Whether you like it or not, the stock market is going to have a huge influence over your life. The stock market is involved with your 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts, tied to the economy, measures fear and greed, tells the future (6 months at a time), etc.  Due to it’s intimate relationship to your financial well-being, it’s important to know HOW IT WORKS even if your portfolio is professionally managed.
My goal is not to make everyone traders, but to be BETTER investors.  So when the opportunity arises …

Collecting is a waste. There, I said it. In a nutshell, if you don’t intend on cornering the market with your collection and make a living from doing it, then your time and money is being washed away.
Every collector that reads The Zen Capitalist instantly close their window browser and scream profanities at the computer screen as they clutch their vintage 12” Darth Vader or Bratz doll to their bosom.
I can write about this because I used to own a 12” Darth Vader doll, MIB (Mint in Box) for …

So you are looking to get into the stock market and not sure where to start.  You are not alone my friend.  The market has bounced back up between 40% to 70% since the March 2009 lows depending on which market index you follow, and here you are sitting on the sidelines wondering how you can get a piece of this action.  It’s hard NOT to be excited.
For all you newbies looking to get in or wanting to learn about how the market actually works, over the next couple of …

Compound Interest—The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

We all know that saving is a necessary component to building wealth.  Save $100 this month, $50 the next, and in two months you’ll have accumulated $150.  Big whoop-ti-do!  Doesn’t seem like a whole lot right?  Let’s put things into perspective.  The reason why savings is so huge is due to a little known fact called “Compound Interest”.
Albert Einsten was once quoted saying “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”. Well, the jury is still …

I was very fortunate to have found the stock market at a very early age. However, If you had seen my portfolio in the beginning, you wouldn’t have called it so “fortunate”. From the outside, it was actually quite regrettable. I, like most amateur stock market investors, began my career on a whimsical dream of getting rich quick.