Not really, but all my trusted sources: The Motley Fools, Nancy Dunnan, Charles B. Carlson, and BUYandHOLD have told me that I should invest in companies and try to "beat" the stock market. Sounded like a lofty goal early on, but now I think I'm up for the challenge.

As you may know, my portfolio is listed at the Motley Fool Web site and I love seeing the smiley face when my portfolio is doing well. If you have your portfolio there as well, take a look at your Web page. Up in the right-hand corner you'll notice a listing for "My Annualized Return" and below it is listed "S & P 500."

First let's be sure we want to even bother beating the stock market and more importantly, why do they use the S & P 500 as a benchmark to beat?

My knight in shining armor, The Motley Fool, saves me again from the stock market dragon by reminding me that one of my investment goals should be to beat the stock market!

So fellow newbies…let's look at the S & P 500.

It appears that the S & P 500 has been the quintessential benchmark for stock market investors from the beginning. The Motley Fool tells me that the goal of this "oftentimes frustrating lesson" is the importance of knowing from year to year, how my investments measure up to the S & P 500 Index.

I also spent some time at Standard and Poor's Index Services Web site. This Web site answered my questions about the differences between the various indices.

Remember that the S & P 500 stands for the Standard and Poor's 500 and consists of 500 companies that span almost every industry representing companies in America. These companies are some huge, well-known companies and smaller, not-so-well-known companies. It appears to be a nice sampling of how our economy is doing, in general. Similar to the stock market fluctuations, the S&P 500 fluctuates up and down. What I've learned is that it is the average throughout the year that concerns us. Most interestingly, I learned that the S & P 500 has also come to be known as a "benchmark" for all of us investors.

So, of course, like the newbie that I am, I had to search for the definition of the word "benchmark" at InvestorWords. It came with a simple definition-"a standard used for comparison."

And before I can even begin to see if I'm beating the stock market, I had to take the time to understand that there are a bazillion benchmarks used by investors!

I kept thinking: "Why do we complicate things? Is it just investors that do this? Whatever happened to simplicity? And why can't we all just use one, singular benchmark?"

And as I found out - after further research, a single benchmark really wouldn't be a good idea. From what I've read, many benchmarks are used specifically to track specific investment types. For example, we wouldn't want to measure our "stock-only" portfolios against a benchmark used to follow "mutual funds-only."

I've found an excellent article that provided me with a good overview of the pros and cons of the major benchmarks used by investors. "Measuring Portfolio Performance" at MSN Money Central Investor was very helpful in showing me that I've got to slow down again and look at my investment strategies, and how to tell if I am beating the stock market.

Thank you for joining me,

Joyce