What made me do a double take this morning was this completely ridiculous line in one of their articles:

Late last month, Millsteen urged Fools to throw the book at Barnes & Noble: “Analog business in a digital age. The way CDs went to ipod, books will go to ipad or any other digital reading device. There’s very little customer traffic [in those] high rent enormous superstores that was once a weekend destination.”

I don’t know who Millsteen is or where this person comes from, but they absolutely must be among the quasi-uber-elite urbanites. I’m sorry, but I’m in the local Barnes & Noble two to three times each month and my local store is constantly packed with people. I don’t live in an urban area nor do I live in a rural area, but rather I’m in your typical suburban location and I always see people buying stuff from the store when I’m in there. Plus, there is a gigantic “nook” display directly within the entrance footpath and I’ve seen people buying those things on the spot.

However, this type of really, really bad information coming out of the Motley Fool website is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from the out-of-touch elitists at that crappy website. They have no idea what’s happening on the ground at these retail locations and they are consistently off when it comes to predicting consumer trends. Let’s not forget that this is the same website that told everyone to sell out of Sirius XM stock back when it was trading below 0.20. Meanwhile, as of this writing the stock is trading at a buck. Another blown call by the urbanites at Motley Fool.

As an investor and a consumer, I recommend staying in Barnes & Noble and buying it NOW! I stress buying it now because the stock is sorely undervalued and is, I think, ready to pop at any moment. Plus, the stock gives off a quarter-per-share dividend each quarter. That ain’t bad in this market! Whatever you do, though, don’t listen to those losers at the Motley Fool – lest you make an unintelligent investment.

My strategy, simply, is to invest in what I know and stick with the basic fundamentals of investing in the stock market. For example, anyone who has been trolling around my network of websites for a while knows that I know a little something about professional wrestling. I’ve been keeping an eye on WWE’s stock performance for years. My study has shown me that the stock, generally, is cyclical around WrestleMania. In other words, the stock usually goes up a little bit around that time of the year and then falls after the show and its hype go away. With that in mind, I bought a bunch of WWE when it was in its lull and then waiting for WrestleMania time to sell. Easy enough, right?

But my strategy hasn’t really been the traditional “buy low, sell high,” rather it has been to take a reasonable amount of risk on those companies which are showing some resilience in the current market like Ford. In December when Ford went to Congress with hat in hand saying that it needed more funds, I wouldn’t invest in the company. But as soon as they came out with projections that showed they could sustain their business without a bailout I put a bunch of money into their stock. The total of my investments in Ford are up 157% as of this writing (and the stock is even down when this post is being written).

I did the same thing with Sirius XM. I know what their product is and enough about their financials to know that this company could be a real threat once it clears up its debt obligations so I invested a ton of money in the stock when it was trading at 14 and 16 cents. The stock now routinely trades in the 40 to 50 cent range and I expect it to trade even higher in the coming months and years. Not a bad deal overall, huh?

But I’m also investing in companies like Barnes & Noble. The difference with Barnes & Noble and the other companies is that I’m not looking so much for an increase in the stock price with this company, but rather I’m looking to acquire their stocks so I can enjoy their quarterly dividend (which, last time around, was a quarter per share). Earning 25% on your investment each quarter is nothing to scoff at – I’ll take it.

I guess the other difference between me and the stereotypical investor is that I’m not dropping huge gobs of money into the market. Where most people think that the typical investor is putting in tens of thousands of dollars, I’m content putting in just a few hundred every few weeks (which has now built me up to a few thousand overall).

I always keep in mind, though, what else I might use that money for instead of investing. For example, if I’m buying $100 worth of Barnes & Noble I might have otherwise used that money for a night out at the bar or a night down in Atlantic City. In the long run, putting the money in the market is a much smarter decision. At least I think so.

This isn’t a suggestion for everyone out there to jump into the market, but I would encourage everyone to give it some thought. If you would otherwise blow the money on useless stuff, then why not?