ClusterGains

A large part of investing involves the actions of the Federal Reserve.  If we know what they are currently doing or what they might do, we can make good decisions on which stocks to buy.  For example, the FOMC (Federal Reserve) has said that they would keep interest rates low until 2014.  This is great news for real estate investment trust stocks which pay high dividends.  AGNC, American Capital Agency, is paying a 14% annual dividend in quarterly installments.  RSO is paying a 13% dividend.  If you want to make money with a lower risk compared to the rest of the stock market, REITs are the type of stocks you should own.

You can visit the Federal Reserve website by clicking the link.  Once you are there, you can visit many different sections of the site to find out what the Fed governors are thinking and doing.  On February 4, 2012, a paragraph on the home page talked about how the FOMC wanted to keep inflation in the 2% range.  The goal is to bring about price stability and high employment. 

The FOMC has other websites also.  The St. Louis Fed is another site you could visit to see statistics on the economy and other Fed news.  You can see information about the consumer price index, the GDP, the unemployment rate, and the industrial production index.  These facts can be used to determine whether you should be long or short on stocks.

The San Francisco Fed also has interesting information on their website.  For example, two important articles were posted on the site in January of 2012.  One article was about the Federal Reserve and the economic recovery.  The other article dealt with the problem of the long duration of high unemployment.