7. Make every stock purchase with intent that purchase will be a long-term investment.

Do not trade in and out of your holdings. There have been many up and downs in stock market. The down markets only accelerate your income. GE has raised their dividend for 28 years in a row. Why sell it? 100 shares of GE ten years ago has turned into 1200 shares today due to stock splits, and that is not counting how many shares you would have now if dividends were being rolled back into more shares of stock through those years.

8. Understand that a lower stock price, after your initial purchase may be a blessing in disguise.

The income from your stock holdings should grow every quarter, no matter what total amount of your stock portfolio is worth. (If your Mutual fund declines in price from one year to next and if your income is not increasing (accelerating) from that fund, why are you in that fund?) A company pays their dividend not on how much their stock is worth in market place. For example, a company pays a quarterly dividend of 50 cents a share. A company has little control on how much its stock price is worth in market place on any given day. You will receive 50 cents a share per quarter whether stock price is at 50 dollars a share, or drops to $40 a share or goes up to $70. While stock is down at $40 a share your dividend reinvestment is loading up on more shares.

9. Develop a savings plan to add to your holdings each quarter to help your dividend reinvestments to accumulate more shares on a dollar-cost averaging basis.

The savings could be as little as $5.00 a week. Why put that savings in a savings account at 1.2 percent, when there are so many companies out there that are paying a 4 to 5% dividend yield and increasing their dividend every year? And since none of companies you are investing in charge a commission fee, all of that $60.00 a quarter you saved and invested would help your dividend reinvestments to dollar-cost average into your holdings. Every cent you save and invest would work toward your ROI (Return on Investment).

10. Read my book ‘The Stockopoly Plan’ soon to be released by American Book Publishing.

I believe it will profit you and your family for rest of your lives.

For more excerpts from book ‘The Stockopoly Plan’ please visit http://www.thestockopolyplan.com

The only words that I can come up with to explain this type of stock price behavior after seeing something similar happen time and again through years are ‘brainwashing mantra at work.’

I think I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention mother of all mantras – mutual fund, though I hesitate to mess with this mantra. (They being soooo big in investor’s minds, and me just being a lowly gadfly on a dinosaur’s butt; it really shouldn’t matter what I say, one way or other.) As I write this, some are in such a mess - caused by illegal trading practices costing investors tens of millions of dollars. One mutual fund has been fined $100 million, another $125 million. I wonder where they’ll get money to pay fine. I believe all investors in a fund pay fund’s operating expenses, as well as fund’s marketing and management fees. They are called ‘hidden fees’ (I don’t believe there is a hidden ‘fee-fees’- this would be a fee that enables you to pay fees - naw! Don’t laugh- one mutual fund recently had been fined 450 million for ‘hidden fee’ practices). It is really, at time of this writing to early to determine if mutual fund industry has been ‘riding a good horse to death.’

There is an enormous amount of investor dollars supporting some whopper salaries on Wall Street. Just recently (the summer of 2003), Richard Grasso, once former head (CEO) of New York stock exchange was forced to resign, after his salary for past 2 years were made public. His salary - 12 million a year for past two years, a check for $48 million, which his advisor suggested he return (which he did) and a pay-package of $139.5 million (which he hasn’t returned, as of this writing-mid-2004 and a lawsuit to recover some of monies is pending). Now, that is just one man’s salary on Wall Street and it is certainly good work if you can get it! Where did all this money for his salary come from? If money didn’t come from investor’s dollars, why were Pension fund managers so outraged by Grasso’s salary that they threatened to pull billions of Pension fund dollars from New York exchange? I really don’t know where money came from to pay his salary. What I do know is one place where money for his salary didn’t come from, and that is from Stockopoly investor. Not one cent!

For more excerpts from book ‘The Stockopoly Plan’ visit http://www.thestockopolyplan.com