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[Eggylshatch]

So my savings account with US bank has an interest rate of .25%, so I said fuck those fucking fuckers.  I had seriously looked at buying some stocks back in february when we were at an all time low (disclaimer: I have no real knowledge or experience with this shit)  but I didn't because I was trying to save for a trip to south america with my g/f that never ended up happening.  So I check things out about a month ago, and if I had invest $1000 where I wanted to, I would have made around $3500 in shear returns by now, which could have been well spent or reinvested.  So I went after it now, because I think theres still plenty of room to grow.

Meager investment to start: ~$1000 with scottrade (minimum is $500, with $7 trade charge)

I own 140 stocks in Citigroup (C) and
something like 2290 stocks in ACTC, a "penny stock" company involved in stem cell research

I just watch the stocks in the background while I do other work during the day so if something crazy happens I could buy or sell if needed.  I'm reallocating some mutual funds my mama set up for me a long time ago-- some have done well and will stay there(all took a dive in market crash) but some have just blown from the start, so I'm going to use those to pay off some personal debt and use the rest to do some more active trading...shorting, but not day trading.  Buy low, sell high.  There is some risk involved, but with the entire market still down (especially the financial sector like C) I figure at the very least I should be able to better than .25% if I'm not a dumbass.  I figure the one thing you have to do is NOT PANIC anytime the stock goes down a bit, because unless the company goes under (which isn't likely if they run a reputable business and you do a little research)  it SHOULD come back up again.

Seems like watching the news really well is pretty key to shorting/active trading

I plan to buy a bunch more C once I have the money to do so, because I see some serious growth potential there (and it would have to go up A LOT for 140 shares to make any real returns).  Also want to do some more active trading with lower cost, higher risk stocks to try to generate some extra income (grad student pay is a little on the slim side) and look into some better mutual funds-- now (or back in february) should be the time to buy mutual funds if you were ever planning on it.  OBAMA SAVE US ALL.


So, who has done some investing?  And what are you investing in?  Who thinks I should go fuck myself for making a post this long?   

[Kain]

buy gold fucker and keep that shit.

[RHD DC2]

i got mad stock in my car but it keeps draining the bank. 

[xpert787]

I would caution you on a couple of things. First don't bench mark yourself against a savings account, of course you can make more in the stock market vs a risk free savings. Use the S&P 500 index as a bench mark because if you are doing worse then you would be better off indexing your money. Next don't invest in anything you can't understand. Also be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. And read read read, Intellegent Investor by Ben Graham, Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman are a good place to start. Good luck I think investing is way better then sitting on a bunch of money in savings that you aren't planning on using.

[patsmx5]

One of these days I'm going to get into all this stock market stuff. Guess I need to start reading.

[chris]

if you dont have money to play with, throwing what little you have in the stock market isnt the wisest thing


We will have another major drop in the stock market next year due to the simple fact that unemployment will reach all time highs making everyone bail out just like last time. The current numbers are again monopoly money just like housing was.

[chris]

go to indian casinos

[92CXyD]

When using some of your money to pay off debt watch out for taxes at the end of the year. Capital Gains tax sux.

[BoostedSchemes]

a lot of brilliant minds posting in this thread

[chris]

a lot of brilliant minds posting in this thread

you dumb white man. You buy 100 wastegate now or you ban

[xpert787]

The idea mainly is to try to buy companies at 50% or less of the readily assertainable net values.
These bargains will be mainly found in small cap companies, although I have found a few in large caps AXP was a recent example when it was at 11/share, DOW was another around the time the merger with Rohm and Hass was ongoing. The reason more bargains exist in the small caps is because the people who manage large amounts of money tend to ignore these because individually they cannot make a difference to the bottom line of someone managing billions of dollars. For the same reason they are not covered heavily by analysts which leaves a greater chance for price discrepancy to pop up. The problem lies in determining the value of the companies, which is more of a range because so much of it is prediction. The idea is to be generally right rather then precisely wrong.Determining this range is the art of investing, reading those books will help you, but you must also learn how to read a balance sheet, and roughly the GAAP accounting rules. The beauty is if you are truly buying a company at <50% net value the chance of loosing money is very small.

[chris]

buy b16a's

[BoostedSchemes]

The idea mainly is to try to buy companies at 50% or less of the readily assertainable net values.
These bargains will be mainly found in small cap companies, although I have found a few in large caps AXP was a recent example when it was at 11/share, DOW was another around the time the merger with Rohm and Hass was ongoing. The reason more bargains exist in the small caps is because the people who manage large amounts of money tend to ignore these because individually they cannot make a difference to the bottom line of someone managing billions of dollars. For the same reason they are not covered heavily by analysts which leaves a greater chance for price discrepancy to pop up. The problem lies in determining the value of the companies, which is more of a range because so much of it is prediction. The idea is to be generally right rather then precisely wrong.Determining this range is the art of investing, reading those books will help you, but you must also learn how to read a balance sheet, and roughly the GAAP accounting rules. The beauty is if you are truly buying a company at <50% net value the chance of loosing money is very small.

[BoostedSchemes]

ya'll niggas don't have enough money for a real investing strategy

just play for the lulz

[Eggylshatch]

There's some solid advice being thrown around in here....

[88dx]

try investing money on hookers and blow 

[mandrel-bends]

Be careful of this hobby, as it can easily become an obsession when you start to taste some of that success... It can kind of screw you up a bit. IMHO there are few better way out there to make real money fast short of doing something illegal. Likewise, the shit plays like vegas sometimes and you can lose your ass in a day if you don't know what you're doing and your leveraged.

[BoostedSchemes]

thats some poor attitude
your talking to some of americas best and brightest these guys have been in the financial industry for years and have a ton of experience that you lack sir

[toyolla86]

im in funds that mimic the dow, nasdaq, S&P 500 etc.

anyways i switched all my stuff in early march (which i believe was the actual low point) over to high risk overseas index funds and it has gone steadily up. i think i made around 20% in the last couple months.
and now that ben bernanke came out and said that the recession is over i moved even more over because the people are going to listen to him and the economy will inevitably change.

the econ is all in the heads of the masses.

and always always always watch the news. you gotta keep up with current events if you want to be a successful trader.

everything i lost ive made back times about 3.  

[toyolla86]

also if youre young and dont make much money roth IRA's are great.

the tax bracket youre in now is practically nothing compared to the one you'll be in 40 years from now.

although from what i hear theres a cap on how much you can drop in it initially.

[weirtech]

i wish i had more money to do shit like this.  it is almost like gambling though.

[xpert787]

Another way I have found bargains is by looking for off balance sheet assets. There was a company I bought several months ago that made logistics software. The market cap of the company when I bought some shares was 75 million. They also had a piece of property where their headquarters were in CA that was worth at least 75 million as appraised by an independent source. So basically the market was valuing the business as a going concern at 0. This was a good opportunity so I bet heavily and it paid off, about 67% return at this point not counting dividends. If you want to compare investing to gambling then think of it as you wait till you recognize a situation where the odds are heavily in your favor and then you bet big. The company I described was QADI if anyone cares, I wouldn't recommend buying it at this point though, the ship has sailed.
    If I was you I would try to tune out all the financial news/propaganda that comes on tv, most of that crap is useless its for entertainment and ratings. Start reading the wall street journal, and the financial times. Go to your library and read the reports in value line investment survey. Go to the columbia school of business schloss archives and watch the investment lectures given to the MBA students for free. Google Damodaran Valuation and watch the videos of corporate valuation taught to the MBA's. Read all of the share holder letters on the Berkshire Hathaway website. Martin Whitman of third avenue value funds has written several good books as well, one just came out that I'm reading now. Google Chris Brown of Tweedy Brown and read the share holder letters there. That should be a good start, it is going to take you a long time to learn everything you need to invest effectively there are no short cuts. Also there is no such thing as scaling results based on effort. Either you go all the way and treat your investing as a business, or you should be indexing your money.

[QikEnuF]

I bought into RIM 3 years ago, and that's it.  It is still in there too

[BoostedSchemes]

i think we should all have expert send us some of his massive gains, this guy is CLEARLY cleaning house

his recent gains have nothing to do with overall market recovery and the motherfucker is simply brilliant

can you please start a fund dude? your returns are exceptional and you have proven that they are repeatable

[BoostedSchemes]

I vote we start an "HMT Fund" and see how many of those losers on wall street we can beat out. The shitty fund I'm involved with is something i would gladly leave to work alongside some fresh minds with exciting perspectives on the current economic climate.

The markets are not something you can learn by working with them or getting a formal education its more of a seat of your pants kind of knowledge you pick up on the internet and by reading some bestsellers.

[Cadracer]

Been there done it. I had my ira go from 7 to 4 k in 5 years and it was with an investment firm. So i took the hit and pulled it out. reinvested it myself  on the stocks that i thought would go. Have done well. My son while in high school said to buy some AIG when they where at .85 a share so we bought 100 shares then i sold them when the got 4.00 a share. Wish i had them no the stock is at 43.00 a share.
Stocks i watch and have some investments in are

BAC
AIG
UQM------electric car motor company----800shares at 1.25 now there 5.25   They just got a 45million dollar grant from goverment for reasearch.
BA

I opened up an etrade account its free for the first 100 transactions only had 30 transactions  so i got a few more to go.

[LS1pwNzJ00]

if you dont have money to play with, throwing what little you have in the stock market isnt the wisest thing


We will have another major drop in the stock market next year due to the simple fact that unemployment will reach all time highs making everyone bail out just like last time. The current numbers are again monopoly money just like housing was.

Very very true. And if you got on the swine flu hype a few months back, youd be fuckin rich.  Now its kinda risky.  Search BONU, its been doing sh itty lately, but look what happened from august to now.

[Joseph Davis]

The swine flu wasn't hype, you slant eyed Yuriy.  I am dying from it as we speak.

[t_cel_t]

The swine flu wasn't hype, you slant eyed Yuriy.  I am dying from it as we speak.

its cuz the devil tainted your religion food

[ghettoturbo]

A few months back I made about 250% profit on TTP (titan pharmaceuticals). I had bought it a looong time ago, it tanked real quick so i let it sit and randomly checked it right after one of the drugs they worked on got approved by the FDA.  Needless to say I took the money and ran since it was money I had basically written off when it tanked previously. It didn't make me rich but damn was I happy, wish I had more $$ in it.