It’s no secret that money is the driving force for all of our lives. If it wasn’t – would any of us be working? So if this is true, then we all look for different ways to make as much money as we can. Of all the ways that there are in this world to make “a few bucks” – there is one that for the life of me I can not and probably will never understand – the stock market.

On any given business day – billions of shares of stock and trillions of dollars exchange hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. There are days where people make enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives – and there are days where millionaires go bankrupt. But despite this daily trading and the good or bad consequenses “playing the market” can have – I can’t figure it out to save my life.

My question is – is the fact that I don’t understand the stock market a good thing or a bad thing?

Granted, not understanding the market could be a bad thing. Not knowing the ins and outs of the Dow Jones Industrials could prevent me from taking a few bucks and turning it into a few million – which believe it or not – has happened on more then one occasion. A very famous story on this subject was one about a middle aged woman who took a job as a secretary with a new company that offered her stock options as an initiative for taking a job with a “start up company”. The name of that “start up company” just happened to be Netscape – and the secretary retired a millionaire. And what about those investors that bought stock for pennies from some of the biggest companies in the world today when they were just starting out? So it is fair to say that “playing the market” does have it’s advantages – and rewards.

But just as the stock market can bring very lucrative benefits – the stock market can also take someone from riches to rags. It happened in 1929, it happened again in 1987 – and again in 1997. In one brief moment, the market crashed and hopeful investors who had sunk their savings and their futures into the market were suddenly left with nothing in the blink of an eye. Some people were ruined, some had to file for bankruptcy – and some even committed suicide. So maybe staying away from the market is not such a bad thing after all.

Maybe someday I will be able to understand the foreign language that is the stock market – but for now – I’ll keep my money in my wallet – at least for a little while.