The Ol' Fat Guy Blathers On

  How About Some Investin' The Way I Do It?     Well, we got'a start with some important facts: 1. First of all this is no suggestion for any investments or any methods for procuring said vestments, merely a lil' story about how I do my vestin'...... 2. Let's go to investopedia.com  for a definition: a stock's 'ex-dividend date:  There are four dates to know when it comes to companies' dividends. These are the declaration date,  the ex-dividend date, the record-date , and the payable date. To receive the upcoming dividend, shareholders must have bought the stock before the ex-dividend date. On the ex-dividend date, stock prices typically decline by the amount of the dividend. When I go onto thestreet.com I'm looking for ex-dates out far enough that I can research into the stock to insure I like it [the industry, the product, etc], I can afford to invest in shares in multiples of 100, that the stock IS NOT based in China.  When I find such a stock I t...

Topics For Today.... Aren't Stocks Wonderful     I've been involved in stocks, in investing, in the stock market~ one way or the other ~since I was about 12 or 14 years old, when I started following what my Dad was doing.  He helped a lot, pointing me in the right direction for an informal education.  In those pre-internet days, print media was the only resource I had.... Forbes Magazine, Finance, The Wall Street Journal newspaper; things like that.  With my Mom working in a subscription agency we had access to practically any magazine or paper, worldwide .     After my last divorce and about six months after my return to the manufacturing sector~ working for minimum pay plus piecework rate ~I decided being an 'over-the-road' truck driver would solve a lot of immediate problems.  Driving truck would~ for the most part ~keep me away from people and feed my nomadic nature.  In the late '90s I finally got a laptop comp...