My father was a professor and when I was a kid, the idea of getting a PhD was very intriguing to me. However, I was concerned because my dad told me that my thesis would have to be about a topic nobody had studied before. I used to be worried that all the new ideas would be used up before I got old enough to go to college.

In a similar manner, when I first started investing, I was concerned that all the good ideas for investments would already be taken. That if a company was worth investing in, that everyone would have already driven up its stock price before I could get some.

Fortunately, it's quite a few years later and this hasn't happened yet. There are always new opportunities to find stocks to invest in. In fact, the problem is usually that there are more ideas than time available to research them.

One source of ideas I find interesting is the choices of stocks people make when they are in a virtual investing contest. For the past two years we have hosted such a contest run by the Central Pennsylvania chapter of BetterInvesting. www.bivio.com/keystonestrategies I think people in virtual contests tend to be a little more aggressive. It's less of a letdown if you only lose virtual money. Because of this, newer, and I sometimes think fresher, ideas can come out.

I know I threw Crocs (CROX) into my entry on a whim. I had studied it in a class in the summer of 2010. At that point they had just narrowly missed bankruptcy. They had a new management team saying all the right things and what I thought were some pretty attractive new shoe designs on their website. But, being a "show me first" type of investor, I wouldn't have actually invested in them. However, by making them part of my contest entry, I kept an eye on how they were doing all year. Lo and behold, some of their changes did pay off and the CROX stock took off.

I think we all have stocks we are interested in watching. I also think we sometimes put them on watch lists and don't really keep up on how they are doing. You might find entering a virtual portfolio contest or holding one in your own investment club makes you keep a little more of an eye on how they are doing.

Here is a link to the entries that were made in last years contest. It's interesting to look through them for new investment ideas. A virtual $5000 was put into each entry on January 28, 2011.

http://www.manifestinvesting.com/learn_to_invest

Just a disclaimer. I'm still trying to decide whether to purchase CROX stock or Crocs shoes and I have yet to get a PhD.

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Laurie Frederiksen
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