Monday, January 17, 2011

Bosses of the Market

     Unemployment has been recorded at 9.4% according to the report from the US Department of Labor in December, thats slightly scary.  They calculate this number by analyzing a monthly survey (known as the Current Population Survey) sent to households that includes people who have been looking for work within the last 4 months...and only those people. This figure ignores those who have some sort of job but are paid much less then an amount to live comfortably, and those people who have flat out given up looking for work in such a down economy. Now technically you cant call these people unemployed due to legislation, however because there is such a large discrepancy between adding these people to the unemployment rate and the unemployment itself, in 1995 The Bureau of Labor Statistics at the demand of several economists began tracking this alternative rate and called it the U-6. The rate for unemployment including the U-6 is 16.7% according to the December report, thats really scary, at least for me it is.

    With numbers like this, it can be discouraging looking for some sort of job to produce income. Some people may look for odd jobs to make money on the side. Others may create startups and run the risk of winning big or losing it all. Some might look to gambling to cover monthly bills. However the method, people are looking (frantically) to find way to make income and are wondering what they can do to make money. This blogs intention is to answer that question with the answer of smart investing.

  Stocks can be intimidating as fortunes can be won with the right picks, but they can also be lost with the wrong ones (or at the wrong time).  The estimates of the percentage of people who lose money in the stock market has ranged from 60-95% depending on where you look for the data. Either way, its essentially universally agreed more people loose money than make money.  That said, 1/175,711,536 or about .000000006% of people win the mega millions lottery, depending on the industry start ups have around a 30% success rate and relying on odd jobs is essentially the same as gambling your income on the hopes that some work eventually pops up. With investing you cant control the market or any exogenous factors that may affect it, but you can make informed decisions that will leave your losses buried by your winnings.

  In this blog, we will discuss potential profitable investments with in depth research to help each other make the best decisions possible. Through the scrutiny and feedback of our colleagues we can use each other to create a greater amount of money for ourselves. Each stock pick will be backed with research supporting reasons to buy and then a discussion on the given evidence and whether the stock really is a winner, or if perhaps something slipped by the initial person to post the stock that someone else caught. This type of analysis will include both technical and fundamental, and it will be a learning experience to find what works best with what and when. With the ability to have others review our decisions we can combine our intellects and make smart profitable investments.