Starbucks Ueno (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here’s a bit of history on my stock picking track record.  Way back in 1992, my son was studying basic economics in  middle school. The teacher assigned all the students to pick a stock and track it for a few months to learn how the stock market works.

The next day the kids shared what stock they had  chosen with IBM, Microsoft and GE among the common choices. My kid chose Starbucks. His teacher said, “Starbucks isn’t a stock.” My kid said, “Yes, it is. My mother bought it.”  Several months later, when the rest of the class’ stocks were mostly treading water and Starbucks had started its remarkably caffeinated rise, the teacher said to him: “What else is your mother buying?”  Enough said.  StockPicknMama was born on that legendary stock pick.

Why did I buy  Starbucks (Nasdaq:SBUX) way back in the last century? Because Starbucks was the first really good, dedicated coffee store in the U.S. And every where I went, a Starbucks store was opening– usually next to a Noah’s Bagels (but theirs is a much sadder story).  When my husband was relocated from Southern California to the Bay Area, I had three criteria for our new home location: near a Costco, near a Trader Joe’s and near a Starbucks. So, when Starbucks went public in 1992, I bought the stock. And they’ve grown from grande to venti to ubiquity ever since.  (One thing my readers will soon notice is my penchant for punning and word play. As in Starbucks? Yeah bean there, bun that!)

I’m still buying Starbucks because the world has gone crazy for hyper-caffeinated coffee with a global pedigree and green practices. I don’t expect it to soar like the olden days, but it’s still a mighty fine cuppa joe to hang onto.

Starbucks (Photo credit: Ivana Di Carlo)

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• There’s a Cheaper Buy Than Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) Today (insidermonkey.com)
• Dunkin’ Is on the Rise (beta.fool.com)
• Can Anything Stop Starbucks? (fool.com)
• Hey, Look at Starbucks’s Venti Pile of Money (origin-www.businessweek.com)