Researching a company before you buy it is probably the best time you can spend getting comfortable about your decision. But what should you look for? Beware, for there are ways a company buries bad news, or in some cases, even outright deceives its investors.

Ever heard of Lernout Hauspie Speech P (LHSP)? Considered one of the top speech recognition company, its stock skyrocketed to extremely high valuations at one time. That is, until the SEC started probing its activities: turns out it sold its products to shell companies it set out itself, thus ending up selling to itself! What seems to be great sales figures quarter after quarter were just a sham--a charade set up to deceive investors. The stock price spiralled down to single digit within a couple of days. Good company, bad management.

That's it! Bye!

;0)

Of course, the challenge is to do it while we all have fun, learn together, and, hopefully, profit from it.

In the first place, why invest in the stock market? Because this is by far the best place to put your money for the long term. Read that last sentence again: ... for the long term. That's right, we are here talking about a ten (10) to twenty (20) year horizon.

Why the long term? Because, as you probably have already noticed (probably that's why you are here in the first place), the stock market is like hyperactive children on the playground: they are never at one place, but are sometimes up and sometimes down; sometimes they sit still for a long time, and then when you least expect it, they are off again; they climb up the steps so they can slide down again, going round and round until they touch bottom; then, as quick as the eye can catch them--or you can remember to breathe--they are off again in a different direction!

In other words, the stock market goes up and it goes down. And on just one typical day, the price of a stock can soar and then fall steeply by closing time. Maybe there were some bad news, and then maybe not. For new investors (as well as for some wizened investors), this can be confusing, perplexing, frustrating, even scary at times.

We've been there and we know the feeling. The best weapon against FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Disinformation) is knowledge. Therefore, not only do we endeavour to explain how the stock market works, but we also teach you how to do your own research on companies and trends so you can see past the day-to-day fluctuations of the marketplace. A long term horizon smoothes out the peaks and valleys and allow you to concentrate on whether a company is performing well and will still be profitably around ten years from now. You want to be confident about your investment decisions instead of getting ulcers worrying about upgrades and downgrades, and trying to time the market.

Right, so that we are really clear about this: On this site, we believe investing is not gambling. The serious investor who wants to see his or her money grow and compound through the years invest for the long term. That's our first principle. Read more about it (and the power of compounding) in Pig File #1.

If you take our tour, you will learn that we have 10 Principles of Investing, each encapsulated in a Pig File.

We hope you enjoy your visit here and will browse around. Which little Piggies laughed all the way to the bank? We believe that by the time you finish reading our ten investment principles, you will be able to deduct the answer on your own. And herein lies our main educational thrust: Our goal is to empower you so you can make your own informed decisions. We don't tell you what to buy, when to buy, when to sell. Learn all you can from our writers, and then make your own selections. Tell your friends and colleagues about us, and register to participate in our community. Our hope is that we can all learn from one another.

The editors.

P.S. Intrigued by our site name? For an explanation of why we call this site "The Pig Files," choose a Pig's snout as our logo, and subtitle our site, "Coming Out of the Fog," click here.

As the amusing lymerics to the left attempt to demonstrate, there are basically five types of investors: those who buy penny stocks in hope of a quick gain, the day-traders who buy and sell frequently (buy "low" / sell "high"), those who buy only on hot tips, those who invest in indexes (such as the NASDAQ 100 Trust - QQQ), and those who do research into solid, promising companies and invest in them for the long term. Which of the five piggies laughed all the way to the bank? At The Pig Files, we cover investing from A to Z (pronounced the Canadian way, "eh 2 zed". Since we are a Canadian company, this sounded quite appropriate, eh?), and our beliefs (suported by many years of academic research) are that the last two piggies went laughing to the bank. Oh, don't get us wrong, the first three piggies could very well have earned a higher return--but at what cost? We teach investing, not gambling. And we believe anyone should be able to earn a good return from the stock market without the daily worries and ulcers that accompany the first three types of investing. To prove our poin (or disprove it and fall flat on ourfaces publicly)t, we start a portfolio following our own principles of investing for all to see, comment on, criticize, and learn from. We do not believe it is the only or correct way to invest, but we believe its chanes of working are better than most investing styles. Share your thoughts in our message boards.

This site is not affiliated with any investment brokers, but we draw our inspiration from The Motley Fool investment site.  As such, you will find many of their ideas espoused by our writers. We feature articles and news based on our own and our readers' experience written in a style geared for the new investor. However, where appropriate, we will also not "reinvent the wheel"; instead, we will link to articles from many other sources.
 

CNET EDITORS' CHOICE

By far the easiest Linux implementation for the desktop, Corel Linux is now free for download. Read the CNET Review. Download.

 

If you want something that is almost as easy to install as Corel Linux and which includes more software, try Caldera OpenLinux.
 
 

OK, so you need all the power of Linux and want to run it on a server (Corel Linux is for the desktop only). The people wearing the red hat might have just what you are looking for.

We are all pigs!  Face it, as a new investor, the primary reason you want to start investing in stocks is because of all the fantastic returns you read about in the newspapers. Starting with $10,000 and investing judiciously in a few "undervalued" stocks, you might just win the jackpot. Well, some people have done it. It can be done. Your coworker is doing it. So, now, you want a piece of the action. You are a pig (small "p").

You have come to the right place. At The Pig Files, we do not promise you fantastic returns--overnight, that is. But we do teach you about investing for the long-term--you know, the way of investing that does not cause ulcers, and have you glued daily at your TV set tuned to CNBC or the  financial pages of your newspaper. It is a style of investing which still leaves you time to do your work, spend time with your family, engage in hobbies--with the peace of mind that you have invested your hard-earned money into companies that will still be around in ten years, and will have grown your portfolio into a handsome nest egg. This is the way of the Pig ("capital "P").

The Pig Files consist of a number of "files" that our writers have unearthed from pig stys around the world. They have laboriously translated the contents into the language that you understand. Here you will not read about technical stuff that you don't understand, do not want to understand, and do not need to understand (unless you want to, of course). To take the example of the automobile, you don't need to understand what goes under the hood to drive one.

So, enough talking, and take a tour of our site.

Over the Christmas weekend, some users of Microsoft's free e-mail service, Hotmail, were unable to access their accounts. This is easily the funniest story of the year because it was a Linux developer named Michael Chaney who took it upon himself to fix the problem for the mighty $600 billion software giant -- by simply making a $35 missed registration fee payment to Network Solutions for rights to the Internet domain name passport.com, which verifies user names and passwords for Hotmail and other services.

On Slashdot.org, Michael posted the following:

Saturday December 25, 11:58AM EST
Hey, I paid it for them. Merry Christmas, Microsoft.

December 26
Folks, it's 6:00AM CST and Hotmail is again accessible. passport.com is finally resolvable again: [root@dialer /root]# nslookup passport.com Server: localhost Address: 127.0.0.1 Name: passport.com Address: 207.46.198.16 By golly, I think I fixed it. 

Microsoft, caught with its pants down again, said it would refund Chaney the $35: "On December 28, 1999, I received a call from a Microsoft employee who is apparently in upper management of the Passport project. He has acknowledged that I did, in fact, fix the problem, and offered their gratitude, and reimbursement." $35 for saving them potentially $$$$? Makes you wonder who is in charge of PR at the company!?!???

Not All Linux IPO's Are Created Equal
Why is the Linux Community all up in arms against LinuxOne? You be the judge.

LinuxWorld
Slashdot
Technocrat.net
The Register
UserFriendly
LinuxOne

Y2K Bug Strikes...

Linux Today
Take it with a grain of salt -- since apparently the story was posted 1 hour beforemidnight.

2600.com
It's funny. Since they will probably have removed it by the time you get around to check it, here is the (Y2K fool's) message:

Internal Server Error

The date specified (01-01-1900) is impossible. If you have forced this error condition, you may be in violation of state, federal, and/or civil laws. Those outside the United States should check with their respective governments concerning their country's extradition treaty. Dissemination of this error is also strictly prohibited.

If you believe you have received this message in error, please reload the page and try again. 

Happy New Year (not really the new Millenium, which officially starts January 1, 2001)!