Category: Let's talk
I looking into the stock market and I bought some stocks but in order for me to make money. Do I sell them? I called the comany where I got them from and said they can't help me with that. I did alot of research on stocks cuz I like to invest and things similar to that. I got a stock of Google I put five dollars into and the quote was 505 dollars. Is it best to invest higher amount. The ones that have ShareBuilder accounts an thats been good in your investments. I'll like to talk you for help.
For the selling do you sell when the price goes over the quote. For example Google is 505 dollars and it went up up 5 dollars. Do I sell or keep until it go up even higher. I invested in Yaho, CarMax, and google. I read articles and heard that it is in wise to invest in lower caps of stocks.
I have been into stocks and investments for over a year now. From some of the terminology and sequence of events in your post I'm not sure you've done enough research or thinking about your strategy. Obviously it's good to sell shares if they've made some money, but some questions you should be answering for yourself include: are you investing for growth or income (dividends)? How long are you planning to invest for? How much loss and risk are you willing to tolerate? I'm no expert but I've learned a fair bit (particularly having been invested during the current climate) so let me know if you have any questions, but keep your total investment low (say 20% of your total assets) and never invest any money that you can't afford to completely lose.
ShareBuilder ask the same questions. I'm willing to risk $20. I want to invest because so I can have more income in the furture and have some side for emergencys. I also can do the long term. Do you just let your money set and invest until you ready to take it out. I invest once a month. I know that you should look up whats been going on witht he stocks and whats good to invest in. Is stocks like hi lo kinda because everyday some goes up and down and is it like hi lo? I read plenty of articles. For the selling is what I don't understand the most.
Dusty if you don't mind me asking in the current climate as a personal investor have you been able to make mony or at least not lose to much? Everything I read says that it's almost impossible to make mony in individual stocks and you should just sue index funds and invest for the long haul but other books say you can make mony if you are willing to put in the time. oldskoolrapper based on the incoherent tone of your posts I'd suggest you either hire an investment adviser to invest for you or don't invest at all. It's clear you haven't taken basic steps such as reading personal finance books to even have an idea what your doing.
i would take [professional advice on this. i don't suggest risking money you cannot afford to lose also, think of putting it into managed funds. if you are in for the long run, i would seek financial advice. i know some people who have done so called day traiding, but they are very experienced in the stock market. day traiding is not for amitures.
hmmm, i try to check the stock reports on tell me. but the thing is well, i dont understand the stuff. i have never been good at math. its like it just goes right over my head.
oldskoolrapper I'm afraid I have to concur with Jared; your post shows that you really don't have a good enough grasp of the field to be investing any money at all, even with the instruction or advice of a professional, simply because you don't seem to know what you want out of investing. For example, the word "emergency" should never come into it because you can't rely on the money you invest being there when you might need it, hence the advice to *never* invest any money that you can't afford to lose.
Also your comparison of the stock market to hi-lo? I hope you were joking but maybe not. Again Jared has said it all; if you *really* want to go ahead and invest and you want to do it on a monthly basis I suggest a managed fund which you can drip money into (though you still need to do your research on the fund you choose). Otherwise stay well away from the market and stick with bonds or government-backed tools until you can do some proper research.
Jared, from the time I first invested to when most of my stop-losses kicked in, I'd say I was down about 8%, although the dividend income was fairly good. Since the start of the year I've had some of my money sitting waiting for certain share prices to fall and make automatic purchases and in this way I am about 35% up on my banking investments, though this is being slightly pulled down by oil and gas which is very unpredictable right now.
One stock which I have made a fair bit of money on is Rio Tinto (mining/exploration). It tends to yo-yo a bit and I've bought and sold shares three times making a profit each time (over the course of a week or so). This is very risky though, especially with this kind of share which is expensive to start with and volatile. I have bought them again but at present I'm down about 6% but I'm willing to let it go down to 10% before I cut my losses. I'd say there is some money to be made right now if you have nerves of steel; otherwise if you can go for the long-haul, buy now (or soon), don't watch the market and wait for the panic to be over. My overall plan is to hold them for the long-term, and by that I mean at least five years ...
I'll look more info about stocks and go to a local band so they can tell me more to get a better understanding. I do know about bonds and cd's. I invested in cds twice one for six months and when the six months was up I did the 60 months. www.InGdirect.com pays higher interest then other banks.
Investing is all about predicting other people's expectations or beliefs, as such you can always make money. By selling short (i.e. selling a stock to someone today for delivery in a week, you sell it today for a given price but don't buy the stock until a week from today because you believe the price is going to go down) you could take advantage of falling stock prices, in other words you can buy a put option, to pay someone for promising to buy stock X from you at a predetermined price at time T, if the option is European style you can only exercise the deal at the predetermined date, American options allow yo to exercise this at any point before or at the given date, there are other varieties such as barrier options where you take the average over a certain number of days rather than price at a specific given day. If you believe stocks will go up you can sell a put option, pocket the cash and the option will never be exercised, call options work the opposite way and you can use a combination of the two to make money if either the market moves a lot or moves very little. This is all advanced investing and, of course, risky. All stocks are merely promises of peoploe's expectations. You buy the stock partly for the dividends, but many companies simply do not pay any (up and coming tech companies for instance, Microsoft did not pay any dividends for years and years), but you mostly buy stocks because you think the price of the stock will go up, as such you are exdpecting the company to grow and, even more importantly, you are expecting other people to expect it to grow. It is very hard to use any concrete math to value stocks, there are many simulations and predictive techniques you can use, average prices, the believe taht the stock is a linear function of the movement of the market plus a given factor, which you can adjust for.
I think for the average investor investing in indecies or funds is the best approach. I would avoid funds where the fund managers get bonuses based on their performance, the reason being that they are rewarded for huge profits but they are not punished for bad performances, thus they tend to take unnecessarily big risks to gain a quick reward and have incentives not to have the investors' best interest at heart. You want managers will fixed sallaries or bonuses that are insignificant.
I would say, without taking responsibility (and this mostly goes for European investors) that the Icelandic stock and bond market offers excellent returns. Bonds offer 16% returns at the moment, the only risk you are taking is the exchange risk and since the dollar does not appear to be strengthening whereas the Icelandic currency took a 25% hit and now banks and the government ar rallying behind it to prevent further slides, I only see the Icelandic krona going up against the dollar, compounding the interest. Same goes for Europe, even mroe so for UK investors since the Pound appears to be on a continuous slide, making foreign investments more attractive.