stocks

Do any of you invest in stocks? What's some good advice for someone getting into it? I hear things about reading the MIT tech review, and just generally keeping my eyes open. But I'd liek to hear some other strategies as well.

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Learn how the market works first. Learn the difference between long-term investing and day-trading, learn short-selling, learn the time value of money, learn present worth vs future worth. Basically learn about the fundamentals of economics before even thinking about the stock market.

Either that or hire a great broker. Even then, you need to know the basics. You can't just "get into stocks" randomly.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Depends on how you want to make money like Spike says, although to make money with day trading you have to trade large volume and be prepared to pay large broker bills and realise if you mess up you will lose alot of money. Long term investments require research of trends etc and a knowledge of current affairs

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

First thing, as people said, is to know learn a bit about investing. Know what a stock is, what it represents, know what a mutual fund is, etc.

Once you've got that done, read "The Intelligent Investor", by Benjamin Graham. It's been written in 1949, the text has last been updated in the 70s before the author's death, and the comments are updated fairly often in new editions to reflect things such as the tech bubble of the early 2000s. Let me warn you though, it's no "get rich quick" book, it's not "exciting" (though it is somewhat funny at times), it won't do everything for you, and if you follow his advice you sure as hell won't have anything exciting to talk about a parties because you probably won't be investing in the latest tech company that promises "paradigm shifts to the synergy of the information age economy". One of the biggest lesson in Graham's book is that an investor's greatest enemy is very often himself. If you're not ready to have a certain amount of self-discipline, then forget about the rest of the stuff Graham teaches, it's not for you. And investing as a whole probably isn't either. Speculation, which according to Graham's definition is essentially everything not done after some amount of research, might be better for you. Though you might as well pick up gambling instead, you'll get pretty much the same results.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Joining up with stable stocks for starters is a good idea. Also, to get some experience, buy some penny stocks. Generally, what can happen is you buy like a few thousand shares for .12 cents a share, it goes up to .24 or a little higher, and you sell. Something small to start out. I have a friend of mine who put in about $1 000 worth of penny stocks, and has made over $2 000 in about a year. Its not the biggest return, but its a good start.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by The Wise Vivi

Joining up with stable stocks for starters is a good idea. Also, to get some experience, buy some penny stocks. Generally, what can happen is you buy like a few thousand shares for .12 cents a share, it goes up to .24 or a little higher, and you sell. Something small to start out. I have a friend of mine who put in about $1 000 worth of penny stocks, and has made over $2 000 in about a year. Its not the biggest return, but its a good start.

This is by far the worst advice I've ever heard. Penny stocks aren't especially known for being too stable and their high volatility means that you could get incredible returns, but more often than not, lose all of your money. Gambling in Vegas gives you a better rate of return than penny stocks.

If you want to get some practice, go to sites like Investopedia where they have a stock simulator you can play around with. It allows you to trade stocks and options without ever needing to shell out your own money so you can see how well you do hypothetically.

Also, I'd second YeOldeButchere's choice of investment literature as well as putting forth my recommendation of Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk on Wall Street.

Also, to go slightly off topic, is anyone interested in setting up a GFF portfolio game on Investopedia?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Another great free online resource is fool.com. The dudes at Motley Fool all all about investment education. Their site is a great place to learn about investing. I'd also recommend their book, but most of the info is online.

If you're just getting started, I'd recommend an index fund (like the Vanguard 500) as it's basically a no brainer. The key to investing is to think long term. If you're just in it to do some day trading and try to get rich quick, more than likely you're gonna get burned. The best thing to do is to educate yourself so you can develop realistic expectations of the market.

How ya doing, buddy?

I did a hypothetical stock project last year in Economics, in HS economics, heh. I had to invest $5000 in three companies, and I invested in Apple, and two other companies [I forgot which but I think they were Google and something] and I made $1000 in a month.

I admittedly don't know a lot about economics or the actual terms associated with it. But I do have a general sense about whether or not people like a product or not and can possibly do a good job in predicting that.

I just started a fidelity portfolio, and the min. amount I have to put in is $2500. Ughhh... of course I won't invest that much yet, but it just reminds me that this is real money, my money and I have to be careful but not too careful.

Thanks for the advice and the books. I'm definitely not looking for a quick buck. But I am looking for big money in the next couple of years, I'm not gonna lie.

What are good ways to discover good companies to invest in? A friend of mine tells me to just keep my eyes open and to research biotechnology companies and things like that and he made a lot off genetech, but another one of my friends just made $700 over the weekend on EA, a big company.

I'd like to hear some stories as well. Thanks for the feedback thus far though.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

yea, as stated from above, do your HW before you begin throwing money around.

but my best advice would be to look at commodities right now such as oil/gold. some tech. (but be careful), and google...if you can afford it...those guys are making a killing. try to invest in small capital/large growth companies obviously, <mby no google>....and HEDGE those options !!!

keep a diversified portfolio and watch Jim Kramer's Mad Money to keep up to date. BOOYAHHH !!!

or just throw darts at the NASDAQ section of the newspaper its almost as good.... glhf !

Jam it back in, in the dark.