Reasons to Care about Stocks

When the stock market crashed during the period from 2000-2002, I was almost a teen and did not have a single clue what was going on. It wasn't till years later that I realized the reason many people were panicking and I no longer saw the pets.com ads on TV was the stock market. In 2008 when I heard that Circuit City, a company my father used to work for some years earlier, filed for bankruptcy and would no longer be in business and the value of our house where my parents just managed to pay the mortgage at the time had halved in the time span of a few months, I still had no clue that the stock market had anything to do with it. Since I just got out of high school at the time, I would occasionally hear on the news that the economy was down with not a single understanding of what that meant for us.

I have come to realize that unless you have a particular interest in these things as a hobby or your profession is related to managing money, not many people actually pay attention to what is going on in the stock market and other asset classes prone to the boom and bust cycle. This is perfectly understandable. Over the next few posts, I will outline reasons an ordinary person like yourself, should care about the stock market. Because the internet is open to a worldwide audience, I will be specific and say that these posts are more applicable to those in the United States since the information and data I will be using comes from there. Follow along over the next few weeks and remember to share your thoughts in the comments section.