It's been many years since I dabbled in the stock market. Look at how many people currently have lost their shirts on paper with their 401K's, retirement plans and stock market portfolio.
Objectively, when a person buys stocks, they hope to make money, not lose money. So they start buying up stocks that they feel will increase in value. They get a monthly statement from their brokerage firm and a lot of this persons happiness rests on which way their monthly statement is going. For example, if they have $100,000 worth of stocks purchased and next month when they get a statement and it shows the current market value of those stocks are $105,000, that person is happy. Their investment is increasing in value, they are happy.
The next month the statement reveals that their stocks are worth $108,500. The investor is again very happy. Hey, this is fun he thinks. I never made money so easy as this. The next month the statement arrives and his stocks sky rocketed to $117,000. He has no idea of why his stocks are going up in value, but he loves the idea that some thing he paid $100,000 for just a short few months ago is now worth $117,000. He thinks, damn, that is the easiest $17,000 that I ever made!!! The thoughts continue, why work? This is too easy!
Then the next month he gets a statement and his stocks went from a $117,000 valuation on paper, down to $83,000. Damn! How the hell did that happen he thinks! He went from being up $17,000 to having the stock portfolio go down $34,000 in one month, to where it is valued at $83,000 currently.
Financial advisers and stock investment counselors would advise him to not worry. That a person should buy stocks for the long haul. That historically the stock market increased in value 15% per year since its inception.
What is happening internally to this investor is this. He bought these stocks with a hope that they would increase in value. They did. He really had zero control over the fact that they increased in value. Just as he and millions of investors have zero control over the fact their investments and portfolio is way down currently. The only way to truly control the ups and downs, is to not be in it! :) ha ha ha
That is why many people sell out of the stock market and buy into say tax free aaa insured municipal bonds. Their investment is insured. With their same $100,000, let's say the bonds rate of return is 5% tax free, they know that they will be getting 5% per year in tax free interest. There are no ups and downs like the stock market. They are not going to lose their $100,000 and the interest payments are guaranteed and a sure thing, much unlike the stock market.
People who are not big risk takers can sleep much better at night knowing when they wake up in the morning, their investments have not drastically gone down in value.
I am new to this whole blogging thing. I have only been doing it about 5 months. Most bloggers write about their topic of interest, myself included. They do posts and their blog increases in size via all of the content they add, similar to buying more stocks.
Each of those posts eventually gets scanned via a Google bot and when ever a person does a Google search, it will most likely lead the person to this bloggers post or blog (if the search words match). This is known as bringing traffic to the bloggers site. If the blogger has ads on his or her site, this increased traffic will cause more people to see those ads and hopefully instill a greater chance of the blogger making some money.
Similar to the stock market, I would have days where my blog would have 1,350 views and consistently be in the 1000 to 1350 range and then bam, the next day there would be 430 views. What the hell happened?
A blogger writes to share info pertaining to the topic of their interest. An investor in the stock market buys stocks that they hope will produce a profit for them. Each hopes their endeavors will be appreciated and appreciate in value. However, a lot what controls the valuation of the investor or blogger, is beyond the investor or bloggers control. The blogger and the investor then focus the majority of their time trying to get the numbers higher. That becomes the objective of winning the game.
Honestly, did I do a whole bunch different when my blog had 1350 views in one day, than when a few days later it had 430 views? Not really. It then makes the stock investor or blogger try to analyze what the hell happened to cause the numbers to change so rapidly? The sad fact of the matter is, often times it is beyond the control of the investor or blogger.
Here is an example of a much more drastic decrease in views. Click here. >>> http://www.masternewmedia.org/online_marketing/traffic-issues/sudden-loss-of-web-traffic-possible-causes-google-dance-google-sitemaps-20070813.htm
I am a total newbie to blogging. If you research some thing called the Google Dance, it tries to explain the erraticness of why your views go up and down. Then again, there are things known as SEO poisoning, malware and other weird shit that can cause you to lose lots of traffic.
There is a site via the name Wonkette. Here is the direct link. >>> wonkette.com If you enter the site and scroll to the very bottom, you'll notice a green Site Meter icon. If you click on it, the numbers will reveal to you that Wonkette has a vast readership of millions of people monthly.
However, if you further analyze, Wonkette's readership is way down this year as compared to last year. Why is that? Is it the economy? Is the stock market way down because of the economy? Was I writing much better when my blog reached its highest height? Google's algorithms are a thing of uncertainty, much like the stock market is a thing of uncertainty.
It would be advised that the stock market investor should be in it for the long haul and not be swayed via market fluctuations and ups and downs. I knew of an old guy in his 80's who has millions of $$$ in the stock market. His millions went down to $800,000. Fearing totally losing his shirt, he cashed out.
A bloggers original premise or motivation is to share valuable or interesting content. The interest should be in writing. However, similar to the stock market, when the numbers increase, it makes the game a whole lot more fun to play. :)