Investors should buy stocks with a long-term mindset. The stock market is irrational. It does silly things and can lift shares of poor businesses while punishing good ones, sometimes for reasons not apparent to the naked eye. It can take time for things to sort themselves out.

But you also have to acknowledge that poor businesses are often bad investments, no matter how much time you give them. U.S. telecom giant Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) is a household name.

Yet, it seems investors constantly overlook how bad the stock has been, and for how long. If you had invested $100 into Verizon in 1990, you'd have $780 today from share price growth and dividends. That sounds great -- until you find out that the S 500 index would have turned that same $100 into $2,733.

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Source Fool.com