Wrapping-Up

This is my very last post!:( I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this project and blogging about my experience! Since you last heard from me I lost another $140 in an investment with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

In reflection of what I have done over the past weeks, this is what I have to say:  

The goal of my 20-Time project was to make $200 in profit by the end of the school year and to learn about different ways to make money. I have utterly failed at the making money part of my goal by losing $340. As far as learning about making money goes, I think I have done a good job at that. I now know more about door-to-door selling, and I understand many different strategies for investing in the stock market. 

The project had a huge impact on both me and my dad. I have always wanted to invest in the stock market, so it was really fun and cool to actually do that. My dad was reluctant to join me in this endeavor, but agreed to match my investments. Neither of us actually needed the money we invested so we weren't hurt too bad from losing money, but we sure did learn a big lesson! The project has taught me that I do not want to get involved in the stock market as I grow older. Also, it was fun to talk to my classmates about where my money was invested in and tell them all about the market! I found that a lot of people are interested in investing, but are just never exposed to it. 

At the very start of my project I had to change some things because selling door-to-door was not turning out to work for me. I am so glad that I chose to do the stock market instead, even if I lost some money.  The research involved in the stock market was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I spent a long time learning about a company's past before I invested in them which was very time-consuming. 

The best part of this project was that I was able to do something I always have wanted to do. It didn't even feel like schoolwork because I was so self-motivated to do everything! 

One question I have now that I see how much my strategy failed is: why doesn't short-term investing work? I decided to do some extra research on that topic and here is what I've found:

Short-term investing is very risky. (who knew, right??) The problem with it is that even with success, failure is bound to happen at some point. No respected investors use more than a small amount of their portfolio to invest short-term. I kind of knew this going into my investing, but I just really wanted to see if it would work for me. Here is a great article put out by the Wall Street Journal that addresses this problem- http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323478004578302120330630876

It is difficult to think of something to put a video up for that has to do with my project. It is, however, a requirement for the project, so here it is! My whole project was basically me looking at a computer screen, so here's a video of how I felt every time I lost money. (My portfolio used to be at $1000)