As I write this on May 15th, the S&P 500 has been on a tear. It is up 15% year to date and 141% since now-deceased CNBC legend Mark Haines called the market bottom in March 2009. This week Facebook is celebrating one year since its controversial IPO. Despite, new market highs (the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossing 15,000 anyone?), Facebook has yet to reach its opening price of $38 a share. Meanwhile on the other side of the tech sector, search giant Google has been hovering comfortably around $900 a share. If you think that’s high for a stock price, take a look at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway whose A class shares sell for $168,000 apiece due to never paying a dividend or splitting its stock. The holding company has a market capitalization of $275.6B, yet is only the ninth largest public holding company in the world.
MAKE SENSE TO YOU ? MAYBE NOT. The investing world is unfortunately full of intimidating jargon that prevents many people,especially women,from participating. While becoming a market whiz is a full time career, there are measures you can take to become market savvy and comfortable speaking financialese -- and maybe even become an investor yourself. But first, time to arm you with some Wall Street common knowledge.
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