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I learned most of my basic investment knowledge from my dad. I remember when I was about five years old having him tell me why my credit union decided to give me a free $.05 on my $10 in deposits. It really didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time, but I thought it was pretty cool nonetheless. As I got older, I started to realize that he invested in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. He was telling me about some Donald Trump bonds that he had in the 80s that defaulted. I couldn’t believe that you could lend you money to someone like that and then just have them take it away and give you nothing in return (I still have not invested in a bond).

Anyway, he was above and beyond my knowledge on these types of investments so I always went to him with my questions. When I turned 18 I decided to start investing in stocks myself. Let’s just say that trying my hand at investing at such an early age was a very shall we say “educational” experience. I invested in a lot of different companies that didn’t turn out as expected. When I was trying to turn around my portfolio from my earlier losses I thought about investing in Google (GOOG) right after its IPO. I had always used them as a search engine and really liked the products that they offered. I asked father what he thought about it and he said that the market had grossly overpriced the stock and it would be a mistake to buy into it. At that point in time it sat right around $100. Today it is at $646.73 and has been as high as $747.24. Not a bad return if you ask me.

Here is another quality pick from dear old dad. About 6 months ago he was raving about Washington Mutual (WM), which was then trading in the mid-40s with a decent dividend as well. Every time it went down a few bucks he would rave about how now the dividend yield is even higher! It’s time to buy in. I think the yield reached about 20% at some point, and then the financials came out. After examining them, it could easily be seen that Wamu was going to pay more in dividends than they had in earnings. Not a good business model. Not surprisingly, Wamu cut their dividend for the first time to a much lower payout. Now the stock is trading in the mid-teens with only a $.15 dividend. That’s pretty low considering the previous quarter they paid out $.56 per share.

So there are two pretty bad picks that dad has made. If I would have bought Google and shorted Wamu I would be looking pretty good right now. Oh well, there is always next time.

So you are probably wondering what the stock picking genius is suggesting right now. Well here is the short list:

Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD)
Allied Irish Banks (AIB)
American Eagle Outfitters (AEO)

Buy those at your own risk!

On a lighter note, picking stocks is not an easy task. It takes a lot of research and patience to do well. The best advice is to take other people’s opinions with a grain of salt. Take them for what they are worth and then do your own due diligence. This way if you are wrong the only person you have to blame for it is yourself. Remember, this is your money. You get to choose what you want to do with it!

PS: At the time of the writing of this article, the author does not own shares of Google, Washington Mutual, Buffalo Wild Wings, Allied Irish Banks, or American Eagle.