My 2nd Stock - Apple, AAPL

Hey, I bought more stock! Did you know that on June 6th Apple, .AAPL split its stock 7-1. What was once a stock that was super out of my financial reach at $635/share  is now totally affordable at $91.98/share. I bought 31 shares on June 6th for $92.12 each. I have a lot of faith in this stock as it one of the most traded stocks in the market, and with the iphone 6 about to release, I am confident that it will go up.
You know what else is cool about Apple, AAPL? It offers a quarterly dividend of $0.47. $1.88/year times my 31 shares is $58.28. Just for owning the stock! Sure, I'll take it!

What are you investing in? 

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Asset Classes - Diversification Or Bet It All On Black?

3 Asset classes
The 3 main asset classes are stocks or equities, bonds or fixed income, and money markets or cash equivalents. These are terms that I have seen over and over again in my research on investing in the stock market and at first was totally confused by them. What are they and whats the difference?

How does each one perform differently?
Each one performs differently depending on what the market is doing and how it is changing.
Equities or stocks have historically outperformed the other classes, however they tend to be more volatile and bring more risk.
Fixed income or bonds are investments that are set up to pay out at a set interest rate over a set period of time. They are safe but the potential return is less than that of equities.
Money markets or cash equivalents are the lowest returning of the 3 asset classes but the safest. They provide a minimum return on investment.

Diversifying across these three main classes can help to lower your risk and improve chances of steady gains. Mixing very safe with a little bit of risky has proved to be a better method than betting it all on black! I guess it depends on what kind of a gambler you are.

Are you diversifying your investments across asset classes?

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Paper Trading.. for the Gun-shy

The stock market has always fascinated me. I've always wanted to get into investing in the markets but never knew quite where to begin. It seemed like such an intimidating world and way out of my reach but recently I decided to take control (that's kind of my new thing if you haven't picked up on that already), and dive in! I'm reading everything I can get my hands on, scanning all of the stock market websites that I come across, and keeping my ears open for any tips on specific stocks that are "going up". I think i'm finally ready to give it a shot! But if you're feeling gun-shy and want to practice first, you can try out one of the paper trading sites like Investopedia or Trademonster. Both sites allow you to sign up with them and let you place real trades on real stocks with fake money. You can track your gains and losses against real-time stock quotes and see how you stack up against the pros before placing your bets with your hard earned cash.

Are you paper trading now? And if so, how is it going?

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