You never know what you'll run across in our vast Fool Community of discussion boards. You might find some great advice that will make your life easier or save you some money, or you might be introduced to a compelling investment. Or you might just make some new friends. Here are a few interesting posts I noticed recently:
- Cabinsmama thanked the Fool in this post for giving her a forum in which to write, argue, persuade, and expound -- for seven years. She noted that it has paid off well because: "I got my GRE score in analytical writing tonight. I have been out of school for almost 30 years, so the GRE was very stressful." The score can be anywhere from a 0 to a 6, with 6 being the highest. She got a 6.
- On our Get Organized! board, rosewine shared some handy tips. I especially liked these two: "Do you still use paper checks? Go get your checkbook and write 2007 on all the checks that are in it. By the time you get to the end of those checks, you should be in the habit of writing the new year. I also start a new paper check register on the first day of the year. That way I can file it away with my other tax papers at the end of the year."
- On our Building and Maintaining a Home board, eatnbybears offered a tip that can save you the cost of a new dryer -- wash out your lint filter regularly!
- On our Help With This Stupid Computer! board, ptheland shared a good customer service experience with Dell (NASDAQ:DELL). This is interesting from an investor perspective because Dell has often received far from top ratings when it comes to customer service. I myself use a Dell computer, and when my hard drive died this year, I was impressed with Dell's service, which included a rep. calling me every day or two to check on my system's status. This post, and some responses to it, helped reassure me that should I consider investing in Dell, I might not want to fret too much about poor customer service marks -- the company seems to be aiming to do well on it.
- On our Home Depot (NYSE:HD) discussion board, Goofyhoofy offered some free advice to management on how to get its act together (noting that same-store sales have slumped by a significant 5%). His suggestions included hiring back many of the experienced, knowledgeable full-timers who were let go in the past, boosting the training of workers, and motivating and rewarding them. He lamented, "You have turned me into a Lowe's (NYSE:LOW) shopper..." His post received several dozen responses.
- On our Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) board, a poster with the terrific handle BelchTheUnsavory shared some cogent thoughts on whether Netflix is an attractive investment right now. He said: "I've had the opportunity to interview Hastings three times now. He impressed me by talking about the holy trinity of capturing the consumer: Great product, Great price, and most importantly, CONVENIENCE. Convenience, he says, trumps everything."
Our boards are, among other things, a fertile resource for stock research. Another excellent resource is our brand new CAPS service, which features ratings for (and comments on) thousands of stocks by tens of thousands of investors. Look up Netflix, for example, and you'll see that it has 2,267 "outperform" ratings from the community, vs. 417 "underperform" ratings. Among our top-rated all-star participants (those with the best records), 389 rate it outperform, and 96 rate it underperform. Clearly, the sentiment is generally positive, but not overwhelmingly so. (You can also look up the comments that participants offer along with their ratings.)
So go ahead and explore Fooldom more deeply by checking out our discussion boards and our CAPS service.
Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian owns shares of Home Depot and Netflix. Netflix and Dell are Stock Advisor recommendations. Dell and Home Depot are Inside Value picks. The Motley Fool has a full disclosure policy.
