So here are the top 10  stock market investing comic strip and cartoons (not necessarily in order) which will make you smile and probably make your day especially if you see the chart f your favorite stock going down.

Although “allergic” to technology buys, Warren Buffett knows a good buy when he sees one. The Oracle of Ohama has decided to invest in a blog as he believes this is the best way to get his “message”out. The message he is preaching is the same throughout his lifetime and that is how ordinary investor’s can intelligently invest in the stock market. He also advocates that CEO’s and business leaders must have integrity beyond reproach especially when it comes to dealing with investors and shareholders and that the best job a CEO can do is to allocate capital. Of course there is no better way to get the message out to the general public and that is through blogs.

Recently we all know Warren Buffett has been involved with “The Secret Millionaire’s club” a cartoon series aimed at teaching kids the basics of finance and investing. His involvement in the Secret Millionaires Club is a way of giving back to the society who has given him so much of his success. His recent purchase of D’ Intelligent investor is another one of his endeavors to give back to society.

Warren says he doesn’t have time to blog, so we made a deal that I would continue blogging in D’ Intelligent Investor while he and Charlie Munger will just contribute articles from time to time. I’ll be under Berkshire’s payroll as the mainstay blogger. Knowing Warren Buffett, I couldn’t agree more. He usually prefers to buy businesses with excellent management and management that think and acts like owners. A lot of Berkshire Hathaway companies are still run by their previous owners. Previous owners are probably the best people to run their own companies as they know the company so well and love it as their own. So it didn’t surprise me when Buffett asked that I continue blogging in D’Intelligent investor.

Although the main reason for his buying my blog is not for profit, from an investment standpoint, he still sees this blog as a long term investment as he always sees all investments. Although this blog is only worth less than a thousand dollars today, he sees it to be worth a billion dollars in less than 50 years time. Using the time value of money he computes that the blog is a great buy today at $1 million dollars. We initially discussed that 100 % of the blog’s income will be given to the Gates foundation.  This didn’t surprise me also because even in his philanthropic works, Buffett always sees to it that he places his money where it will work hard most efficiently. That is why he gave the Gates foundation about $30 Billion U.S dollars because he believes that the Gates foundation is the best place where his money can work the hardest and can have the most impact worldwide in terms of philanthropic works.

Buffett also mentioned that he likes the blog’s title “D’ Intelligent Investor” as it reminds him so much about his favorite investing book, “The Intelligent Investor” by his mentor Benjamin Graham, known as the father of value investing.

I’ll be meeting on Monday with Berkshire Hathaway’s Marc D. Hamburg, Berkshire’s Chief Financial officer, Allen Greenberg, the Executive Director of the Buffett foundation and the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Jeff Raikes. We will be discussing the terms of the purchase. I will update you more about this.

Hahahahaha Got you ! HAPPY APRIL’S FOOLS DAY !

The scenario I just described to you was a movie wherein there was a stock market scene. I grew up wondering what that hulla bulla was all about. The stock market intrigued me. I was so fascinated how people could make money that way. That thought stuck to my mind until I formally learned what the stock market is all about. I was just given a glimpse by Hollywood on how to the stock market really works.

The stock market is a very unique market. It is probably the only type of market where there is so much emotions involve. You don’t see people shouting and panicking in the fish market just because there is a huge storm coming. You certainly don’t see them selling their fish in panic because the price of fish will go down by virtue of some external event. In the fish market or any other market they might do a mark down sale because of low demand. But you certainly don’t see people doing a panic selling or buying and sometimes doing it with a cash advance like crazy whenever somebody projects that the price of fish will go up because of some reason.

The stock market is dictated by two things, FEAR and GREED. When there is so much fear in the market the prices goes down. People start to panic and dump stocks irregardless at what price they bought it. When there is so much greed in the market, people go crazy over stocks. They buy without regard to the financials of the underlying business that the stock represents. They just want to be in the market. The market is driven by so much emotion that most of the time the decision most stock market players make are often irrational, illogical and just plain dumb and stupid.

In order to give you an insight on how the stock market really works. Consider this illustration given by the late Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett’s mentor, otherwise known as the Dean of Wall street, father of securities analysis and value investing and author of the masterful treatise, “Securities Analysis” and “The intelligent investor” both considered as classics and the bible of investing.

In “The Intelligent Investor” Graham gives a powerful illustration on how the stock market really works. He writes:

“Imagine that you own a small share in a private business, which you purchased for $1,000. One of the other owners of the business, named Mr. Market, approaches you to tell you what he thinks your share of the business is worth. And everyday, he offers to either buy your share of the business for that price, or, to sell you an additional share of the business for that price.Each day, however, he quotes you a different price from the day before. Sometimes the price he quotes sounds about fair. Sometimes it’s high. Sometimes it’s low. If you are a prudent investor or a sensible businessman, will you let Mr. Market’s daily communication determine your view of the value of a $1,000 interest in the enterprise? Only in case you agree with him, or in case you want to trade with him. You may be happy to sell out to him when he quotes you a ridiculously high price, and equally happy to buy from him when his price is low. But the rest of the time you will be wiser to form your own ideas of the value of your holdings, based on full reports from the company about its operations and financial position.”

The point that Graham is making is that you as an investor should not regard the whims and caprices of Mr. Market in determining the value of the stocks you own. You should learn to profit from market folly instead of participating in it. Graham concludes that the investor is better off concentrating on the actual performance of the underlying business which a stock represent, rather than being too concerned with the wild gyrations of the market.

Sometimes you cant believe how such smart, financially savvy and intelligent people could be dictated by fear and greed and in the long run make ridiculous and irrational decisions. Well it does happen and it has been happening for the past centuries ever since the stock market has existed.

To understand how the stock market really works and how the market makes such irrational decision consider watching this youtube video on how the stock market really works. This dramatic dialogue is played by the comical duo of Bird and Fortune, two British stand up comedians that satirized the 2008 world financial meltdown. The second half of the video is a satirical yet profoundly true reason on why the sub prime mortgage crisis happened in the  United States. The first half of the video gives a funny yet true reflection of how the stock market really works.

Amidst all of the laughter a lesson can be gleaned. The mistakes of others need not be your mistake in order for you to learn a lesson.

If you learn from the mistakes of other instead of learning from your own mistakes it will not be too costly for you. A way to do this is to learn stock market investing by reading books and listening to the experiences of others who had already been in stock market investing for a long time.

However be advised to always maintain your own independent judgment as there are those who recommend certain investing strategies that might work for them but not for you.

Anyway, i’ve been entertaining myself with Hitler parodies in youtube lately. Some parodies are so funny that I can’t stop laughing while watching them alone. I wondered if there were any parodies on the stock market. Surprisingly there are some and I will be featuring them here from time to time.

In this youtube video, Hitler gets mad at his staff for missing the Bull Market and for prematurely selling his stocks. He recommends that they study Warren Buffett’s long term investment strategies on holding stocks as long term investments. (Which I am recommending) He ends up blaming Bernie Madoff.

The lesson of the video? Nothing, its just for laughs ! However if you do find one, I’m sure its this as Buffett said, Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.

A serious note, I am not recommending the ad at the end of the video and the website as featured in the youtube video. I have not tried their products and I do not know what its all about.