Hello world! This is the first of my blog entries for 'Straight from the Chart', a blog about my journey through the world of amateur stock picking and high finance at the lowest possible levels. This blog is about me having $1000.00 and a dream to be a great stock picker.
I've been reading books for years written by Peter Lynch, Jim Cramer, and Donald Trump about this world of investments but I've never had any money to put into the market. Well I was able to free up $1000.00 and I decided that I was not going to wait any longer. So I have set out on my journey to pick some stocks, track my progress and see how it goes. This blog is meant to document the process of what stocks I've picked and how they've performed.
Just to be clear, nothing that I'm posting on this blog is in any way advice that should be followed by anyone else. All investment decisions should be made carefully by all individuals taking into account their own financial situation and appropriate levels of risk. Do not take anything I say for anything more than it is, opinion, speculation, and slightly / but woefully undereducated guesses as to how I think a few stocks are going to go.
First a bit about me:
I am an MBA student with no job, no income and little more than a thousand bucks and a dream. I came into the thousand dollars I have by selling a small (actually tiny) business. Before I started the MBA program I was in business with a partner making high end musical equipment for professional recording studios. Upon entering the MBA program they had me sign a paper saying that I would not attempt to maintain employment or any entrepreneurial efforts while in the first year of the program, so with that the business had to go. I got $1000 out of it and started the program in August of 2011.
That $1000 sat in a worthless checking account until I wasn't able to put off the urges any longer and I decided to put it into some stocks at the beginning of 2012. To my surprise January was a great month in the market and my portfolio quickly grew! Within one month I had increased my investment by 30% compared to just 5% for the S&P 500 index! My biggest stakes were in BAC (Bank of America) and F (Ford) during this time and they both performed excellently.
So now I had $1300 with February right around the corner. Analysts were all predicting that February was going to give back many of the gains of the previous month and they were right. A few weeks later, and a few more trades under my belt and the account is now $1190. Though this still constitutes a 19% gain on investment in a month and a half I think I can do better. This is what I am out to prove with this blog.
So with that as an intro lets get started on picking some stocks!
Here we go...
