Author: Ben

Duolingo.com

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Duolingo.com is a language learning website that is free and easy to use. It’s a remarkably easy way to learn over 15 languages for FREE. It’s also a great resource to use before travelling to somewhere that speaks a language other than English. You can learn a significant amount of any language by using the website and it’s very quick. I’ve been using the website for quite some time now. The design of Duolingo is impressively well thought out and languages come in an easy to learn format. The only negative to the website is that it mostly only works on reading and writing. The listening and hearing aspect of language isn’t the main focus of duolingo but the company is trying to work on that. I’d use this website before travelling anywhere to become familiar with the native language before going.

That’s all for now, Ben

Travel Photo of the Week

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon | See More on Travel at www.mrmoose.ca:

Photo by alittlebitofsillinessreally on Tumblr

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Return on Equity

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P.S. This video came from a great investor resource called Investopedia. You should look it up if you want to learn more about investing.

That’s all for now, Ben

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

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The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is an art museum in Montreal (as you could probably tell by the name of the museum). The Museum exhibits a wide range of art including both modern art and traditional portrait style art. When I visited the museum I joined a tour with many others. The tour was very well done, anyone who enjoys art will find this museum interesting. Although I was sick when I visited, I had a nice experience and the tour guide was very friendly. The tour highlighted the changes in art throughout history and the difficulty some artists go through when they introduce another form of art. Overall I had fun at this museum and would return again to see some new exhibits or participate in another tour.

That’s all for now, Ben

The Time has Come – The ACTUAL, Last, Basic Investing Post

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Ok. It’s time for the actual last basic investing post. Again, don’t worry, this isn’t my last investing post. It’s just my last basic investing post.

April 1, Don’t Be Discouraged

April 7, Get to Know the CEO

Getting to know the CEO of a company you’re considering investing in is highly important.  Here are some things you should learn about a CEO before investing in their business.

  • Name
  • Age & Birth
  • Birthplace and Where they were Raised
  • Education (University education is the most important.)
  • Previous Occupations
  • Accomplishments
  • And Other Qualification as CEO

April 12 2016, Long Term Debt

Companies with debt can be more dangerous to invest in than companies without debt.

April 15, The Proxy

A Proxy is a way for investors to have a say in the company. When you receive your yearly Proxy report you get to vote on who will be on the BOD (Board of Directors). These people do things like decide who the CEO of the company will be.

April 16, Foundations of a Great Company – Microsoft

April 14, Investment Knowledge

April 27, Drips

Drips are a simple way to get more stocks at a cheaper price by buying them directly from the company.

 

If you didn’t understand my summaries of the terms above or in my previous post, go to the original post by clicking on the link above the summary.

Below are some great resources for investing. Check them out.

Investopedia.com, This website offers the definitions to 100’s of stock market terms. If there is anything you need clarity on head over there to see a video about the term.

Barchart.com, I use this website to find stocks that I can CONSIDER investing in. Afterwards I do all my research to find out if it is or is not a good investment.

The News, I’ve talked about this before. The news is a great resource for finding stocks to consider investing in and information on the stocks you own. To see my original post on the news click here.

The Stocks App, This is an app that comes with every iPhone and iPod Touch Apple sells. I’m currently not sure if Microsoft or Android device have a similar app but it is a great place to quickly check on your stocks and things like the Dow Jones.

StockWars, This is a stock market simulator app that I used to prepare for the real thing. I’d recommend using it. It’s 100% free, fun, and easy to use.

Every time I find a stock to consider I print and fill out the below information. I’ve done a ton of these. They are an easy way to collect info on a company you’re considering investing in.

Stock Report For:

________________________________

 

General Information:

Company Name:__________________________________________

Ticker Symbol:________________ Index Traded With:____________

Industry:_________________________________________________

Sub-Industry:_________________________________________

Year Founded: ________ Founders: __________________________

________________________________________________________

Important Information on Founders: ___________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Company Headquarters: ____________________________________

Number of Locations (If Applicable): ___________________________

Area Served: _____________________________________________

Products/Services:_________________________________________

Number of Employees: _____________________________________

Subsidiaries: _____________________________________________

Company Website: ________________________________________

 

CEO Information:

CEO Name: _____________________________________________

Age: _____________ D.O.B.: _________________________________

Birthplace: _______________________________________________

Education: _______________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Other Qualification as CEO: _________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Previous Occupations: _____________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Other Details: ____________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

 

The Business & it’s Products

Target Audience: __________________________________________

Locations Available: _______________________________________

Company Partnerships: ____________________________________

Past Company Events: _____________________________________

________________________________________________________

Product Analysis:

Product 1:

Strengths: ______________________________________

Weaknesses: ____________________________________

Product 2:

Strengths: ______________________________________

Weaknesses: ____________________________________

 

The Numbers:

Stock Price: $ _______ Shares Outstanding: ____________________

Market Cap. $ ____________________________________________

Long-Term Debt: $ ________________________________________

Revenue: $ ______________________________________________

Assets: $ ________________________________________________

Notes:

 

 

I know it looks like a lot of information but when you invest you need to know everything about that business to decide if it’s a good investment or not.

That’s all for now, Ben

Travel Photo of the Week

Awesome!, See more on travel at www.mrmoose.ca:

Photo by Baqer Jawad on Flickr

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The Time has Come! The last Basic Investing Post!

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Time to wrap up everything I’ve said about investing in the last 3 months. Don’t worry, this isn’t my last investing post but it is the last basic investing post. I’ll review everything I’ve taught you, so get ready for a looooooong post. Seriously, get comfortable because you’ll be here a while.

Let’s start with my first (technically second) investing post, What is a Stock?

Basically a stock is a very small part of a company. If you own a stock you actually own part of a company. Yes, that means that you can actually own your favourite companies!!! Below is the video I posted on my What is a Stock post.

February 12, Who is Dow Jones? What is the Nasdaq?

The Dow Jones, the Nasdaq, the S&P 500 and so many others are called indices. Indices are an easy way of tracking how the overall stock market is doing. If the Dow Jones goes up, you could estimate that most stocks on the stock market will go up too. Almost all indices work differently so most people have a preference and use only the one they like the best.

February 13, What is a Ticker Symbol?

To explain it simply, a ticker symbol is an easy way to find information on a companies stock. Ticker symbols are usually 1-5 letters long and to use it just go to a website like Yahoo! Finance and type it in to find all the stock information you could ever want.  Some famous Ticker Symbols include AAPL (Apple), GOOG (Google), and MSFT (Microsoft).

February 14, Trading Time

As you hopefully remember, you can only trade stocks at a certain time on certain days. I personally think it’s annoying but it does have it’s benefits. This time is from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM in New York, so you may have to adjust for your time zone. You’re also only allowed to trade stocks on weekdays, which means no trading on weekends or holidays. 😦

February 15, Stock Brokers

Stock Brokers are the people that make buying stocks possible. There are both online stock brokers and stock brokers who are real people. I would recommend buying stocks from an online stock broker as they are much cheaper and quicker than real life stock brokers although real life stock brokers can provide important knowledge that online ones cannot.

February 17, Bears and Bulls 

Bears and Bulls are probably the weirdest stock market terms that exist. A bull market is good, it means that, on average, the market is trading up. A bear market is the exact opposite. If it’s a bear market than the market is trading down on average.

February 19, Dividends?!

Dividends are a companies way of saying thank-you for being a shareholder. Basically as a dividend you get a few cents per stock per year (or 3 months, depending on the company). Not all companies offer Dividends, but they are a great reward for being a shareholder.

February 21, Blue Chip Stocks

Blue Chip companies are the big brands in the world. They are probably the safest investments there are and although they won’t go up as fast as some lesser known companies do, there is a very high chance that they will go up over time.

February 21, Stock Splits

Stock Splits are a strategy by businesses to make it easier for everyone to buy stocks. If a stock split happens than the amount of stocks everyone has will double but the value of the stocks will halve. By doing this people can afford more stocks and people with lower budgets can buy them more easily.

February 22, Private Vs. Public

Some companies sell stocks while others don’t. A company that choses to sell stocks is called a public company while a company that choses not to sell stocks is private. Subway is very famous for not being publicly traded.

February 22, Comic Relief

Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4GZfvXx9Js

February 23, The Foundations of a Great Company – Coca-Cola

February 28, Shares Outstanding

Shares outstanding is a simple stock market term used to determine the amount of shares in a company are on the market. You can use this to calculate how much of a company one share is worth. So if a company has 100 shares outsanding, 100 shares is worth 100% of the company while 1 share is worth 1% of the company. If you don’t understand, read the entire post by clicking on the link above.

February 28, The Stock Market in the Past Five days?

February 28, Market Cap.

March 5, Getting to Know Your Quarterly Report

A quarterly report is a report that all business in the U.S. and Canada are required to publish every 3 months. It outlines almost every business activity that happened in the past 3 months and is very important information when considering investing.

March 12, Foundations of a Great Company – Mattel

March 15, Long Term Vs. Short Term

To explain it simply a short term investment is an investment that is intended to only last a short period of time. A long term investment is an investment that is intended to last a long period of time. Long term investments are safer but they require a lot of time. Short term investments don’t guarantee profit but they only last a short period of time. Both are important to learn about when investing.

March 18, Stock Market Simulators

March 21, Volume

Volume refers to the amount of stocks exchanged in a single day. So if the volume is 1 000 000 the amount of stocks bought/sold in that day was 1 000 000.

March 23, Diversify Your Portfolio 

Diversifying your portfolio is a simple way to ensure you don’t lose money. By buying stocks from several different companies you save yourself if one of your stocks goes way, way down.

March 28, Apple

March 30, The News, Your New Best-Friend (Sort of)

Using the news is a simple way to find new companies to invest in and decide when to sell.

Whew! That’s a lot I just covered! I’ve decided to publish the second part of this post later so stay tuned for that.

That’s all for now, Ben

Apples to Apples (Game)

On By BenIn Product Review - BenLeave a comment

ob007.jpgApples to Apples is the endlessly fun game of comparisons. To play, a judge selects a card with a describing word, such as Silly, then all the players select a word card that matches it such as clown, elephant, or Breakfast. The judge decides which one matches best and the person who placed that card gets a point. It might sound a little bit boring, but it’s actually a lot of fun. Playing the game at Christmas and Thanksgiving has been a family tradition for us for three or four years. The game can get really funny, and is easy to learn for everyone. The one thing I don’t like about it is that after about 45 minutes the game starts to get boring. I enjoy playing the game a lot and would recommend it for family events involving 6 or more people. The game comes in several versions including the original, Junior, Disney, Sour Apples to Apples, Big Picture Apples to Apples (Instead of words, pictures are used), and Party Box Apples to Apples.



Want to buy Apples to Apples? Click on the picture to the right to buy it now on Amazon. —>

 

That’s all for now.

 

Drips

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drips are just another one of the many stock market terms out there an they’re a simple way to accumulate more shares in a company. Some businesses  offer Drips (Dividend Reinvestment Plans) so that you can buy stocks directly from them, rather than from a stock broker. By using a Drip you save a lot of money because you have to either pay a very small fee or no fee at all, unlike if you buy stocks from a stock broker. Sadly, there are some negatives to Drips. Not all companies offer drips, and even when they do the business sometimes requires you to already own one or more shares in that company.

Want to know what companies offer Drips? Go to http://www.giveashare.com/drips.asp to see a list of some of the business that offer them.

That’s all for now, Ben

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Travel Photo of the Week

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Photo by http://www.thecrazytourist.com/35-most-beautiful-places-on-earth/34/.

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