Investing 102

[toy71camaro]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

So let's say there's a Chevron - an ARCO - and a SHELL gas station. Just start to compare those and see where that takes you. Doing a minimum amount of research on just those three - will bring up other names... and if they're familiar - look them up -- that will bring other names to mind - or maybe they're mentioned.

Thats somewhat how i ended up with CVX, there's quite a few of them in our town. Coupled with their dividend increases, solid returns, etc.

Originally Posted by GregWeld

There's a zillion companies -- there's very few "sectors" - so I'd start with sectors - because that will get you to see diversity. Energy - consumer - finance - transportation - Industrials - etc. So once you have that idea in your head - just google "Industrial mutual funds". What I did then - for this post - is highlighted the first "SYMBOL" that came up and said "search google" which took me to the google finance website and their chart etc -- I scrolled down to see what they top 10 holdings were.... on that particlular list there was like one company I recognized -- so I went back and found another symbol and did google search on that one - it's top ten was a who's who of Industrial companies I knew... GE -- Honeywell - United Technologies - Cummins - Catapiller etc.

duh! why didn't I think of that. That's the little piece of the puzzle i was looking for.