Virgin Investor Scores on Wall Street With Help from Web Site that Educates Women on Investing
By Natalie Pace

[Editor's note: Natalie was a featured speaker at the November 2005 PBWC Conference in Sacramento, where she presented these insights to a standing-room only crowd to help them take charge of their nest eggs and investments]

According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Securities Dealers, an overwhelming 97 percent of investors realize they need to be better informed about investing.

Santa Monica, CA ­ In April, 50-year-old Jodi Seidler had an idea of what to give herself for her 51st birthday ­ a shot on Wall Street. She’d always wanted to learn more about investing, and decided to educate herself, select a stock and jump in. The guy she was dating, a stockbroker, told her she was crazy.

Three days after Jodi bought Intermix (the owners of MySpace), Eliot Spitzer sued the company for Adware and Spyware and the stock sank by more than half. Was that the end of Jodi’s dreams? In her words, "I panicked, I lost sleep, and I even sought advice from a psychic." Jodi was smart enough to ignore her date’s advice to "cut her losses," however.

She sought help from a source with better returns: Natalie Pace, the founder and CEO of i-Sophia.com, who has the distinction of being the number one stock picker in the US (according to independent tracker TipsTraders.com) with over 60% annualized gains .

"One of the stories Natalie told me was of a woman who was going to get out of the stock market and take a large loss in October 2002, when the markets were at a 5-year low," Jodi explains. "Natalie explained that education is always better than panicking and that it is not a good idea to sell low, unless you’re talking about an Enron or a Global Crossing." Jodi was very happy that she held onto her Intermix stock, and she didn’t have to wait long for the turnaround. The stock rallied from $3.25 in May 2005 to $12.00 per share in October, the price at which News Corp. purchased Intermix. Having bought Intermix near $7.00 per share, Jodi’s gains were approximately 60% (60 cents on every dollar).

"I love Jodi’s story," Natalie says. "It highlights so many of the challenges of investing ­ bad advice from so-called "experts" (selling low is bad advice), making decisions on fear instead of by reasoned choice and the joy of selling at the right time!" Now more than ever it is important to get smart about investing, according to Natalie, as employees are on the line for their own retirement plans.

"The smart definitely get richer," Natalie says, "especially these days when making the wrong choices in your 401K could destroy your retirement account, as the employees of Enron, Global Crossing, United Airlines and now Delphi have experienced firsthand. It is imperative that you check off the right boxes and know how to protect your investment."

Natalie founded her company, i-Sophia in 2002 to "spread wealth by sharing wisdom," and offers her subscribers the news, information and education professionals need to succeed in business, investing and personal prosperity (and which boxes to check off in your 401K). i-Sophia’s investigative financial reporting is written by the most respected writers in the U.S., and includes interviews with the most powerful CEOs on the planet (think Forbes, Murdoch and Krawcheck). Since being featured In i-Sophia, Google tripled in price, Genentech more than doubled, Taser posted up to 9,000% returns, Overstock went from $11.50 to over $50/share and Myspace rang up 70-325% gains. Additionally, investors like Jodi have learned how to build a sound retirement plan, as well as to take a portion of their money for higher risk and higher gain.

About i-Sophia: I-Sophia (sophos is Greek for wisdom) offers the news, information and education you need to succeed in business, investing and personal prosperity. I-Sophia’s content has been featured on radio, online, in print and on television with Forbes.com, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Forbes on Fox, Women & Co. (Citigroup) and more. Our unique brand of investigative financial journalism, utilizing the top economic minds in the U.S., has resulted in extraordinary stock performance from our feature companies. Professionals find real-world answers to their most pressing questions in the social networking bulletin boards (which are monitored by successful business leaders) and i-Sophia’s chats with money managers and CEOs. I-Sophia is a financial media service (like Forbes, Money, Fortune) and does not act or operate like a brokerage.

For more information, visit www-i-Sophia.com.

Article Source: www.pbwc.org