For any worthwhile endeavor you need to set goals. If you don't know your destination, how will you know when or if you arrive at your destination? Goals for investing in the stock market might include such worthwhile objectives as investing for college or retirement. While these are excellent reasons to invest, they need a monetary value so we may plot our progress to see how we are progressing. Checking one's progress toward a known amount allows us to take corrective actions when we see our target is being missed. For example, if you were saving and investing to purchase a $10,000 car in four years and you wanted to pay cash at the time of purchase, then your goal is very well defined. You need $10,000 four years from now. One strategy for obtaining your goal might be to invest $200 per month or $2,400 per year in the stock market. At the end of four years you will have invested 4 X $2,400 or $9,600. The question now becomes at what percent must your investment increase to make up the $400 difference. Short term investment goals must consider the fact that the stock market is subject to wide swings of value and thought by many to be a better place for longer investment periods. I use the example of a car purchase because that is more interesting to high school students. These are problems that most people cannot do in their heads. Fortunately, there are many sites on the Internet, which have calculators to make it easy.  One such site can be reached by clicking Goal Calculator. But before you do I want to give you a few things to work out when you get there. I have prepared a worksheet for you to print and fill-in as you experiment with the goal calculator. For Mr. Crenshaw's students you may get a printout from his desk. Goal Calculator Form

Using the Goal Calculator find out the answer to the question above for the car. Also find other worthwhile answers such as how old you will be when you get 1 million dollars if you start out with nothing and invest $30 per month ( a $1 a day) in the stock market and get its historic return of 11% from 1926-1999 including the great crash of 1929. Then see how old you will be if you pick some winners like Coke or GM or Microsoft and get 20%. Then try 60% like Cisco has earned over the last 8 years. Fill out the form and keep it until I ask for it.

If you have trouble understanding the Goals Calculator, you can look at some of the examples I have worked out for you here.