Turning to gold, our first new stock

Is this a real company? Goldcorp, Inc.? Yes, they are very real and well respected. What do they do? They're alchemists. They take ordinary iron and lead and convert it to gold. It's an amazing process that will change the world economy.

Ah, no. I'm kidding. They are a "materials extraction" company. That means that they own and operate mines. Here is the official description from Fidelity:

Goldcorp, Inc. engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and operation of precious metal properties in the Americas and Australia. It focuses on gold, silver, and copper.

There you have it. Most all of their activity is in the Americas. There's more gold here than even Coronado could imagine.

So, why did I take a position (buy) this stock? Well, I wanted to diversify from owning only my own company's stock (which I will not be discussing, though it is an outstanding stock.) There are many technology companies that I am interested in, but I didn't want to totally focus there either. So, I looked around for an industry with a positive outlook and then chose a couple of the best companies in that industry. Gold mining is a sub industry of materials extraction. Goldcorp, a Canadian company(!), is one of the largest and most successful companies in this sector.

I'm not going to delve into the numbers like P/E Ratio and revenue projections and EPS, even though I did research these things. I read about the company, checked out their website, read a variety of analysts' opinions, used my common sense about running a business, and decided to roll the dice. The stock could be a little overvalued, currently hovering around $33 per share, but, what the heck, I want to own a piece of a gold mining company. So, I bought 90 shares.

When I can find a decent stock ticker widget, I'll slap it on the right side and we can follow these investments.

In the meantime, here are a few rules: I don't panic. I'm in on this stock for at least one year. I might add to the number of shares as the year rolls along, but I do not intend to sell. This particular stock is fairly stable, but fluctuations are always possible. We can't get too excited if it moves up and we can't get too crazy if it drops in value. Sometimes the best thing to do is to periodically forget that you have any savings or investments. Tinkering can be the worst thing. Every trade costs money and those costs bite into any capital gains. We're going to watch.

(I realize, after re-reading this, that I am actually tinkering with my investment savings. But I am doing that to correct a fundamental flaw of investing: I had all of my stock investments in a single company. Feels good when they are rocking and rolling, but can be devastating when things go bad. And just wait until I build a bond ladder next month!)

Anyone out there have any experience with Goldcorp? Or the gold mining industry? If you are an insider at Goldcorp, please ignore these questions.

Anyone know of a good widget that will work with Blogger?