What causes these "up" versus "down" days? I learned that bad news from quarterly reports can cause investors to be pessimistic. Any rumbles of dishonesty within the company can also cause the price of a stock to drop as people fear the worst.

On the other hand, great quarterly reports, profits, and increased growth of a company can all lead to an increase in stock prices. For beginning investors, it is important that we begin to look at the inner-workings of our companies. While we have made the hardest decision already - the decision to invest our money in the stock market - we must continue to look into our companies every once in a while to make sure that the individuals running those companies are keeping them financially sound and profitable for us as investors.

This sounds like it's going to take a lot of time. Something that I have so little of lately. Yet, if I trust my intuition about my stock picks and the companies they represent, I'm only going to check their financial status once or twice per year. At some point, we have to learn to weather the ups and downs of the market without panicking. Next time I'll report on some of these indicators.

And a recent story in the news finally cemented my concern for what might trigger these daily up and down fluctuations. A 23-year-old man had sent out a phony press release about a certain company. This press release contained damaging false information about the company. Within the span of a few short hours, the stock price for this company had dropped around 60%!

Investors caught wind of this information, withdrew their money, and the stock price plummeted.

The stock price eventually recovered later in the day. The feeling among investors was that the company was going under and their logical response was to sell their shares in this company. When the truth finally surfaced, many people had lost quite a bit of money.

And as I sit here thinking, "What if that had been one of my companies? If I had found that information, would I have panicked and sold my shares?"

And I honestly cannot tell you what I would have done. However, I am now better prepared, if this should ever happen to one of my companies. I can truthfully say that I won't panic right away, but will do some additional research before I sell my shares.

I'm lucky to have learned this lesson painlessly. Unfortunately, many, many investors lost large amounts of money because of that press release.

Yet another reason to research our companies, trust our intuition, and hang on for the long-term.

Thank you for joining me,

Joyce