I love the stock market.. even when it’s down you can be up.
I first started trading stocks only this year and it will probably go down as the best year to invest in our lifetime! If I knew anything about the stock market before I invested, instead of making 100% return on my stocks, I would have made 1000% return or more!
Even today it’s not too late to get in and stay in! That’s the secret of the stock market. Forget those 10% and 20% returns, you want to wait until you get 40% and 50% and even more if you can. If I kept my 7 cents / share SIRI stock at 10,000 shares, I would have a lot of money now. If I kept Ford at $3 a share, BAC at $2.5 a share, etc etc etc I would have made 1000% returns instead of 100% returns.
Still you can’t beat having the stock market help pay for your first house. I even have the government paying me 8k just for buying my house.
Either I was really lucky this year or just had perfect timing.
Two stocks I’m sticking to for at least another year are Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae which are up 20% or so today because of the government removing caps on assistance. The only negative about this is, some say it is only time until the government takes over these two companies, basically wiping common stock out. I don’t think that will happen, it’s a bad image the government doesn’t want, and too much of a problem to take over I think. I still wouldn’t put all my eggs in the FNM and FRE basket.
If you want to start making more money, learn how to invest in the stock market. Really it’s pretty easy to get into, there are ups and downs, I wouldn’t gamble with the mortgage payment, but invest what money you have laying around. You can open a brokerage account with as little as $500 to $1000 and start trading right away. One account I recommend is TD Ameritrade. I have been using them for several months now and I’m extremely happy with them. I can even trade stocks with them on my iPhone.