Stocks, Insider Info, & SEO

< sorta off topic post >
Due to tax charges and technology investments Amazon reported quarterly results which the market generally thought sucked. This weighed down tech stocks.

Oil futures dropped based on increased US oil inventories & the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah recent visit to President Bush’s Texas Ranch.

These two forces (Amazon & oil) moreless offset each other. Earlier today InfoSearch Media was up nearly 10% and is now up two cents on the day.

Earlier today DigitalGhost, one of their star researchers, announced his retirement from SEO:

I want to pursue pure research regarding etymology, LSI/LSA, philology, etc. Parallels can surely be drawn with regard to search tech I’m sure, but I want to pursue words. So, I’m leaving the SEO/SEM game.

I was not sure whether or not that means he is staying with InfoSearch Media, but NickW asked on his blog, and Digital Ghost already replied saying he is leaving them.

While I don't know enough about the stock market to compete in it on general stock buys, I am wondering if my tidbits of knowledge here and there can allow me to understand market forces within the SEO space better than the average investor?

insm.ob and thk are a couple SEO / SEM related stocks on the market. There are not many publicly traded SEO stocks, so it would not be that hard to keep up with them.

With the current market atmosphere of:

• mergers and acquisitions
  
• the falling dollar

• the uneven trade balance and huge federal debt
• the impending float of the Yuan
• many ad agencies behind the ball on search
• search engines crossing into traditional ad markets
• the rapid growth of search

I am sure this will be an interesting space in the financial markets for the next couple years.

Like people, companies are born and die. SEO is just manipulating information systems. The stock market is just a large information system. Stocks, options, futures, and shorts are just a bet for or against what people think will happen.

Insiders have the house advantage, but can traditional individual investors compete with the market? I think if you know a market well enough and can emotionally separate yourself from it then you can, not sure if I would be any good at that though.

Not sure if I will participate much in the market, but I do find it interesting that ISHM.ob has been up or at even the whole day on a relatively flat day when they just lost one of their star employees.