Penny Stocks List – A Tale of Two Investors
Penny Stocks List - A Tale of Two Investors

Who are those people that make lots of money in the stock market? Do you know anyone?

Do they even exist?

Well, yes, there are people who make fortunes investing in stocks… and they aren’t solely working on Wall Street.

The difference between those who make tons of money investing in stocks and those who grudgingly shrug their shoulders at yet another disappointing stock statement is illustrated by my tale of two investors.

Daniel is 46 years old, married, and works for the government. In some of his spare time he reads the Wall Street Journal and some online stock investing blogs. He works 40 hours per week… well yeah, he still works at the same job he’s been at for 21 years. Daniel started investing in stocks 15 years ago. As of this year, after a very dismal 2008 and 2009, his annual rate or return is 4 percent.

Joseph is 42 years old and works at home. Like Daniel, he’s married; unlike Daniel he doesn’t punch a clock. He earns a living investing his sizable nest egg of cash. He also invests a pool of money for other people. No, Joseph does not live in Manhattan and he didn’t inherit money. He lives on Main Street and 6 years ago, when he started investing in stocks, he was working as big box retailer manager.

For this article, Joseph was kind enough to have his assistant calculate his rate of return over the past 6 years. Even Joseph was surprised at the return. Joseph has earned 41 percent per year.

I don’t have to tell you that the investing results between Daniel and Joseph are pretty different. That’s an understatement. Both of our stock investors are self-taught and build their own stocks list. Neither started with a windfall of …

Paying Too Much Attention Can Cost You
Paying Too Much Attention Can Cost You

Sales and financial pitfalls. What do these two have in common? Let me give you two hints:

You walk into a retail store advertising 50 percent off store wide sale. You walk out the store after spending $150. Your budget was $80. Although it was over your budget, you did manage to walk out the store with more items for $150 than you could have without the sale.

When reading “financial crisis of 2008 to 2010” what images and emotions come to mind?

What they both have in common is fixation. For the majority of people, our minds are preoccupied with the idea of saving money on a sale and a memorable moment impressed upon our frontal lobe that seems to never fade.

The advertisement of a sale has no advantage unless you are saving money. Typically, we tend to overspend when there’s a sale which makes it difficult to save for retirement or other long-term goals. How many times have you or someone you know have said “oh, it’s only $40” (or another dollar figure) because, otherwise, the item would have never been bought for $80? It doesn’t stop there. Then, there’s something else that you have always wanted (it just happens to be that way because it’s a sale) and buy it. Next thing you know you are buying more than what you have intended. But you justify it because it’s a sale. But it’s up to you to not overspend. We anchor on the idea of a sale and automatically think we are saving money. Au contraire, a sale is an opportunity for the store to sell a higher quantity of their inventory.

Solution: if you want a sale to work in your favor where you are saving money, then set a spending limit. You will stay …