Josiah Mackenzie

After I wrote my last blog entry, I was thinking how I could motivate you, my blog reader, to get started in the stock market. I know how easy it is to read a blog and say, “Wow! Isn’t that a great idea!” — but then move on to another website.

But I want you to take action — for your own sake. The biggest step in doing anything is the first one.

So what would motivate you to take that crucial first step? How about $25 free money to invest?

You heard that right! Sharebuilder is running a special promotion were existing members can invite their friends to sign up, and both of us win:
You get - $25 to invest in stocks
I get - 5 free trades
(I mention this because some bloggers will endorse things to make a huge profit. As you can see, you’re the one getting the deal here!)

So right now shoot me an email with the subject “Sharebuilder”: venture@josiahmackenzie.com. I’ll get you set up with a stock trading account with $25 you can spend as you wish. I’ll even guide you through the steps and give you a sure-fire stock to buy if you need help.

What are you waiting for? Do you want that $25 dollars or not?

Today I purchased my first stocks. For months I had been preparing and planning for this day: reading books, scanning the Wall Street Journal and websites for market trends, and playing stock simulators.

I Had To Just Do It
Part of the time I spent in preparation for today was worthwhile. I learned a lot - information that will hopefully earn me money in the future. But part of that time was procrastination. I kept making excuses to myself: “I’ll probably just loose money”…”What 18-year-old trades stocks?”… “Investing a small amount won’t make a difference”. Some of my concerns were legitimate — and were overcome by learning - but the root problem was fear. I had to put the fear behind me, and step forward.

The Internet Makes Trading Easy
Once I made the decision to step forward in the world of investing, I found it easier than I expected. The internet provides beginning investors with a wealth of information. After reading several articles on choosing an online broker, I chose two firms: Sharebuilder and Firstrade.

Sharebuilder Simplifies Scheduled Investing
Though Sharebuilder is a full-service broker, they specialize in “investment plans” - which enable you to automatically purchase $X worth of X stocks every X days. In addition to this being a no-hassle method of investing, it’s also a sophisticated technique called Dollar Cost Averaging. The big advantage of using Sharebuilder’s “investing plans” is that you can buy a portion of a large stock you can’t afford. For example, a share of Warren Buffet’s legendary Berkshire-Hathaway company costs around $80,000. I don’t have that amount, but want to take advantage of Buffet’s expertise. Before Sharebuilder came around, all I could do is wait until I had $80,000. But using an “investment plan,” I can invest $50 and have it grow at the same rate. The only disadvantage to Sharebuilder is that they charge $15 per trade of “real stock”. This isn’t a big deal when you trade hundreds of stocks at a time, but when you’re trading one stock at a time, it is. For example, let’s say you buy YHOO at $35. It jumps $5 and you want to sell. Wait a minute! Remember you paid $15 to buy YHOO and you’ll pay another $15 to sell it.

Firstrade Charges Low Commissions
As of this writing, Firstrade charges only $6.95 per trade. Using the previous YHOO example, you’ll see how this can greatly benefit a small investor like me. The other great feature is that there is no minimum balance to open an account. Other brokers I looked at required $500, $1,000, and even $10,000 to open an account. I like to buy stocks when I see value - not because I have $X amount of dollars to “use up”.

My Buy and Hold Strategy
The reason people lose money in the stock market is because they sell too quickly. They hear of a possible financial downturn, then quickly sell of their portfolio at a loss. If you don’t sell, you won’t lose money. A good way to show this is to look at a chart of the stock market over the last 50-75 years. Sure, there have been depressions. But if a person at any point in that time bought an index fund and held it for 25 years, they would have made a profit. Now, of course, the future may not replicate the past. But I’m guessing that it will. That’s why I’ve decided to keep my stocks over the long term: 5, 10, 25, or more years. I am going to ignore the financial experts when they talk about the market being “up” or “down”. As long as I have the funds, I plan to invest the same amount of money in the stock market regardless of the condition it is in. When everyone is selling at low prices, I’ll be able to get more stock for my money - and then I can sell it back to them when the market turns up again!

Start Investing Today
I hope this has encouraged you to start investing. It doesn’t have to be a large sum of money. Ten dollars is better than nothing. And with careful personal budgeting, I suspect you can invest even more.

7 Easy Ways to Save Money for Investing

• Shop with a list - and stick to it
• Drink water (don’t laugh - this can save you $30 a month or more!)
• Look for free entertainment - it’s often better
• Cut down bills if you can (examples: I could probably downgrade my “unlimited minutes” cell phone plan; you could use a broadband phone company for long-distance calls)
• Keep a “change jar” for that loose change in your pocket
• Invest that pay raise or tax return - you’ll thank yourself later
• Pay yourself first - set aside a dollar a day

Links
Sharebuilder
Firstrade
Yahoo! Finance

According to the latest Nielsen//Netratings data, Yahoo! Search has grown in popularity:

June 2005 Search Engine Usage

• Google - 47%
• Yahoo - 22%
• MSN - 12%
• AOL - 5%
• My Way - 2%

Yes, Google is still king, but remember Yahoo when optimizing your website for search engines. Forgetting to do so could cost you hundreds of lost visitors.

FM radio can be unsatisfying. From constant advertisements to small playlists, the listener is often frustrated.

I have been interested in satellite radio for quite some time. To me, paying the relatively small subscription fee ($12/month and lower) is worth it for no advertisements.

But of course, there is the initial startup fees for a receiver and activation. With that in mind, I wanted to preview the “channels” to see if the music was worth the cost.

So, I headed over to XM Radio Online, which offers a 3-day preview. Then I noticed on the side there is a 30-day evaluation period for new Dell owners. I recently purchased a Dell desktop, so I gladly signed up for the extra 27 days.

I’m still in that evaluation period, and I like what I hear. The online edition of XM Radio only comes with 70 (as opposed to 120), but there is still a huge selection of musical genres.

I have a feeling XM Radio will become one of the hottest media companies over the next couple years……

If you’ve ever worn a suit on a hot summer day, you know well, how hot it is! Luckily, my favorite “clothiers”, Josiah A. Bank, has developed the Stay Cool Suit.

Apparently, it uses an innovative fabric developed by NASA to keep you feeling cool in summer and warm in the winter.

The suit normally retails for $595, but is on sale now for $399.

“The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into a really creative state.”

I have personally experienced the decrease in productivity that comes with distractions. It’s important to learn to manage technology, and not have it run your life.

Read the article on News.com

According to The Car Connection, the 2006 Pontinac Solstice will not be delayed — as originally thought — to the end of summer, but will arrive in showrooms the first week of August.

Starting at under $20,000, the Solstice has amazing value. I expect it to take away significant market share from the Mazda Miata and other similar cars. Would you pay $1,000 more to own a Miata?

I choose WordPress because it’s opensource (unlike Movable Type), runs on PHP/MySQL, and is relatively simple. I dislike software that is “bloated” — all I needed in a blogging system was the ability to write and manage blog posts. WordPress does that nicely.