Welcome, my name is Brooks Peacock and I have an idea……..the $100 Investor.

The $100 Investor is a person who has saved their first $100 and they want to invest that $100 – that is the $100 Investor.  And I want give some advice to and help the $100 investor, all $100 investors.

I have always been fascinated with stocks and investing.  In high school I read the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis.  When I was just out of high school, I bought and read two books: How To Buy Stocks, 1983, by Louis Engel and Brendan Boy, Bantam Books, and How To Be Your Own Stockbroker, 1984, by Charles Schwab, Dell Publishing.  In college, I entered the AT&T Stock Market Challenge (or something close to that name) where participants picked stocks in a fictional portfolio and the participant with the largest portfolio at the end of eight weeks won the challenge (fyi, I didn’t win).  But I didn’t have anyone to help me figure out how to start investing with my own money or give me advice about when I should do to start investing or help me develop the disciple to invest instead of needlessly spend.  Well, I want to offer my ideas and solutions to those challenges.

What prompted me to start the $100 Investor?

My daughter and son-in-law started asking me some questions about investing after they got married so we talked some about their questions and I gave them a couple of books about investing that I thought might help them begin their investing journey.   But I realized that there really isn’t anything available that addresses the problem of what to do with your very first investment dollars, that first $100 you’ve saved and how to put to work in an investment.  What is available are books, publications, website, blogs, etc that talk about the importance of diversifying your investment portfolio, how to invest like Warren Buffett, and probably a million other things but they all assume that you have a portfolio already.  Just about everything I’ve read about investing over the past 25 years gives examples of an ongoing, funded portfolio and $36,000 seems to be the most common portfolio amount in those examples.  Well, what if you don’t have $36,000 in an investment account?  What if you’ve been working a second job, paid off some credit card debt and have diligently saved $100?  What if you are in the middle of your career and experience a significant professional change and are financially starting over again and this time you want to start investing on your own and have finally gathered your first $100 to invest?  Now what?

The world of investing is big and noisy and can create a lot of confusion.  Someone investing for the first time can become discouraged when they can’t find answers to their questions or they struggle to sift through mountains of financial information that doesn’t seem to make much sense like charts, diagrams, symbols, numbers, terminology, acronyms, jargon, loud hosts on TV programs, newsletters, emails, commercials, etc.  The $100 Investor can quickly feel like they are trying to drink from a fire hydrant.

I think Wall Street causes confusion and anxiety in investors and I think they do so by design.  I worked for almost two years for a large brokerage firm and have seen the industry from the inside.  Maybe my experiences can help you gain some control over your financial life.  Maybe my experiences can help you by giving you the courage and determination to start your own $100 Investor adventure.  Maybe my experiences can help you make better investment decisions.

What do I hope to accomplish with the $100 Investor?

I want to offer my opinion and advice to all the $100 Investors about things like how to get your first $100, which broker to consider using, what investments you might evaluate as your first purchase, how to buy your first investment, and many other issues and questions you might face when investing your first $100.  I also want to talk about how to be an independent investor, how to educate yourself on investing, what resources may be valuable, how to build your investment portfolio, what it means to diversify, how to diversity your investments, how your taxes are affected by your investing, and many other things that might have an impact on your investment decisions.

I also want to share my own $100 Investor adventure.  I will share my experiences as I amass my first $100 of investment capital, which broker I will use, why I chose that broker, which investment I purchase, how I build my portfolio, what tools I use, what I read, what trade-offs I have to make, what new things I learn and experience along the way.  I want to share what I am reading and what I am using that I find useful in my own $100 Investor adventure.

My children are getting old enough to make important decisions about how they want to live their lives and I want to pass along what I know and what I have experienced to them.  The $100 Investor project is one way that I can help my children and hopefully a few others along the way.  There is no one way to invest, no magic investing bullet, no sure fire investing method, no secret investment sauce.  Investing is a process and an adventure in which we can find and develop our individual abilities.  I want my children to learn to make good, wise financial decisions and to feel like they can control many facets of their financial lives.

I invite you to come along with me and learn from, enjoy, and participate in the adventure of this $100 Investor.  I don’t think my life will be the same and I suspect your’s won’t either.

“Let it begin, Let It Begin, LET IT BEGIN! “, from the insightful character Rhino in the movie Bolt

Disclosure & Disclaimer

I am a practicing certified public accountant (CPA) and am licensed in the states of Oregon and Washington and own a CPA firm, CPA Worx LLC, and have practiced for more than 25 years.  I teach accounting at Oregon State University and have taught at the college/university level since 1997. 

I also own a registered investment advisory firm, Peacock Investment Worx LLC.  In the $100 Investor project, I am not offering recommendations of any kind nor am I providing tax, accounting, or legal advice.  I do not receive any type of compensation, of any kind, from the brokers, companies, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, websites, authors, publishers, investment managers, or anything or anyone else that I mention in this project.  True, my clients compensate me for my work and advice.  Many people do not want to invest on their own so I provide my investment services for a fee through Peacock Investment Worx LLC.  But the $100 Investor project is my way of helping anyone and everyone that wishes to invest on their own.  I want to support the independent investor.