The Walt Disney Company (DIS), The Coca-Cola Company (KO), Google Inc (GOOG): Beginner Investing

Page 2 of 2

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) makes most of its money by displaying advertisements alongside your searches. Companies are willing to pay big bucks to advertise with Google because Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has collected so much information on us that it is able to send the right ads to the right users at the right time. That’s valuable stuff. And with the company always looking for ways to innovate — like Google Glass — this stock is a solid bet for your future.

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)

Source: Denis Grgecic Valput, via Wikimedia Commons.

A lot of people think that eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is all about online auctioning, and that its business is slowly being taken away by Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). People who think that are wrong on two levels.

First, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s auctioning format is fundamentally different than what Amazon offers. And business from eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s auctioning site is doing quite well: Over the last two years, revenue from the site is up 30%.

The second reason people don’t quite understand eBay is because they don’t realize that the company owns PayPal. The online payment option is safe, easy, and effective. As more and more people use PayPal, eBay gets paid a small sum from each transaction. Those small sums add up: Last year, the company brought in more than $5 billion from PayPal.

Continue learning!
One of the most important things to understand about investing for beginners is the importance of dividends. Sometimes dividends are high, sometimes they are low, and sometimes they don’t exist at all.

The article Investing for Beginners: Buy What You Know originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Brian Stoffel.

Fool contributor Brian Stoffel owns shares of Google, Coca-Cola, and Amazon.com. The Motley Fool recommends Coca-Cola. It also recommends and owns shares of Amazon.com, eBay, Google, and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS).

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Page 2 of 2