Thomas Jefferson

I don’t think anyone could argue that Thomas Jefferson had several stokes of genius. One could even argue that Thomas Jefferson “was” a stroke of genius. After all he drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Although there are several Jeffersonian quotes that I could claim as my favorite, there are two that come to mind as the most entertaining.

First: "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers".

Second: "I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it".

Thomas Jefferson



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Opportunity Is Knocking

We all remember sometime in our youth, whether it was a graduation or some other ceremony, a well meaning speaker broaching the subject of opportunity. My graduation was no exception. A well meaning head of the Department of Education delivered a speech to our graduating class on just that subject.

Some years later, a fellow graduate and good friend, reminded me of that very speech. The speaker’s message: in your youth, opportunity is not only knocking, but POUNDING upon your door. If you are only to listen, you will indeed find opportunities abound everywhere you look. He went on to say that is was imperative that we answer the door now! If we do not, as we grew older, the pounding will become a knock. And as we continued to age, the knock will grow fainter and fainter until someday it will only be a very light rap upon our door, barely audible.

Today’s “Information Age” does not recognize age as a benefit nor barrier. Opportunity now, more then ever, is POUNDING upon our doors! Some of us however, have become a little hard of hearing.

William Wirt in 1814 had a stroke of genius when he wrote: "Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance”.

If we choose not to listen closely, the POUNDING of opportunity may just as well be a faint rap.

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ETFs an Excellent Alternative to Traditional Mutual Funds

In the early 90s the American Stock Exchange experienced a stroke of genius and came up with the idea of the Exchange Traded Funds or ETFs. With the ETF, the AMEX created a hybrid between stocks and mutual funds. This ushered in a new era for the individual investor.

The original ETFs were the Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (SPDR), Diamonds and the NASDAQ-100 Index Tracking Stock. The Standard & Poor’s Depositary Receipts or Spyders as they are called is a unit investment trust, which buys and holds shares in the companies of the S&P 500 Index. Diamonds do the same with the Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks while the NASDAQ-100 Index Tracking Stock is self explanatory. In a single word, what all this means to the individual investor is diversification. The investor can now buy 100 shares of SPDRs and have the portfolio diversification of the S&P 500 index.

Since their inception, ETFs have become so popular they are among the most heavily traded stocks on the exchanges. Over the past 12 years, the number of available ETFs have grown. You can now buy an ETF that represents any of the major market indexes or market sectors. This of course offers the individual investor more diversity then ever. No longer does the small investor have to “put all his eggs in one basket” he or she can now invest in more that 5000 different company through a single ETF.

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