OT - Any investors in this bunch?

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:20 pm

Hi all -

I'm starting to get interested in trading stocks and mutual funds and I was wondering if there is anyone else around here who has the same interest. "Hobby" is not quite the right word, as that implies I have the money to blow on playing around! But I'd like to hear other people's opinions on useful sites and things to think about when choosing an investment.

Bought my first penny stock today, woohoo!

KDMARTINKY · Post by **KDMARTINKY** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:38 pm

Please be careful with your investments and I would advise you getting professional investment advise, no disrespect meant to anyone on C&F.

I took advise form a great friend of mine when I worked in Pharmaceutical Research. I bought shares of some stock for $124.00 per share. Now its like $3.24 per share.

Just be careful.

Keith

jen f · Post by **jen f** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:45 pm

My husband is a really big fan of the Motley Fool website:
http://www.fool.com

BillChin · Post by **BillChin** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:45 am

I know more about investments than I would like to admit on a public board. First thing I am going to do is slap your hand with a virtual ruler because you are looking for investment advice on a public forum, and you bought a penny stock. So-called investors that do one or the other or both, lose money over the long term an overwhelming percentage of the time. You might beat the odds, but you are off to shaky start.

Investments are a funny thing. Most other products sell better when they are on sale. Stocks sell better when they are higher in price, and more popular. Some people that spend six weeks researching the purchase of a microwave oven that cost $200 will purchase $5000 worth of stock on a hot tip from a stranger.

I learned long ago to stay away from giving advice. The few times I bent that rule, I either became frustrated or regretted it. So I will stay on that track, no advice. Good luck to you.
+ Bill

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 7:05 am

Hey, I never said I wanted people's secrets or to be told what to buy. Lay off, will ya? Sheesh, nevermind.

Jen F, thank you very much for the useful reply. That's more the sort of discussion I was hoping to spark.

BillChin, KD, please don't bother continuing this thread, I don't want an argument and I won't be responding. Thanks for your concern though.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 7:46 am

Yeah, be careful, Beth. You can get burned really easily. My wife Doesn't like the idea of investing in stocks so we stay out of the market, but I know a thing or two. Reading what BillChin wrote about people trusting strangers with large amounts of their money reminded me about all of the phone calls I get from slicksters with hot tips. In my business, I'm a high-value target. I have, over the years, come up with all kinds of ways to dodge the calls and put them off. The best one yet was when I acted all excited and said I had a couple of million dollars but we would have to go through my bankruptcy trustee.

The guy hung up immediately. I usually have to hang up on them. Point being is there are a lot of shysters out there who are *very* adept at talking you out of control of your money. and they make money whether you do or not. There are good ones out there too, of course.

Best thing I could tell you is to get some assistance. Maybe you could ask your family and extended family if they have a long-term relationship with a trustworthy individual or firm. And stick with a plan that is conservative for the long term. Ther rate of return is lower but at least you have a much less chance of losing everything.

Best of luck to you,
-Paul

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:00 am

Hiya Paul! I love that line about the bankrupcy.

To perhaps set your mind at ease, I am indeed working with an investment firm, and I also am putting next to nothing into this until I learn what I am doing. Easy to do when you don't have a lot of money to blow, as anyone who knows me can tell you!

Motley fool is a good site, though I haven't fully registered there yet. Any others that people have found interesting? www.cnnfn.com is good too, I've found.

AngeloMeola · Post by **AngeloMeola** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:56 am

I follow the ideas in Ben Graham's book "The Intelligent Investor". It is based on identifying undervalued stocks. I have gotten a 16.5% compounded annual return for the last 13 years.

I do all my own research and use a discount broker. I never take advice on what stock to buy from anyone. I want only myself to blame.

I use a buy and hold strategy. Five trades a year is a lot for me. The goal is to find stocks with a long history (10 to 20 years) of good financial performence that are selling at low price/earnings and price to book value ratios. I look for P/E less than 15 and P/book value less than 1.5. I also want a low debt ratio.

I wind up with boring investments like shoe companies, but I don't invest for excitement.

Angelo

BillChin · Post by **BillChin** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 9:55 am

avanutria wrote: BillChin, KD, please don't bother continuing this thread, I don't want an argument and I won't be responding. Thanks for your concern though.

My apologies. Best of luck to you. There are a ton of free resources online and at public libraries. You will find them easily enough. Your local library may carry any or all of the following: The Value Line Investment Survey, Morningstar Mutual Fund Reports, S&P guides and Outlook. There are also many financial magazines at most public libraries. Online sites include Bigcharts.com, Finance.yahoo.com. If you have cable there are financial TV channels. Otherwise there are a couple of TV shows on broadcast TV that some armchair investors watch.

I will share something. There are 1000 ways to make money in the stock market and at least that many ways to lose. A strategy or tactic that works very well for one person may be useless to the next person because their personalities are different. If this sounds cryptic, it is meant to be. One person put it this way, "know yourself, because the stock market is an expensive place to find out who you are."

To put it in some every day perspective, there are people who clip coupons, there are those who are loyal to certain brands, there are those who want buy the latest and greatest new thing. Whether it be clothes, cars, gadgets, whistles, whatever, there is often no right or wrong answer as to style. In my mind the same is true of investing, there are many styles to choose from.
+ Bill

irishduffy · Post by **irishduffy** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 10:44 am

BillChin wrote:I know more about investments than I would like to admit on a public board. First thing I am going to do is slap your hand with a virtual ruler because you are looking for investment advice on a public forum, and you bought a penny stock. So-called investors that do one or the other or both, lose money over the long term an overwhelming percentage of the time. You might beat the odds, but you are off to shaky start.

Investments are a funny thing. Most other products sell better when they are on sale. Stocks sell better when they are higher in price, and more popular. Some people that spend six weeks researching the purchase of a microwave oven that cost $200 will purchase $5000 worth of stock on a hot tip from a stranger.

I learned long ago to stay away from giving advice. The few times I bent that rule, I either became frustrated or regretted it. So I will stay on that track, no advice. Good luck to you.
+ Bill

I know Bill said he was sorry, but I am not sure why. Please dont think of this as any flame

I think he was teaching you a lesson, Investigate before you buy, And dont rely on giving and taking advice as the results can lead to to blame and hate. If you do take the advice make sure to use it with your consent.

DaveAuty · Post by **DaveAuty** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:02 pm

Beth,

I got stomped in the last big crash but didn't lose too much. I walked away from it then with my tail between my legs. At the beginning of this year I thought I would have another go…just for the buzz!! It’s more fun than putting spare cash into a Building Society although nowhere near as safe!!
This time I decided to do more research in the companies I wanted to invest in. Some of the criteria I use...Would I buy their product or use their services. What are their assets compared with liabilities, basically are they making a profit? (Or less of a loss than the previous year) How are they performing in relation to their competition and sector?
Dividends are nice to get and a company who give a dividend will usually have a positive track record.

Annual reports are good tool. (2003 annual reports) can be got and delivered free of charge in the UK. I expect the same applies in the US

The above doesn’t always work in the short term as we humans are very fickle and usually go with the herd. If a big company in a sector has some bad news it will impact on the whole sector or even the whole market.
I can only talk about the UK market, at the moment UK businesses are generally doing very well although this doesn’t seem to be reflected in recent market movements, as the FT index is going south, which is probably a good time to buy…If only we knew how much further the market will go down? At the moment higher interest rates, the American markets and to a degree a weak dollar are all having an effect on the UK market.

As most people say Penny shares are very risky. Even if a company is doing well doesn't always mean the stock price will go up. With penny shares the word seems to be "buy on rumour and sell on fact"
Keith mentioned about Pharmaceutical Research companies, a lot of money can be lost if a new drug doesn’t come up trumps, on the other hand if it works…

After all that waffle I had better go and play my whistle!

Dave.

spittin_in_the_wind · Post by **spittin_in_the_wind** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:47 pm

This is the advice I've been given and it's worked well for us:

1) Save up enough to live on for 6 months. After you get a significant amount (over about
$2500, or whatever the minimum investment is), keep it in a money market account so you get better interest. Credit unions sometimes have money markets without extra fees, over a certain balance.

2) After saving that amount, start putting money in a retirement plan (TSA, IRA, etc.) If you work for a company with a 401K plan, definitely put it in there. The plan should have an investment advisor who can determine your risk tolerance, etc. and help you pick investments.

3) If you change jobs after investing in a 401K, roll the money into an IRA. Do this every time you change jobs, keep putting it into the same IRA. Don't leave it with your old company's 401K.

4) If you max out your 401K (which is difficult, I think the annual limit is something like $12000), start putting money into things like Roth IRAs, etc. Get a financial planner to help you at this point, as you will be making some serious money if you're maxing out your 401K. It's well worth using a fiinancial advisor, because unless you know a LOT about funds, it's difficult for people not in the business to determine what is the best fund for their needs.

Robin

OutOfBreath · Post by **OutOfBreath** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:01 pm

If either you or your husband (or both) work for a company that offers a 401-k program with company matching funds make sure you are investing enough in that to max out any company matching funds before you even think about other investment vehicles!

Unless the 401-k fund manager (usually a major investment house) is incredibly stupid or you are very wise you will have a hard time earning enough on outside investments to offset money you don't take from your employer via the 401-k.

Also, 401-k programs are tax defered.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:20 pm

OutOfBreath wrote:If either you or your husband (or both) work for a company that offers a 401-k program with company matching funds make sure you are investing enough in that to max out any company matching funds before you even think about other investment vehicles!

Unless the 401-k fund manager (usually a major investment house) is incredibly stupid or you are very wise you will have a hard time earning enough on outside investments to offset money you don't take from your employer via the 401-k.

Also, 401-k programs are tax defered.

Yeah, my company's 401-K matches 2-to-1...I don't know of any investment I can make myself that would give me that kind of rate of return year in and year out

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:24 pm

Yeah, unfortunately I'm missing the 401 stuff - I've never had a permanent, 401Kable job and it will be at least another year and a half before I do..