Gardner

The question that elicited the above answer was this one: "What are five investments to avoid for anyone in the first year or first couple of years of their investments?" The first four answers were pretty direct: don't buy stocks under $10, don't buy options, don't buy digital assets, and don't day trade. For a new investor this is good advice. But the biggest value from Tom's list is from his fifth answer, which was a bit different from the rest.

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"You've got to be more curious than you are greedy," could be viewed as a roundabout way of saying don't be greedy -- which is good advice on Wall Street since greed can lead you to invest in things you don't understand. It can result in your following the crowd even though the crowd may be wrong. It can lead you to try taking investment "shortcuts" that increase risk and often don't work out as well as planned, like using leverage in the form of margin loans or overextending yourself with options.

But Tom's answer is so much more than just providing a warning, it is also providing a direction: "Be curious."

What does being curious mean?

Let's say you are an income-focused investor like me. And you see a dividend that looks really attractive, perhaps from a well-known company like Altria Group (NYSE: MO). Who wouldn't want to own an iconic company paying a 7% dividend yield? That's an incredible income payday and you get to collect it from day one.

In fact, there are plenty of reasons to buy Altria. The lofty dividend yield is a big one, but so too is the fact that the dividend has been growing steadily for years. That's not likely to be shocking if you look at the market sector in which Altria is placed. Consumer staples makers are known for providing reliable dividends because the products they sell are bought regularly in good times and bad.

But Altria isn't selling food or toiletries, like most consumer staples companies. It sells tobacco products, with a heavy focus on cigarettes. Do you want to own a company that sells cigarettes? That alone might put you off, but you have to be curious about the business to find out that this is what Altria does. And then there's the performance of the business to consider.

Altria's cigarette volumes have been in decline for years. In the first quarter of 2025 alone cigarette volumes declined 13.7%! That's a shockingly large drop. Do you want to own a business where consumers are buying less and less of its most important product? That doesn't sound like a good way to build long-term wealth to me.

But if all you see is the dividend yield, thinking you have hit pay dirt, and you aren't curious enough to dig into the business backing that yield, well, you could end up owning a stock you might be better off avoiding.

More than just stocks need your curiosity

Altria is just one stock out of the thousands you could buy. But the need for curiosity doesn't stop there. Any investment you are looking at requires your curiosity, from increasingly complicated exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to mutual funds to precious metals to watches and collectibles. What are you really buying when you "invest" in these things? If you aren't curious, you won't really know.

But there's an even bigger payoff to being curious about every single investment you make. Each time you ask a question and search out the answer, you are building up your investment knowledge base. As you do so, figuring out the answers gets easier and easier because you are becoming a better and better investor. If you are a new investor or an old one, Tom Gardner is right. Be curious. Always be curious.

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Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.