Two minutes on the stock market

I personally think the stock market is the devil.

My folks lost a good portion of their retirement in the crash, thanks in large part to a poor investment manager who had no clue what he was doing. With that being said, I recently put some money in the market for the first time. I find the whole thing fascinating.

Basically, the game is the big money houses trying to manipulate the market to take money from the small guy. You kind of have to watch what they do in order to have your money positioned right to make money as a by-product of their action. The whole thing is a crooked game that takes a good bit of time and energy to do right.

One of the most comedic aspects, though, is the Yahoo message boards for the various stocks. Each stock has one and they are hi-larious. Everyday you see the same three or four screen names come on and talk about how well that stock is going to do that day, regardless of any outside news or influences. You then have four or five others who come on, call them crazy, and declare that said company is going bankrupt. You repeat this everyday over and over again. Occasionally, someone posts something of value that can be helpful (e.g. US Airways load factor information, which gives an insight into the levels of passenger traffic), but aside from that it is just name-calling and people who can't type. It kind of reminds me of That Other Site.