Investors came in in in 2003. They came into last year with a lot more caution. I think that's probably why the market was set up to outperform because when we even got a whiff of good news, whether it was good news on inflation

or good news on the economy, it was kind of a surprise.

And it said, wow, okay, things are better than we thought.

Let's go buy stocks.

Going into 2024, however, I think investors are a lot more optimistic.

Obviously, we've had a great run in the market over the last few months.

Inflation has come down.

A lot better feelings, right?

And I think a lot of that optimism is justified.

I'm Mary Long and that's Matt Argersinger, a senior analyst here at The Fool.

To kick off the first Saturday show of the year, I rounded up

Matt and a few other analysts to put together a foolish crash course on investing in

2024. We talk about the fundamentals of a foolish portfolio, take a look at some of the investing tools

that our analysts use in their own research,

and examine the economic landscape for the year ahead.

If you've been with us for a while, you probably already know that we do things a little differently around here.

We're not your typical investors. But if you're a new listener, we want it to take a moment at the start of the year to let you know who we are and what we're all about.

So first I sat down with senior analyst Osset Sharma to talk through the full rules and the fundamentals

of our investing approach.

I got what I hope is an easy question to start us off with.

What is foolish investing and that's foolish with a capital F mind you?

Sure so foolish investing Mary, is in essence identifying great businesses with long-term

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