Stock Analysis Just Like Sports

Welcome back! Actually, that was a message for me.

Truthfully, I didn't think anyone was reading this...so I stopped spending my time writing posts to this blog. (Plus, I've been working on other projects.)

A thought occurred to me last night.

As I read or listen to sports predictions, it amazes me how often things replay themselves--including people's analysis of sports events as they unfold.

For basketball and hockey, it's playoff season. So there is all sorts of analysis. A lot of this analysis tends to be extreme.

Every year, teams will play best-of-seven series. The format (usually) is that the higher ranked seed gets to play their first two (2) games at home. The next two games are played at the other team's (lower seeded team's) home arena.

At some point during the playoffs, the home team wins the first two games.

To me, that seems pretty logical. They were ranked to be the "better" team, and they had the more favorable conditions of playing at their home stadium in front of friendly fans.

However, every year, you see sportswriters doom the lower seeded team, even though they have not played a home game, yet. A lot of the fans follow in the jubilation or panic--depending which team they want to win.

There are plenty of times when a team loses the first two away (non-home) games, but they eventually win the playoff series. You'd never guess that by the headlines that people write.

What do sports playoffs have to do with the stock market?

Stock Market: Am I the only one excited by this sale?

The stock market is going DOWN!

Isn't that awesome?

If you've been following my blog, you'll realize that I'm NOT being sarcastic about this.

The Baidu (BIDU) Bounce--One Time Deal or a Glimpse of Chinese Way of Doing Buisness?

Wow! A week ago, I never heard of Baidu (BIDU).

Many of you have, but for those who are not familiar with this company, it is sort of the Google (GOOG) of China. Baidu provides Internet searches using Chinese characters, which removes the need to know English--pretty big if you live in China and don't know English.

I heard there are a couple of people who live in China--say 1 billion or so. So there isn't any market, is there? Nah!

I'm learning about Baidu, still, but the Google-like connection gives it some intrigue.

You know what else makes it intriguing? Today, it jumped from $620/share or so to OVER $700. In fact, earlier this morning, it reached as high as $718/share.

What caused THAT?

Google: A Perfect Example of Why Management Matters

Everyone notice that the market is tanking pretty badly today?

Even the highly acclaimed regional banks seem to be taking a pretty good hit today, and they've been everyone's darling for the past several weeks. I'm not sure that will change for the long term, as many of them are still available for a cheap price.

However, there is one stock that is bucking today's downward trend. From the title, you probably guessed it: Google (GOOG), and this is a company where you cannot buy even one share for $500. Depending upon the commission rate, you might not be able to buy it for a cool $600, either. That's just ONE share, and it continues to be in demand.

What makes Google so attractive?