Motley Fool CAPS

Last week I joined the Motley Fool CAPS game. Basically, you choose stocks that you think will outperform the market or underperform. You receive a score based on your results in comparison to the S&P 500. Your job is to beat the S&P 500 index. (If you can't beat the index, then don't buy stocks, just buy an index fund.) There are over 50,000 players. Some players have a perfect 100 rating. You can also find professional Wall Street analysts/investors and see their score. Here are Jim Cramer's picks and his score. You can see that he's only accurate about 47.8% of the time. However, he's had some amazing stock picks like Mastercard that returned 514%. Warren Buffet's score is only 38, but that's good enough to make him the world's richest man.

Why did I join?

Because I think it's a great way to practice/improve your stock picking skills. I think investing is like anything else in life. The more you practice the better you get at it. Why should investing be any different?

In addition, I've found quite a few stocks from other CAPS players that I wouldn't have found on my own. It's like having 80,000 people searching for good stocks for me. =) This game really demonstrates the power of the Internet. (I love it!) Each stock has a rating between 1 (don't buy) and 5 stars (buy it). However, it's up to you to do your own research to decide if you should invest real money.

If you're interested, here is my personal CAPS page. Yes, my screen name is "seouljester." I've actually invested real money in some of these companies, but I won't tell you which ones. If I told you to buy a stock and you lost money, I'd feel like crap. So, please do your own research before you invest your hard-earned cash.

Stop wasting time surfing the Internet. Learn something new and develop a skill. If you want to join, click here. If nothing else, practicing here may help you determine if you should be investing in stocks on your own, or just putting your money in an index fund. Either way, you'll learn something and gain some knowledge. Let me know your screen name if you decide to play. Have fun!