The First

This is the first post of hopefully many, where I plan to archive my strategies, reasons, success and failures of investing in the stock market.

I am a 25 year old recent college graduate from California, who has always been fascinated with the stock market. Although my studies were in Computer Science and my current job is with a Consulting firm as a Programmer/Analyst, my other passion has been the stock market. Until recently I have never actually traded any stocks and I am therefore not very experienced.

After setting up my 401k, making sure I have full health benefits and purchasing my own place to live, I decided to take a small amount of money that has been sitting in my savings account and start learning to trade in the stock market. I have always been a firm believer that "It takes money to make money". In order to become rich you must have money to invest in something. My early education has landed me a well paying job in an industry I enjoy. Now that a good steady income is here, I plan to use my excess money to hopefully make me more money.

One of the most dissappointing things people will need to learn in life is that a well paying job will barely keep up with the cost of inflation. You either need to have a job that pays well above most americans, or you need to invest excess money into something that will return more money than the average inflation rate. The average anual inflation rate is about 3.5% per year, which means the money you are saving better be earning at least that amount each year to be the same value in the future. Unless you want to lock you money up in long term bonds, cd's, treasuries you had better be investing in real estate or the stock market.