The Wall Street Shuffle Host Bios

Jim Jubak

So why should you listen to this Jubak guy anyway? Experience. As you can probably tell from the photos on this site, I've got some miles on my chassis. (So, no, I'm not just another pretty face.)

Specifically, I've got 25 years writing about the capital markets under my belt. And even more important to you, a 12-year track record at picking stocks. As of June 30, 2009 my Jubak's Picks portfolio has returned 239% since inception in May 1997. That's slightly better than the 11% return on the Standard & Poor's 500 during that same period.

I wasn't always this brilliant, of course. (Although I do remember that I more than broke even in 8^th grade when Keith, Paul, and I gambled our lunch money on the volume on the New York Stock Exchange. But that could be just wishful remembering.) Once upon a time, way back in 1984 I was just an associate editor at Venture magazine learning my way around a balance sheet and the venture capital industry. (I did have a Knight Bagehot fellowship in business journalism from Columbia. That did help.) Eventually I climbed to the top and became editor of the magazine before resigning to work on my first book.

In 1992 I published In the Image of the Brain, a look at how engineers were building neural network computers based on the workings of the human brain and how neuroscientists were using what that machine hardware told us to dive deeper into human wetware. Writing a book being the highly lucrative endeavor that it is, I soon went to work for Worth magazine as senior financial editor. During the next five years I spent my summer vacations building horrendously complicated spreadsheets to rank U.S. mutual funds and pick the world's best stocks. While I was at Worth I wrote The Worth Guide to Computerized Investing, the first how-to for the revolution that would eventually lead to Yahoo Finance, The Motley Fool, and MSN Money.

In May of 1997 I joined MSN Money as senior markets editor and started Jubak's Journal and the Jubak's Picks portfolio. The software developers on the site were justifiably skeptical that a mere journalist could beat the market and they issued a challenge: If you're so good, track your buys and sells as a real portfolio. That's exactly what I've done ever since, first on MSN Money and now on this site. No vague buys. No buys without a sell. Fortunately, it's worked out OK.

And, oh yes, in December 2008 I published my third book The Jubak Picks: 50 Stocks That Will Rebuild Your Wealth and Safeguard Your Future. The Jubak Picks 50 portfolio is based on that book.

In May 2009, just about the time of my twelfth anniversary, MSN Money and I had a parting of the ways. I was the last staff writer left-everyone else you see on the site now is a freelancer-and management decided that it was time to tidy up the organizational chart. There's a lot of that going around these days.

I was sad to leave, certainly because I like and respect the team at MSN Money that I'd worked with for so long, but especially since I hadn't had time to plan any transition for those readers who used Jubak's Journal and Jubak's Picks to make their own investment decisions. I'm sorry that I had to leave that very faithful community in the dark for six weeks while I got this site up.

But ultimately I think change is good. For example, the change to a blog format lets me publish every weekday, instead of just on Tuesdays and Fridays, and multiple times a day so I can keep you on top of the market action in a more timely fashion.

Some things don't change, fortunately. I continue to live in New York City with my wife Marie and our two kids Finn and Luna.

Jim Jubak's blog is at http://jubakpicks.com/