When my grandfather passed away two years ago, I received a large chunk of stocks in an account at SmithBarney. They were good solid stocks that he had selected and were providing a decent stream of income for him to live on. I wanted to see if I could do better, if I could make more money with the stocks. Unlike most of the rest of the family, my stocks are still at SmithBarney and I’ve done ok (I’ve made my share of mistakes but there have been some good moves as well). While I have a financial Planner at SmithBarney, I think I finally found a good tool for managing my stocks.

MyWallSt.net is a social network of sorts for investors, where you can try your hand at investing for fun (well, for the chance to win 1k cash!), learn and trade tips and generally find out what others believe when it comes to the market. Having created an account, I was quick to log in to the rookie challenge section and begin making some purchases, we’ll see how I do. I do like the idea of a site like this, trading tips with people and finding out what works for them is better for me than reading the business section or listening to Cramer every night (he gets kind of tiring after a while). Not only that but trade magazines, news papers and even other online sites can be out dated soooo quickly these days (have you watched the market on a day when the Fed has lowered or raised the interest rate?), that having the real time help of “friends” online would be beneficial to anyone.

I’ll let you know how well I do with their rookie challenge (maybe there’s a widget for my blog…).