Getting Started

So I've been interested for awhile in researching and investing in stocks and I'd like to create a forum for interaction and to share what I've found. Let me start by saying that I am not a great investor.....yet. I've had positive returns the last 2 years of over 20%, but it seems that every time I pick a winner, I have a loser to negate my positive earnings. I'm tired of the losers so I'm hoping to get some discussion and input going about the potential picks out there. But I love the thrill of a big stock market gain and it keeps me coming back....just like a 30 foot putt made every so often keeps me coming back to Golf!

For most of my 20's and and early 30's I was overly aggressive and invested mostly in speculative stocks. My biggest win was buying Overstock.com (OSTK) at $12/share in 2003 and watching it go to $75/share. I sold a big chunk at $57 and another chunk at $40 as it was going back down. I sold my last shares at $20 so at least I made some money. Last year I made another nice return buying Overstock.com at $16 and watching it go to $24 after it's first positive net income year in 2009. But I also lost money in Bank of America (BAC) and trading some risky ETF's (FAZ and FAS). I like the speculative stocks, but lately I've been burned so I'm transitioning more towards fundamental analysis.

I plan to do one or two posts a week on stocks that I'm reviewing or planning to buy or just watching and researching. Please feel free to comment and let me know you're thoughts about my research and discussing your own reasons for investing in stocks.

Thanks and good luck!