Urban legend suggests lemmings are so committed to their herd they will stick together even if they march right off a cliff to their inevitable death.

It is easy to understand why many find the adorable lemming’s behavior analogous to investor behavior at market tops.

Those of us who have run a race understand just how important it is to pace ourselves, removed from the pack, running our race — not the race of the person to the right or the left. In investing, we refer to this as a goals-based approach: a strategy that focuses more on personal, long-term goals than beating an arbitrary benchmark or owning the latest and greatest growth stocks. It is an approach that, by definition, removes investors from the lemming crowd.

Jeremy Siegel, author of “Stocks for the Long Run,” has conducted comprehensive research on stock performance over the past 100-plus years; as a result, he is a diehard proponent of value investing. The primary reason is the power of dividend reinvestment.

Siegel’s classic and most-cited example of why value stocks outperform growth stock analyzes an investment of $1,000 in (then) growth stock IBM compared with value stock Exxon (XOM) from 1950-2012.  For the rest of the article, click here:  The Arizona Republic