Learn to Invest Money: Investing Made Fun for Teenagers

Most people think that teenagers would be bored by the subject of investing and the stock market, especially when there are much more exciting things for teenagers to talk about such as dating, going to the movies, and hanging out with their friends. Well if you’re reading this article, then you’re one of the many teenagers that break the “teenager stereotype.” Ok, to make sure that this article wouldn’t bore you, I sat down and discussed some rules about investing with a group of teenagers. They helped me come up with similarities between investing and dating, so I’ve decided to tell you ten ways investing in stocks is like dating. I know you’re thinking “whatever”. But keep reading and you’ll see it’s true. Learn how to invest in stocks and you’ll also learn how to win at dating. Let’s start out by defining what exactly a stock is.

Stock – A way to own part of a company. Company stock, or shares, can be bought online through internet trading companies such as E-Trade or through an investment company. You can make money by buying shares of a company that you think will sell a lot of its product. Stocks can be as cheap as $1 a share or as expensive as $3000 for a single share. For example if you bought Apple around the time it started selling ipods, you could have bought 100 shares for about $800. At its high price this year, those same 100 shares would have been worth about $8,500, not too shabby a profit, right?OK. Now for the Ten Ways Investing is Like Dating.

Rule One: It’s possible to get ahead sometimes by doing close to nothing.

Investing in stocks is all about getting ahead by doing close to nothing. That’s not to say you can be lazy and earn money because, from the moment you start learning, it will take you at least a couple of years before you develop enough knowledge before you will feel confident enough about putting that hard earned money from your job into the stock market. And that’s a couple of years of consistent learning. But once you develop confidence in your ability to invest and make money, your money will start making money for you even while you’re sleeping. And that’s getting ahead by doing close to nothing.

So how does this concept apply to dating? Every teenager knows that if you’re trying to get “in” with somebody that you really like, that the best thing that you can do is to get that person’s best friend to like you. Because if you do, you can count on that best friend to tell the person you like a lot of good things about you. There is nothing more valuable than that. And you’re getting ahead by doing close to nothing.

Rule Two: The more experience you have, the better you’ll become at it.

Becoming good at making money doesn’t come easy. You’ll find that in the beginning, when you buy stocks that you’ll want to take small risks as you develop your style and gain more confidence in your skill.

This is good advice when it comes to dating as well. The more experience you have with dating, the more confident you will become, and confidence is an aphrodisiac to members of the opposite sex. Not arrogance. But confidence. So in the beginning of your dating history, when asking someone out, take small risks until you build up your confidence that you have the right approach. After that, confidence is all you’ll ever need.

Rule Three: If you ain’t Cassanova, don’t ever try to be. Develop your own style. It’s much more attractive.

In investing, people try to copy the styles of the best investors out there. They buy the same stocks as the people that are known to have earned millions and sometimes billions in the stock market. The problem is this often doesn’t work for the average Dick and Jane because the experts that they copy have so much money that they make tons of money if stock price goes up just a few pennies. Not so for the average Dick and Jane.

It’s never that easy just to copy other people’s success. The same applies if you try to copy someone else that is popular with the opposite sex. Most times, when you try to copy someone’s style, it means your not using what you’re naturally good at. If you were, you wouldn’t have to copy someone else. So just be yourself and don’t try hard to copy a popular boy’s or girl’s style. Because nobody likes a poser or a fake.

Rule Four: Dig below the surface and you’ll discover what’s real.

Just like with boys and girls, in investing, all that glitters is not gold. In deciding what stocks to buy, you don’t want to invest in a rapidly rising “hot”stock before really doing your homework. If you do, the chances are that you will get burned. The price of many “hot” stocks fall just as quickly as they rise unless there is substance backing that hot streak. Girls and guys are the same. You want to see if the “hot” guys and girls have anything more than just the genetics that their parents gave them. Is there anything beyond that beautiful face or body that gives them substance?. If you find out they have strong character, loyalty, and honor, then you’ve dug enough and you’ve got a winner. But if you dig and find nothing, then keep looking for something that’s real.

Rule Five: Sometimes you gotta find a way to discover what nobody else knows to get ahead.

The way to make money in investing is to find out about companies doing stuff that is really cool before anyone knows about it. If you had found out that Apple was coming out with the ipod several months before they started selling them and bought their stock, you could have made a lot of money. Likewise, in dating, try to make these same types of discoveries. Discover what a girl or guy really likes before he or she tells you, and do something special for him or her based upon what you discover. If you do, you’ll definitely have one up on your competition.

Read about rules 6-10 in Part Two of Investing Made Fun for Teenagers: Ten Ways Investing is Like Dating.

© 2006 Global Market Opportunities, Inc.