Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Motley Fool's guide to Teen Investing


Well this book was very boring and the ideas were very repetitive. Only about 20 pages on stocks and thats all I was interested about, the rest was success stories, budgeting and saving up money. Would recommend it to complete beginners. Not on my list of favorite books, the authors tried to make the book appeal to teens but it failed miserably.
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Thursday, February 21, 2008

The little book of Common Sense Investing


By John Bogle

Well although this book was very interesting and a quick read, it had completely discouraged me from ever becoming successful hand picking stocks. The authors main idea is that over the long term no investor will ever beat an index fund. Not surprising since he was the inventor of the first index fund. Almost each couple of pages has a graph comparing many index funds compared to other mutual funds, the numbers are actually astonishing. A very good read for beginning investors as well as veterans.
I was frustrated with my parents financial adviser that had never suggested an index fund to them or myself.I suggest this book to all . Why try to beat the market with complex strategies just be the market.

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Saturday, February 16, 2008

My list

Well after a fair share of research I came up with a list of stocks. I used the Warren Buffett philosophy of buying stocks of companies you like.Here it is:

1.Nike (nke)
Awesome brand, I wear the hockey equipment and the bball shoes. Also I read some articles about how the Olympics could have a large effect on Nike . A very safe bet with a good balance sheet, great dividend and plus Warren Buffett owns some!!!!!

2.Jamba (jmba)

A lesser known name especially in Canada but on a trip to New York this past summer I discovered it. It was very hot, so we decided to try a smoothie from Jamba Juice, it was amazing so a couple weeks ago ,I looked it up on google finance and did some research. The 60 % drop since the summer scared me a bit , but the potential is huge. They signed a deal with Nestle for their drinks to be sold bottled. And they are expanding to new areas with new stores at an amazing pace , the stock sells at under 50% of it's book value per share , very low p/e 8, no debt and double digit profit. margin


3. Johnson + Johnson (jnj)

Another of Warren Buffett's picks, good long term prospects and a good balance sheet.
Large dividend great with a history of raising it.Great long term pick.

4.General Electric (ge)

Very safe bet and most of its profits aren't from the US so protected from the imminent recession. Large dividends . The world will always need appliances!!!!

For now i'm still researching but some secondary choices are the following:

canadian tire
shoppers drug mart
bank of nova scotia
CIBC
Procter + Gamble

Any ideas , suggestions or whatever

email the teen dollar @ sburns77@gmail.com

Monday, February 11, 2008

How I started investing

Well after amassing several hundred dollars in savings from reffing soccer, birthday and Christmas money, but the biggest factor was a small French tv show that both me and my brother were in. My parents told us that their financial adviser was coming to give us some options with our money. He suggested mutual funds, that he explained were like a big bucket of bonds and stocks, he picked for us the Fidelity Canadian Balanced-B fund(that had a 13,6 return in my first year but it got destroyed by the recent crash). I continued to put money until a couple of months ago when i decided to try my luck at the stock market.

Picking A broker

I started with a call to my uncle for some insight to picking a broker and for some basics. He had me motivated to start investing in the stock market now all I had to do was find a broker that met my needs.I searched the large banks(BMO,RBC,CIBC, Scotiabank) only to find large minimum deposits and enormous commissions. Then I found what seemed to fit : Questrade ( low minimum, low commissions and a free trading platform!!!I was soooooo Pumped!

Little did I know the application and funding would take me over a month. My goal was to buy my first stock by the end of Christmas break.I'm not writing this do say that Questrade is bad but it took like almost 2 months!!

Choosing stocks

Well, while Questrade account was in the works I was reading books, reading articles and watching Jim Cramer's lightning round podcast .

Send me advice on what i wrote or stock picking
Email the teen dollar @ sburns77@gmail.com

My road to stocks

My name is Simon , I am 13 years old and until recently the words p/e ratio and S+P 500 meant absolutely nothing to me. But a couple of books ,web articles and lighting rounds later I'm on my way to buying my first stock! I made this blog to add and collect thoughts on investing as a teen.

email the teen dollar @ sburns77@gmail.com