Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: INV 101

Investing is very easy! Hush! Most people consider savings in other words a very difficult proposition. But I have learnt that it is not very hard afterall. In fact it is easy. Often, it is making that momentous decision of just sitting on the sideline to join in the game that is hard. Once you are in, and you are just the common competitive homo-sapien then you always just want to beat your benchmark (which for me is S & P 500- more of that later). Indeed, if you want to beat that benchmark then you have to understand the market, the tricks and then you get hooked. Investing to you then becomes a piece of cake- it becomes just another visit to the mall, a dope you buy from the side of the street. And you see stocks you just wanna buy! That is why my task today is getting you to leave the fence and get into the market.
There are many gospels out there to 'would be' younger investors telling them to be invested and why. But consider this: On an average day I wake up - I brush my teeth and take my bath and get ready for work or school (Procter and Gamble -PG). I then get into your my car and drive to work(ExxonMobil and American Int. Group :AIG). After the day is over I stop over at your local retail store to pick up some food (Walmart- WMT) and then go home to cook. If I need more money for the week I may stop at my Bank (Bank of America- BAC) and head home. After cooking, I settle down to enjoy my meal and doze away with my TV on (Time Warner -TWX). The point in telling you all of these, is that i own every single stock I just mentioned! You see, I am patronizing myself each and everyday of my life. I am here to stay whether you like it or not- while you might be looking at me thinking I am spending, I am only beefing up my bottomline cos I am a part owner of these companies. You see? Do you want to be a consumer or a owner? I mean I don't really mind being both.

Having said this, when and how much do you need to invest. What all writers agree about is that the time to start investing is now. Your next hundred dollars can break the jinx. Open a very simple investment account with either Sharebuilder or BuyandHold and you can invest for as little as $2 per stock - in fact with that hundred dollars alternatively just buy two companies and you are on your way to success. What companies do you buy ? You might ask- that question we shall tackle next time. So long - will see you shortly.

**Additions: Here is a very interesting article on saving, investing and priorities- check it out

2 comments:

DonCasiragi said...

http://www.fool.com/dbc/dbc.htm

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