The Stock Market

Disclaimer: Most of the techniques discussed in this paper are not surefire ways to make profit off the stock market, although some actually worked. Read at your own risk! 100,000 dollars is a pretty good amount of money to start off with in the stock market. One may opt to spend a little at a time, but being teenagers, we couldn't wait to see how much money we could make off the market. The technique I used to buy stock was pretty straight forward: I find a stock that nobody has or thinks of on a daily basis. Sure you could make money off of Nike, a sportswear company. But how many people will invest in the company that manufactures the thread for the shoelaces that go into the shoes? That company probably makes shoelaces for Nike and other major brand shoe companies. When thinking of stock to purchase, I researched the company which I was interested in. I did not only check their PE ratio, or EPS; I read anything I could find on that company. I checked the goods and/or services they offered in the past to see if there was a trend of failing ideas, and researched the ideas that they have for the future.Another great way that I analyzed a stock was to see what other people think of the stock. I am a member of six online stock market forums which are: A.I. Stock Market Forum, Trending 123, Superior Investor, Capitals Tool, Mr. Market is Huge, and Talk Stox. From my own experience, Capitals Tool is the best forum because it has the most traffic and most posts. And the people who are posting are pretty credible. Aside from forums, there are other people out there who suggest good stocks to buy. Through trial and error, I found out that most of these sites just give you advice because they want you to trade with their firm. Basically, researching the past, present and future of the companyis a good way to analyze it. Also, it is always good to get a second opinion. As for the specifics of the stocks we purchased, they are as follows: Capital One is a credit card company. It's a fact that online sales are going up (see appendix). It's also a fact that the only way to pay online, besides PayPal, is by credit card. We purchased this stock before the holiday season in hopes that people will buy presents online. But this holiday season, people decided to purchase gifts the conventional way and go to a store. Also, people are giving gift cards as present more often (see apendix). We bought MasterCard for the samee reason.