Buy low...but what?

Honestly, I think it's hard to time the market. And I have gotten burned by picking individual stocks. Tyco? That's going to be the next GE, right? Doh, that stung. My take-home lesson: Have a varied portfolio and do dollar cost averaging. Set up a regular investment plan. I know, it's boring.

And if there's a particular company that you like, maybe look at a fund that concentrates on that market. For example, if you think that home repairs are going to be the next big thing, I'd favor a fund with that focus rather than trying to pick Lowe's over Home Depot--been there, done that, learned a lesson with HD.

I learned a lot from an earlier version of this book, too: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Personal-Finance/dp/1592573320/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240603097&sr=8-1

I own a small amount of GM stock and wonder if it will ever go anywhere. Up? I hope so.......

If you're in it for the long haul it's a good time to buy VTI, whether a single company goes up or not is a gamble unless you know somehow but the whole stock market is bound to go up.

tobacco

food

oil

blaze86vic wrote: Look into penny stocks. Something that you could buy in the morning, and sell it with 5-10% gain on the same day. With the market the way it is, don't bother with long term investment. I'm no expert by any means, as I have no schooling in this subject. However, I did quite working about 6 months ago and live happily on my new lazy income.

My father works for a fairly big ammonia nitrate company. He does this with their stock, basically, he went over a years worth of data. He buys in the morning, then sells sometime in the afternoon at its peak. He nets decent cash for not much time expended. And it never changes, even on downward swings he can still make a buck at it.

I definitely would not have believed it before I started actually doing it. If someone said I was going to consistently make the percentages that I do, I would have never believed it. It just took that first step of actually getting started.

What's the time lag on something like that? I've just got this rinky dink online trading account. I don't know, but I imagine that anything I say to trade today will get traded whenever they darn well please (not necessarily "right now" or at any sort of predictable time). I don't know if I can do what you're describing (buy in morning and sell in afternoon). I guess I'll have to check into that.

Thanks!

Clem

You all missed Ford by a couple of weeks.

Could have bought at below $2. Now it's $5.31 at the moment.

Wow. I should have.

E-

Unless you have 20K+ stay out of the singles stocks, find a low fee Vangaurd account and feed it every month.

wearymicrobe wrote: Unless you have 20K+ stay out of the singles stocks, find a low fee Vangaurd account and feed it every month.

But that's not what I asked about...like...at all.

I made a few bucks on GM today

quite a rally!

I say buy rare-ish cars that are around 20 years old. It's typically the bottom of the automotive depreciation curve, and it's a lot more fun to drive a car than watch a stock ticker!

I think a clean, stock, CRX Si is an obvious choice.

Out of curiosity, what are the moral limitations? I am assuming things like tobacco, alcohol, adult entertainment, maybe companies that test on animals or deplete the ozone layer, but anything more interesting? Like companies that make Gummi Bears because you feel they are the work of Satan or companies based in Utah because of that "incident" with the "woman".

On second thought, totally your business and this is not the place. I am going to go and ponder the fact that I have no moral objections to anything. I probably should get a few.

Well...

I'm not going to go out and invest in Walmart (and I don't want to start or engage in a debate about it). Not going to invest in any sort of GMO (genetically modified organisms) stuff. Basically, I want to make sure the companies are on the up and up in my opinion. I'm pretty anti-chemical and anti-medical industry.

I'm not passing any judgements here and, again, not wanting to get into any sort of political debates here...but you asked so I figured I'd throw a little something out there.

I'm not into tobacco so much and probably wouldn't invest in it. The alchohol, though, I'm all for that. Undecided on adult entertainment. I would not have imediately assumed there were any publicly traded porn corps. Hmmm.

That is all, Thanks! Clem

jrw1621 wrote: Look at Sprint. It typically has been a poor performer and prices are low. Earnings announcement planned for May 7th and best guesses are that they beat expectations (which should provide a nice bump.) Take the bump and get out quick after that. The price is in the $4 range right now. The bump will likely take it to $5 (breifly.) Take the 25% increase and get out. Or, I could be completly wrong. This is not advice.

Sure, it could have gone either way, but...
The earnings call was today (I wrongly said May 7th earlier.)
Went from about $4.15 when i first wrote and closed at $5 even today. At one point it was near $5.40.

Now, if you did buy, sell now, I predict it will slowly sink for the rest of the week until it hits $4 again.

Seriously? A canoe in a 3-month-old thread?

Micro loan some kid with a pressure washer , some car cleaning supplies , and signs maybe a trailer , business license and insurance . Put together a business plan with them and watch your money grow and responsibility . Ofcourse you will have them sign a document with the specifics . Plus you get free car washes , charge 10 % interest on loan .

GM will be offering an IPO this week...

MitchellC wrote: I say buy rare-ish cars that are around 20 years old. It's typically the bottom of the automotive depreciation curve, and it's a lot more fun to drive a car than watch a stock ticker! I think a clean, stock, CRX Si is an obvious choice.

MKI golf gti would be good to, but you would want to drive them. I just could not let a car sit around that I drive.

Tim Baxter wrote: I wouldn't touch Sprint. I'd look at Apple, but I don't think it's a particularly good value right now, especially after the jump yesterday and today. I think JFX might be right. I think Ford might be a good bet.

I was reading through this resurrected thread, and it's always fun (if completely unfair) to see how these prognostications worked out. You were right about sprint (down about 30%), but somewhat wrong about Apple (up 31% since that date).

But I bet you all wish you'd bought Ford - up 71% since April 24. I bought some Apple a little while earlier in the high 80s and I am pretty happy with my purchase (duh), but if I'd bought Ford at the same time, I'd be up around 200%