THE OPENING BELL

Hi there,
My name is Jeff Douglas and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to my blog and welcome you to DIGestingINvesting.

Over the last couple of months I have been asked about this title, DIGestingINvesting, and the merits of the combination of these two very different worlds: A reasonable inquiry indeed. Ironically, Beverley (my "brown eyed girl") is a national sales manager with a major food company and my background is in the financial industry. Now THAT is a coincidence! Because our relationship had nothing to do with marrying these two themes together. But it could be a sign.

Recently I retired from my career in the financial services industry which began over twenty three years ago. My titles ranged from financial advisor, investment advisor, stock broker, senior financial advisor, manager, but I always considered myself to also be an educator of financial services and the myriad of investment options available. After hosting countless seminars, some with as many as five hundred guests and conducting thousands of client meetings over the last two decades, I was, and still am astounded at how little the average person knows or cares about investing.

Here's the link. I often find myself in the kitchen with Beverley, or my mom, and/or with our four great kids, whipping up a Sunday breakfast, cooking dinner, Saturday barbeques, desserts, salads, casseroles ... actually, I am always in the kitchen! But the truth is, I love being there. While in the kitchen I often find myself talking about mutual funds, diversification, retirement planning, stocks, bonds, the equity markets and so on. Boring right? Well not so if you're combining the theme with another that everyone enjoys. Recently, our son Connor asked me to explain, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket" and Haley asked me to explain a mutual fund while I was making chicken caesar wraps. And, I recall being asked why money is often referred to as 'dough', or 'bread'.

WEBSTERS DEFINITION OF 'DIVERSIFY'
VERB:
di-ver-si-fy; di-ver-si-fied; di-ver-si-fies
1. To give variety to;vary:diversify a menu
2.To distribute investments among different companies or securities to limit losses in the event of a fall in a particular market or industry.

Several months ago I sat back and pondered my strengths and weaknesses, my likes and dislikes, and started putting ideas on paper. It was than that I realized that everybody eats, though many feel intimidated by the kitchen. Furthermore, everybody is experiencing this gut wrenching economic meltdown, though most do not understand how they got into this quagmire as their retirement plans went into meltdown. There are a lot of investors out there that just don't know what to do because they don't know what questions to ask or what options are available to them. They are as stymied about investing ... as they are about baking a pie.

It is fair to note that the financial services world goes to great lengths to educate their clients about investing but the reality is that most people would prefer to spend more time planning their next trip to Mexico, than they would like to spend on their retirement plan. The primary reason? They just don't understand the basics.

So, what if I created a medium that would blend these two themes together in an effort to feed everyone with the basic fundamentals to investing in a language that we all understand?

Welcome to DIGestingINvesting!

Thanks for coming by and stay tuned. There's a lot more to come.

Jeff

Your comments and ideas for future articles, themes or recipes are greatly appreciated.