"Wisdom of PC" Investing - lose someone elses money! [Archive]

Revalos

10-09-2008, 08:05 PM

OK, I'm getting in on this crazy market. But I'm too lazy to do research and I'm a fucking gambler when you break it down. So, I want ten NYSE stock names to buy tomorrow. I'll pick them out of whatever people say here. Give me a stock and tell me why I should buy it. I don't care if you are a stock expert or Backlash. I'll probably weigh your opinions equally.

No Berkshire-Hathaway $9000 a share stupidity. It will be a maximum of $3000 on the entire investment portfolio.

Here's the deal for you, the PC. I will be selling these stocks on July 6th, 2009 of next year, regardless of the outcome of the investment. So we're looking for stocks that have been beat down significantly and should recover in 8-10 months.

If it is worth less than $3000, I won't be too pissed, since I'll have my deployment money then I can cover any losses at that point.

If it is worth more, I will throw a party in DC on July 18th, 2009 with half the profits. If I make $20, then I'll buy a $10 pitcher for the table. If I make $1000, I buy $500 worth of drinks/food. If I make $20000, I'll fucking fly in the people to DC that recommended the stocks for the shindig....etc.

If no one recommends anything, I'm just going to do it anyway based on what company names I like or something equally stupid. There just isn't enough time to do good research before this stupidity dip in the market goes away!

Even if you don't want to party in DC next year, feel free to put your recommendations down. I've already got one from my friends at work to look at high dividend closed end utility funds.

Stretch

10-09-2008, 08:13 PM

You really shouldn't be buying single-stocks with that kind of money.

Euler

10-09-2008, 08:16 PM

HELE

Helen of Troy beauty products. H.O.T. = sizzlin.

Revalos

10-09-2008, 08:22 PM

I'm fine with funds too. If your advice is for me to sit on a portion of the $3000 or put it in a CD or savings account or whatever, I'll take that advice too.

Revalos

10-09-2008, 08:38 PM

I said NYSE, but Nasdaq is fine too. HELE looks fun, and people always need beauty products even in a recession, especially if folks start needing to join the world's oldest profession.

Down 11.5 percent today, amost down 40% from the middle of September.

Sadly, according to Firsttrade I won't be able to buy anything until at least Monday. Damn ACH transfer times! So that gives time for the weekend and the drinking extravaganza for more suggestions.

Euler

10-09-2008, 08:44 PM

yes yes, but I am in with the party, right?

Revalos

10-09-2008, 08:47 PM

If it makes me money, yep.

Kranar

10-09-2008, 08:51 PM

Well if it has to be NYSE, I say buy shares of UTX and then hedge using UTX puts expiring in January. Do it at a ratio of 1 put for every 3 shares of UTX.

Why UTX, what makes UTX so special? Absolutely nothing and that's the point. UTX moves with the rest of the market and can be hedged relatively cheap. That means if the market goes up 1%, UTX will be up 1%, if the market goes down 1%, UTX will go down 1% etc etc...

Don't predict the future, don't time the market, and don't make directional bets, buy something that moves with the market. Put your money with only one thing in mind, keeping the volatility down. That's what the puts are for.

Skeeter

10-09-2008, 08:53 PM

budweiser.

Kuyuk

10-09-2008, 09:12 PM

Tobacco - recession = stress = smoking.

Ashliana

10-09-2008, 09:27 PM

Invest in a repo company, if any exist (on the NYSE). Their business will be booming! ::bwhahaha::

Xeromist

10-09-2008, 09:53 PM

I would invest in Gold, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment/supply/innovation companies.

Gold because it's what you bury and it stays valuable, even when paper money doesn't. Ninjas, pirates, terrorists, overlords, aliens, robots, ghosts, cowboys, females, elephants, and doctors have all expressed interest in gold for millions of years now, therefor in theory, it ought to remain valuable. Unless of course, since the cat is now out of the bag, it takes a huge plunge tomorrow because said parties found out I've been blabbering about it.

Pharmaceuticals and medical supplies because we are in a time when, with less money and higher stress, health issues are going to be on the rise, so supplies and prescriptions will go up. Winter months are busier in ERs and probably the other floors, too.

There's too much I don't know about electronic companies like Google to recommend an investment right now.

Sean

10-09-2008, 09:53 PM

I know next to nothing about stocks so I threw some darts at a board and came up with was a Nasdaq stock. China Architectural Engineering, Inc. (CAEI). I mean why not.. it's not an expensive stock and just because we're in a building slump doesn't mean the chinese are going to stop putting up office towers. So theres my uninformed opinion.

Celephais

10-09-2008, 11:51 PM

Buy stock in quiznos... at least if you're a hungry investor. The sandwich-heavy portfolio will pay off. And it's relatively conservative, because people have to eat.

And we love da' subs.

NocturnalRob

10-09-2008, 11:53 PM

right. people have to eat, but they're not gonna spend money to eat out, especially if it's some place as shitty as quizno's.

zoidberg out

Malvadere

10-10-2008, 12:16 AM

No stocks...Futures or Forex. Forex is very profitable for beginners right now as with the new extremes in the economy=clearer cut trends with everyone freaking out.

Edited to add that Forex *CAN* (changed from is) be profitable for beginners. Its one of the quickest way to lose too, but with the exaggerated signals right now it as easy as it will be.

Skeeter

10-10-2008, 12:39 AM

Buy stock in quiznos... at least if you're a hungry investor. The sandwich-heavy portfolio will pay off. And it's relatively conservative, because people have to eat.

And we love da' subs.

Did my sandwich appreciate?

Ignot

10-10-2008, 01:23 AM

This has failure written all over it....

Moist Happenings

10-10-2008, 01:26 AM

budweiser.

Yeah, bad idea. Right off a buyout from a company that isn't U.S. based. Bud stock is going to drop significantly before it goes up, which I think it will in time, but for something that's really considered the "All American Beer", I think it's going to have a big drop now that it's not really American anymore. Eventually people will forget, but for now I'd stay away from Bud.

Also it tastes bad.

Sean of the Thread

10-10-2008, 01:28 AM

Tastes like cat turds actually.

Says the guy drinking natrual ice.

Never mind..

:(

Moist Happenings

10-10-2008, 01:33 AM

Tastes like cat turds actually.

Says the guy drinking natrual ice.

Never mind..

:(

To be honest, I've tasted a LOT worse. Anything Belgian comes to mind. I don't like Belgians for some reason. But I'd say Bud's taste ranks somewhere in the bottom 1/3rd in my book.

Sean of the Thread

10-10-2008, 01:35 AM

In contrast unfiltered wheat brews are my favorite. Well next to natty ice.

Revalos

10-10-2008, 07:57 AM

Are there any US beer companies to invest in on the stock market anymore? I'm down for some shares of one if so.

Mistomeer

10-10-2008, 08:14 AM

NocturnalRob

10-10-2008, 08:24 AM

There's always Sam Adams (NYSE: SAM). I have no clue if it's a good buy or not, but there's an American beer company for you.

Of course, the Anheuser-Busch deal hasn't gone through yet so that's an option -
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10441522/1/budweiser-quick-11-gain-brewin.html?puc=googlefi&cm_ven=GOOGLEFI&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

i looked up a couple articles on Boston Beer (SAM), and I thought this one was amusing:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26943576/site/14081545?__source=yahoo|headline|quote|text|&par=yahoo

look at the date and then: "Barry James, president of the James Advantage Funds, thinks the market is in a bottoming phase, and he sees a rally on the horizon"

ouch

AnticorRifling

10-10-2008, 08:42 AM

Did my sandwich appreciate? They appreciate mustard.

Kranar

10-10-2008, 08:45 AM

This has failure written all over it....

I bet you anything, the advice given here will be just as good on average as the advice you get from an advisor or an analyst.

Remember how I spoke about the monkeys in another post? I used monkeys because there was an experiment conducted where they used computers that would randomly make stock picks and compared those random stock picks to analyst predictions.

Guess what? The analysts did no better than the random stock picks. The computers were represented as monkeys by the way, and usually when experiments like these are done, the random agent is referred to as the monkey.

In much the same way, the advice given here is unlikely to be better, or worse, than what you'd get from an expert except for one key difference... you don't have to pay us for our advice, and we won't take his money, leverage it through the roof, and possibly engage in very risky behaviour with that leveraged money for the purpose of getting our end of year bonus.

I say we revisit this thread in a year, and I'm willing to even put a wager that what we say here, including Sean's pick in that Chinese building company, will not do much better or much worse than the experts.

Trouble

10-10-2008, 09:17 AM

I'm following JNJ, BBT, MCD, and QCOM. I don't know which, if any, are on the NYSE.

I think you'd be better off with an index fund though. SPY is a nice generic S&P 500 ETF. Although in the short term you might be better off with a short index fund like SH, until things bottom out.

Revalos

10-10-2008, 01:36 PM

I bet you anything, the advice given here will be just as good on average as the advice you get from an advisor or an analyst.

...

In much the same way, the advice given here is unlikely to be better, or worse, than what you'd get from an expert except for one key difference... you don't have to pay us for our advice, and we won't take his money, leverage it through the roof, and possibly engage in very risky behaviour with that leveraged money for the purpose of getting our end of year bonus.

Damn straight. And I figured I'd give pretty good commission in party form for good picks. If I learned anything from my do-it-yourself epic win divorce settlement, it was that most divorces are about the lawyers winning in much the same way as stock brokers winning on their calls.

Quiznos and Subway are both private companies, but here's what is on my tracker right now, as I said, I won't be able to make many purchases until Monday at the earliest.

CAEI
HELE
MCD
SAM
SPY
UTX

NocturnalRob

10-10-2008, 01:38 PM

duke energy

buy it on the cheap (buy at ~$12). utility companies are always in need, and this one has a good infrastructure. plus, with the dividends you can sign up for the drip (granted, just for a few quarters).

Clove

10-10-2008, 01:44 PM

If you're going Nasdaq too, ACAS.

TheEschaton

10-10-2008, 01:57 PM

QQQQ

Yeah, I said it.

Atlanteax

10-10-2008, 03:04 PM

TWX & BBY

Revalos

10-11-2008, 09:01 AM

I refuse to invest in Best Buy. But I'll take a look at ACAS, DUK, Nasdaq Power shares, and TWX.

Drew

10-11-2008, 08:00 PM

I just bought Ford Cap Trust II.

Yielding 48% annually.

Revalos

10-13-2008, 11:33 AM

Fuck Bank of America for not transferring my money to this account today. Look at this shit:

http://fileserver7.jpghosting.com/images/Damn_ba3b2fd227824ef329282e29a8d946e3.jpg

CAEI up 19%! If I had had the chance to put my 3 grand on that one stock on Friday...I'd have made $570 selling today!

I know it is still going to go back down...but fuck, dude...19% in 2 hours? On a stock picked by dartboard?

Ignot

10-13-2008, 12:23 PM

I bet you anything, the advice given here will be just as good on average as the advice you get from an advisor or an analyst.

Remember how I spoke about the monkeys in another post? I used monkeys because there was an experiment conducted where they used computers that would randomly make stock picks and compared those random stock picks to analyst predictions.

Guess what? The analysts did no better than the random stock picks. The computers were represented as monkeys by the way, and usually when experiments like these are done, the random agent is referred to as the monkey.

In much the same way, the advice given here is unlikely to be better, or worse, than what you'd get from an expert except for one key difference... you don't have to pay us for our advice, and we won't take his money, leverage it through the roof, and possibly engage in very risky behaviour with that leveraged money for the purpose of getting our end of year bonus.

I say we revisit this thread in a year, and I'm willing to even put a wager that what we say here, including Sean's pick in that Chinese building company, will not do much better or much worse than the experts.

Why do you insist on lumping analysts and advisors together? They are totally different. Do you understand this? Your giving out advice and you don't know anything about the OP. That's scary to me.

Bokertal

10-13-2008, 12:24 PM

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c17/roguewave1971/dollar.jpg

Kranar

10-13-2008, 12:49 PM

Why do you insist on lumping analysts and advisors together? They are totally different. Do you understand this? Your giving out advice and you don't know anything about the OP. That's scary to me.

I, along with other members of the PC, am giving out advice that is no better and no worse than what Revalos will get by paying an institution.

Heck, Sean's completely random and arbitrary pick is up 20% today.

Scary indeed!

ElanthianSiren

10-13-2008, 01:01 PM

I cyclically play XLE. It's worked pretty well so far. Amgen, and you know you want some google.

I trade options, not stock, especially if I'm going to hold 10 months.

ElanthianSiren

10-13-2008, 01:04 PM

I, along with other members of the PC, am giving out advice that is no better and no worse than what Revalos will get by paying an institution.

Heck, Sean's completely random and arbitrary pick is up 20% today.

Scary indeed!

I know someone who has several million dollars who is letting a firm do her investing. I feel bad for her because her account value literally lost almost a million over the past few weeks.

I agree with Kranar, and I can't understand why people would trust other people with their money, to be honest. Your stock advisor is getting paid whether you win or lose...now there's a job.

Ignot

10-13-2008, 01:19 PM

Heck, Sean's completely random and arbitrary pick is up 20% today.

Everything is up today dumbass. Im not saying that your "dartboard approach" is any better then an analyst. And don't act like your the first person to think that up either. All im saying is don't lump advisors and analysts together because they are not the same.

You keep saying advisors arent any better then a dartboard and that just doesnt make sense. An advisor helps you plan to meet a specific goal. An analyst does not do that. No advisor is going to answer the OP's question.

I could see your argument if you were saying that you can predict a certain stock movement just the same as an analyst but your not going to convince me that you are better at giving advice (which is what your doing) then an advisor. For all you know, the OP could be gambling his life savings away. Take the stick out of your ass Kranar and come to the realization that Advisors DO HELP PEOPLE.

Everyone in this thread has seemed to want to help the OP in providing suggestions. I know im the only one that disagrees with this but do you really have to turn every thread like this into advisor bashing?

AnticorRifling

10-13-2008, 01:29 PM

Never bash someone who's got that booty as an avatar.

Ignot

10-13-2008, 01:29 PM

I know someone who has several million dollars who is letting a firm do her investing. I feel bad for her because her account value literally lost almost a million over the past few weeks.

Let me guess, she wants 0 risk and 100% return every year. If the advisor made it clear of the risks involved then she should know what she is getting into. Maybe she has a shitty advisor for not making that clear but I bet she has a better chance of reaching her financial goals with some type of help then doing it on her own. Financial planning is not easy or else everyone would do it by themselves.

ElanthianSiren

10-13-2008, 01:45 PM

She's about 65 years old and she inherited a big fortune from one of the ex CEOs of mcdonald douglass. Her long term plan was simply that she wanted to earn enough on the investments to cover her yearly expenses, which she provided to her advisors, who are supposedly some of the best in her area. She doesn't live an extravagent lifestyle, her house is paid for, etc.

When my grandfather was still alive Merril took him down the same trail. It wasn't until my father and I got ahold of his accounts when my father got power of attorney that we went... "Uh...no."

These might just be bad experiences, but I completely wouldn't trust another human being with my money. I like my system -- indicators, p/e ratios, seasonal trends. I'm more of analyst, I confess, and I play mainly for fun.

Revalos

10-13-2008, 03:16 PM

I'm more of analyst, I confess, and I play mainly for fun.

I'm this way with most things, so why not with the Stock Market? I just felt that I didn't have enough time to do proper analysis in order to get in on a chance of a decade to buy low. This isn't my retirement that I am playing with...this is just cash I happen to have on hand because of an extra paycheck that wasn't factored into my budget for October.

Although it is funny, I would have bought all the stuff on Friday and been very happy today, but because the delay in initial funds from the bank is taking so long, I'm beginning to question whether or not I'm going to end up buying at a false bump and everything goes into freefall again. We'll see what happens tomorrow...maybe I'll have fucking cash in the account so I can actually buy some of these stocks before I chicken out with the prices going back up.

Atlanteax

10-13-2008, 04:17 PM

DOW, NASDAQ, S&P500 all up more than 11% just before the close.

Nearly a 1000 bump in the DOW alone.

Wow...

(I can see all those folks who panicked and sold out are now weeping)

Sean

10-13-2008, 04:22 PM

Daniel

10-13-2008, 04:22 PM

I put in a trade to withdraw some from my mutual fund for holiday spending last night. Because I use a big bank I don't know where I went out.

Fuck. Oh well.

Revalos

10-13-2008, 04:37 PM

While I realize everything is up today and I have no idea what will happen between now and July 6th it is fun to note that if you had bought on the 10th (day after my original post) the low was 1.82 per and right now it's 4.77. Had you been able to buy then with your $300 ($3000/10) you'd have 164 shares + $2.95 so an increase of $483.80. Of course tomorrow that could be in the red.

Yes, rub it the fuck in Sean. Had I known the bank would take nearly a week to move the money into this account I would have started a long time ago. Really...I can set up PayPal instantly, but this bullshit takes a week? Once the money is actually in place, I'll go through what's changed and buy into the ones that are still beat up a bit. CAEI may still be a bargain, but yes, not as much of a bargain as it was yesterday.

Jenisi

10-13-2008, 04:49 PM

1150 shares of NCC is going to pay off for me :) Yay penny stocks

Revalos

10-14-2008, 08:17 PM

Ignot

10-14-2008, 08:26 PM

http://fileserver7.jpghosting.com/images/Hmm_e469bbaf417cd2f28eb3fdc6783f6d81.jpg

Hmm...looks like Sam Adams is the only winner today. Hooray Beer!

It may be next week before I can actually touch this fucking money and actually invest in some of these stocks...so I guess continued volatility isn't too bad.

Word to the future investor...open up an account when shit starts even looking like this, so you don't get screwed by a weeklong lag before you can actually access your funds for investing.

Did you find someplace cheap to trade? 3k isnt going to go very far if you split it up between alot of different stocks. And some places can be really expensive with this kind of money if you arent careful with fees and whatnot.

Revalos

10-14-2008, 08:38 PM

Did you find someplace cheap to trade? 3k isnt going to go very far if you split it up between alot of different stocks. And some places can be really expensive with this kind of money if you arent careful with fees and whatnot.

I went with Firstrade. They are the highest rated on consumer reports, and they say that it is usually $7 a trade. I figure I'll probably blow $200 on all the associated fees with the stuff though, since I know that's how these outfits make money.

But I'm just playing around here, if I was really going to do some serious investing, I'd spend a lot more time researching, and a lot less time doing goofy stuff like this.

Kranar

10-14-2008, 08:39 PM

Did you find someplace cheap to trade? 3k isnt going to go very far if you split it up between alot of different stocks. And some places can be really expensive with this kind of money if you arent careful with fees and whatnot.

So true, places like E*Trade and ScotTrade and pretty much 99% of these brokers totally rip people off with things like 5 bucks a trade.

For my personal trading I use www.interactivebrokers.com (http://www.interactivebrokers.com), the primary benefit being that rather than having to pay money to make a trade, I get paid money to do a trade.

When adding liquidity to a stock market, the stock exchanges will pay you to use their exchange, it's called a liquidity credit. Most brokers will pocket that credit for themselves and charge a flat fee to the end user. Interactive Brokers charges a small fee, but passes any credit gained from the exchange to the user and if you do enough volume you can actually reach a point where the credit exceeds the fee so you make a small amount.

One thing I do for my clients will be to engage in multimillion share transactions and I won't charge them a thing for it, I simply make money from the liquidity credit. Dump the shares into an algo and have it carry out the transaction over the course of a day or two. On NASDAQ and NYSE and most exchanges it's roughly $0.0025 per share so on a 2 million shares it's 5k. I pocket it and they don't have to pay me a penny to engage in these large transactions for them.

Anyhow, point is that these places that advertise as cheap brokerages charging a flat 5 bucks per trade, regardless of how cheap it may seem at first, it's a colossal rip off.

Ignot

10-14-2008, 08:41 PM

Mistomeer

10-14-2008, 11:00 PM

So true, places like E*Trade and ScotTrade and pretty much 99% of these brokers totally rip people off with things like 5 bucks a trade.

For my personal trading I use www.interactivebrokers.com (http://www.interactivebrokers.com), the primary benefit being that rather than having to pay money to make a trade, I get paid money to do a trade.

When adding liquidity to a stock market, the stock exchanges will pay you to use their exchange, it's called a liquidity credit. Most brokers will pocket that credit for themselves and charge a flat fee to the end user. Interactive Brokers charges a small fee, but passes any credit gained from the exchange to the user and if you do enough volume you can actually reach a point where the credit exceeds the fee so you make a small amount.

One thing I do for my clients will be to engage in multimillion share transactions and I won't charge them a thing for it, I simply make money from the liquidity credit. Dump the shares into an algo and have it carry out the transaction over the course of a day or two. On NASDAQ and NYSE and most exchanges it's roughly $0.0025 per share so on a 2 million shares it's 5k. I pocket it and they don't have to pay me a penny to engage in these large transactions for them.

Anyhow, point is that these places that advertise as cheap brokerages charging a flat 5 bucks per trade, regardless of how cheap it may seem at first, it's a colossal rip off.

IB is just another brokerage that is hiding their fees -
Market Data fee - http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/accounts/fees/marketData.php?ib_entity=llc

Inactivity fee - http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/accounts/fees/minimumDeposits.php?ib_entity=llc

If I was going to start a new brokerage account, I'd check out http://www.sogotrade.com

IB is really just an A la carte brokerage where instead of paying that $10 or so a trade E*Trade charges, they make it up buy charging you inactivity fees and fees for viewing market data.

With regards to your point on liquidity credit, I don't think you understand how the big brokerages are making money. That revenue stream doesn't account for much of anything to them percentage-wise. For that matter, and I'd have to check, but I don't think they could even cover market data costs off liquidity credit. The big brokerages make their money because they're banks and they're making all their money off their assets under management, thus E*Trade's near collapse earlier this year because of investing in those assets in sub-primes.

It all really comes down to what kind of trader you are and what you're looking for. If you're going to buy into 5 long positions and just sit and watch them for a bit before selling out, then avoiding inactivity fees makes sense. If you're going to make 2,000 trades/month, then it doesn't make alot of sense to pay on a per trade basis. If you're looking for really good tools, then you're going to find the trading platform you like the best and pay whatever it costs. If you're looking for the fastest trade executions, then you're going to go that route. If you insist on being able to wander down to a brick and mortar building to talk to someone, then find a brokerage that meets that need.

The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is that the discount brokerage industry is too competitive for any broker to get away with ripping people off and staying in business. Everyone is basically charging the same ballpark price. The difference is where the charges are.

serra7965

10-15-2008, 12:34 AM

I would go with the lowest tobacco company that is well known
Altria Group, Inc.(Public, NYSE:MO), used to be Philip Morris, but that trades as international and is over $44. Altria is only about 20 a share. I guess you are looking for something that has bottomed out though.

Altria is beer (SABMiller), Kraft and cigs (philip morris USA), what else are people going to do but smoke, eat, and drink right now?

Trouble

10-15-2008, 09:43 AM

I use TradeKing which charges $4.95 per trade and has no inactivity fee. The only 'sneaky' fee I've had so far is that they pass on an SEC fee every time I sell I position. It's only 1 been cent per sale though. I checked their link to SEC.gov and the overall rate is $9.30 per million dollars traded. They have a bunch of other fees though on their list, none of which have affected me yet.

For my IRA I use T. Rowe Price. They charge $12.95 per stock trade which is way too much IMO, but until recently I was using their mutual funds anyway, which were no load (average around .70% expenses though).

Revalos

10-16-2008, 07:04 AM

Theoretically, today is the day that my money actually clears into my account so I can buy some stocks. Maybe it was fortunate for it to take this long. At first I was worried that we had hit bottom on Monday...but obviously not since here are the numbers from yesterday. CAEI is even lower than on Friday.

http://fileserver7.jpghosting.com/images/Hah_5f9d9d82362779ef79111dc916ddd09f.jpg

As for the fees for these things. I figure I'll be doing like ten transactions now and ten when I sell, so the price per trade will be fine by me. I will definitely look into these other options if I even consider doing larger investing.

longshot

10-25-2008, 01:32 AM

In much the same way, the advice given here is unlikely to be better, or worse, than what you'd get from an expert except for one key difference... you don't have to pay us for our advice, and we won't take his money, leverage it through the roof, and possibly engage in very risky behaviour with that leveraged money for the purpose of getting our end of year bonus.

:(

On a separate note,.. have we determined that Revalos is an actual real person?

Revalos

10-28-2008, 09:32 PM

There was a question as to my existence and I missed it? I must not be real.

Anyway, after the market's late day rally, I'm only about even on this investment game. I guess that is a pretty good sign actually when looking at this with an eight month window in the future, but it was kind of rough the past few days being down several percent. I'll give at least one more assessment before I go to Iraq since I won't be allowed to do any stock trading while I'm over there for some reason.

Daniel

10-28-2008, 10:37 PM

:(

On a separate note,.. have we determined that Revalos is an actual real person?

Yea. He came to the DC meet. Cool guy.

Revalos

01-17-2009, 01:38 PM

Thread revival update:

I'm down about 10%. The green side is mostly dividend reinvestment that happened when the stock was even lower than it is now. I am still holding out hope that it will be pretty good come July when I get back.

http://imageduck.com/images/0wzf6e0qeny15hupli4k.jpg

I'm at $2674 of my original $3000 investment from a high of somewhere around $3300 back in early November.

Kranar is the only one to have recommended a stock that hasn't lost value so far - UTX (I also dropped the most money into it by accident...heh, good accident). But it has only barely stayed green.

Euler's HELE was a good pick until it revealed a huge 3rd quarter earnings drop, and it lost all its gains to that point and is now negative.

Sean's CAEI has been a dog since late November, here's to hoping the Chinese have a good stimulus plan.

Kuyuk/Sierra7965's MO is probably never coming back...damn Altria.

My pick of UTF seems to be sometimes good and sometimes bad, I'm kind of surprised it has survived the oil price drop since it has a lot of oil investment.

Euler

01-17-2009, 01:58 PM

keep the faith. Hele is going to be big, just wait.

Stanley Burrell

01-17-2009, 02:29 PM

This is probably a really out of lefty field suggestion, but maybe you could put your money in set investment rates offered to you by mystical money depositories called:

"Banks."

Kranar

01-17-2009, 02:43 PM

This is probably a really out of lefty field suggestion, but maybe you could put your money in set investment rates offered to you by mystical money depositories called:

"Banks."

You know investments made by banks have lost way more than 10% in the past 6 months... right?

Also... lol at set investment rates. Interest rates in the U.S. are at close to 0%. Considering the investment was for 1 year tops... he'll get, if he's lucky, 1% on his money by putting it into a guaranteed investment account.

Revalos

01-17-2009, 02:46 PM

Banks have very little potential to provide gains these days with interest rates at near historic lows. And they can shut down if shit gets really bad. Besides, this is play money that I got because there were three pay days in October last year for me and the money wasn't in my budget. So instead of going to Vegas and blowing it that way, I figured I'd try gambling capitalist style. Right now it is paying 90% at 3 months of play time. Vegas would theoretically be paying 98% back per week (any Vegasticians that can verify that amount out there anymore? I think that's what Wynn was calculating when he opened his casino), so at 12 weeks I'd be out 12% basically continuously playing the odds. So I'm at least doing better than that.

Krendeli

01-17-2009, 02:50 PM

My bank's current savings interest rate is .14%. May as well go ahead and smoke your money.

Sean of the Thread

01-17-2009, 02:54 PM

What about money market or CD?

Stretch

01-17-2009, 02:59 PM

The rates offered on bank deposit products has tanked pretty heavily in the last month, since most institutions peg their deposit rates off of short term LIBOR rates or the FFR.

You can still get 4.00% on a liquid savings account for now, although I'm guessing Emigrant is getting close to enough deposits with their DollarSavingsDirect portfolio that they're about ready to drop the yield to milk the spread.

You're not getting more than 4.50% with any well-known institution at this point. Eight to ten years ago, you could have gotten a CD as high as 7% to 8%.

Stanley Burrell

01-17-2009, 03:52 PM

You know investments made by banks have lost way more than 10% in the past 6 months... right?

Also... lol at set investment rates. Interest rates in the U.S. are at close to 0%. Considering the investment was for 1 year tops... he'll get, if he's lucky, 1% on his money by putting it into a guaranteed investment account.

I dunno. I read where it said he was returning for a tour of duty ... And something about the fact that he couldn't check his stock options, such as:

"Holy shit. That's a lot of red downward arrows."

Made me think:

"Well. I can save money and then invest in a 401k when I can afford an accountant in twenty years."

That's not a slap at his service. I just don't approve of the idea where you gamble ... and you're not even at the damn table to begin with. Plus, I know too many people who were touting the exact same "that's barely nothing attitude" for saving money they'd worked for, and then got royally screwed knowing they were making the proper investment. Lottery tickets are cheaper. There's always going to be another dotcom craze/contribution to chaos theory/evidence in the face of everyone saying "stock market dividends are factually proven to make you have more money" ... that I can't have an intelligent thought where I'd tell someone I don't even know, on the Internet, to gamble their money with any sort of chance for loss based on what I don't know about their financial savvy vs. what I know for a fact to be set interest rates.

I mean, Revalos could be a stock market genius. But since he's asking for investment options on an online forum like money really matters to him, I sort of think the last four letters of the thread itself are pretty adequately titled.

That's not to say that I don't disagree with you, Kranar; in that if you hold onto the same amount money when you could be making more money, that the latter isn't the more intelligent suggestion. I'm just saying it's a pretty frickin' damn big could.

In all honesty, a hypothetical 0% interest rate strikes me as being way more lucrative than (e.g.) losing my money to the next paradigm shift that adds itself to the stock index and offsets half of America's 401k. Or whatever becomes the next mortgage-lending issue doppelganger. Or whatever war we spend trillions of dollars in next, where, when all these issues could be occurring, I'd also want as much money as I put into my savings vs. an uncertain tangent that could help me if it grew ... but might end up actually making me a sad panda if, God-forbid, I'm like 99.9% of everyone else's stock market investments that followed the same logic you're putting out there, but somehow ended up in the red.

I'd put pennies into it (the stock market), and I'm not talking penny stocks, the same way I never spend more than $100 bucks at a blackjack table. I have a little bit in my 402b, but I feel very strongly that I am doing myself a greater favor knowing I will have money if and when I need it. The idea of possibly having money to grow my garden when it might really need some water never seemed as alluring to me as definitely having it (money) in case I ever needed to break the emergency glass. I feel better with 100% certainty on 100% growth rate. +0.0-repeating-ending-in-1% is still better than +/- $X when my kids want food to eat. Mainly because I'm not a soothsayer.

Bobmuhthol

01-17-2009, 04:13 PM

<<What about money market or CD?>>

I used to keep my money in a Paypal money market account that earned 5.3%+ APY. It's now at 0.82%.

Sean of the Thread

01-17-2009, 04:18 PM

Wow.

I just checked mine and it's offering or claiming 1.14%

Stanley Burrell

01-17-2009, 05:36 PM

Banks have very little potential to provide gains these days with interest rates at near historic lows.

You should look at some stock portfolios. I have yet to hear a story about someone losing money, plain-and-simple-don't-get-existential-on-me-now, in interest.

"Taking a loss" on set interest that's always going to end in a plus sign for your bank-invested money is never going to rival "taking a loss" in the stock market, which will always carry the fine print of walking away with less money than you put in.

this is play money

Money saved is money earned. Don't play around with actual money.

Kranar

01-17-2009, 06:19 PM

"Taking a loss" on set interest that's always going to end in a plus sign for your bank-invested money is never going to rival "taking a loss" in the stock market, which will always carry the fine print of walking away with less money than you put in.

There is no such thing as free money, period. Even if you put your money into a so called guaranteed investment account that pays you say 4% interest over a 5 year period, you can still lose money.

There is a difference between money and currency, a subtle but important difference. Currency is the actual paper dollars with pictures of dead Presidents on them that you would shove into a bank account and get interest on it. Money is a measure of the worth of that currency. While gaining interest on 100 dollars at 5% a year means that you will gain more currency in say 5 years, if the value of that currency has decreased by more than 5% a year during that 5 year period... guess what... you didn't make money, you lost it.

The Federal Reserve, for the past couple of months has been in the business of making U.S. currency very weak. When they decrease interest rates, they're basically saying that they want to make U.S. dollars freely available. It's a way for them to virtually force people to move away from hording U.S. dollars and using that money to do something, buy crap, invest in crap, lend crap out.

Consider this... as the value of a single U.S. dollar goes down, the amount of stock in a company you can buy for that dollar also goes down. This is why as the U.S. dollar gets cheaper you'll sometimes see the illusion of say the Dow Jones going up (or vice-versa). People get all excited that the Fed cut interest rates and they look at their portfolio and see that it gained a couple percentage points and they think the Fed is so great... they don't realize that all that happened was that the value of the currency just got flushed down the toilet. The Dow hasn't actually gained in value, but since the currency used to acquire shares of the Dow (say via the ticker symbol DIA) has decreased, it gives the appearance of an increase in value. In this sense, owning a share of a vast index fund such as IWM or SPY has protected you against the depreciation of the U.S. dollar. Of course, the opposite can happen and the U.S. dollar can increase in value resulting in shares of DIA/SPY/IWM to cost less.

When you say that the best thing to do is to put your money in a safe and guaranteed interest account, you are making a gamble, whether you like it or not. You are making a gamble between inflation and the interest rate being provided to you. These banks that give you these interest rates aren't charities. They give you a crappy interest rate for your currency, and then use that currency to invest in a broad array of stocks. If it wasn't the case that hording all your cash is overall a poor gamble... banks wouldn't be giving you interest.

Cash is just another form of stock man, one that tends to decrease in value over time. Now it's definitely good to keep some cash in your portfolio, but don't think it's any different from say owning shares of SPY, or DIA, or IWM etc...

That's why I argue to use and manage your money yourself. It's not rocket science, E*Trade has commercials showing a baby buying shares of SPY/DIA/IWM using one click.

Stanley Burrell

01-17-2009, 07:18 PM

It's the fact that we have a working federal reserve, and aren't living our lives using the liquid money of The People's Republic of Congo, that I will always feel better about hording the usable dollar commodity with its provided luxuries within our 50 states vs. using brief time frame intervals to say, with supposed 100% certainty "this is what has to happen with all the world's collective currencies (and here's why you have to invest in the Euro/Lira/Rupee/etc.)".

I know damn well that what we know as the stock market; if it had to, would fall before banks ever did. You could argue that if the U.S. ever became a third world country, then maybe I'd want to look into the European exchange system if I'm using my post-apocalypse Internet connection.

That's why I argue to use and manage your money yourself. It's not rocket science, E*Trade has commercials showing a baby buying shares of SPY/DIA/IWM using one click.

I barely watch television, but I still see (albeit more rarely) turned-down-for-the-eighth-time-NOT-ANYMORE! mortgage-lending commercials. The last place I ever intend to go for financial advice is television. I mean, I saw Circuit City commercials until a few weeks ago.

What's bad is that I know that when my salary goes from 5k to 50k annually in about T-minus 2-3 years, I am going to, more likely than not, double back on everything I've said about being stock market wary.

It just seems strange to me that very low income people who are seriously concerned about money never seem to want to earn it really, really more efficiently and obviously easier by investing in everything stock exchange.

Ignot

01-17-2009, 07:19 PM

It's not rocket science.

It is the way you explain it. Your saying a 4% money market would not out perform a market index because of inflation risk for the time frames specified by the OP? or were you just rambling because you like to make yourself look smart?

And yeah, a baby can buy stocks or even build a portfolio. But what if your a guy that owns his own business, has 3 kids that need to go to college, has $3 million in the bank, owns 2 houses, wants to retire in 15 years and be able to travel 3 times a year, while making sure your kids have a certain amount of money when you die, do you really think he can manage a financial plan at fucking E-trade better then with a professional?

deadly

01-17-2009, 07:28 PM

Is there a program that I can use that will keep track of stocks with loss/gain?

I want to play around with stocks for a while with out actually putting money down to see how my picks are going over a few months. Then if I actually feel that I know what I am doing i will drop a few grand down.

any help on some software to help me keep track of things?

Kranar

01-17-2009, 07:57 PM

And yeah, a baby can buy stocks or even build a portfolio. But what if your a guy that owns his own business, has 3 kids that need to go to college, has $3 million in the bank, owns 2 houses, wants to retire in 15 years and be able to travel 3 times a year, while making sure your kids have a certain amount of money when you die, do you really think he can manage a financial plan at fucking E-trade better then with a professional?

Yes, in fact it's the people you describe who got screwed hard by these so called "financial professionals".

The term pro is an absolute joke in this business and if seeing big banks piss away trillions of dollars on toxic assets hasn't made the general public aware of just how much of an absolute joke these so called professionals are, I don't know what will.

Fact is that every 10 to 15 years these pros/wizards go crying to Washington asking for a bailout at the expense of the tax payer and they usually get it because they've managed to create such a monopoly of a financial system that when they begin crying, if they don't get what they want they make the average person start to bleed.

These days of just putting your money in the trust of abstract entities wearing suits and ties needs to come to an end. Statistically you are no better off putting your money in the hands of a pro as you are putting your money in the hands of the broad market itself. That is a time tested fact.

So continue taking advantage of your rich clients and charging them fees. Tell yourself that despite the collossal failure your industry has put the entire nation in, that you provide a much needed and valued service. And above all, give them the phony illusion and psychological comfort that their millions of dollars are safe because you're there, with all your wizardry, "managing" and advising them about their money. But know that eventually, people will get fed up with the constant bailing out of guys like you and the institutions you work for because boy... when you guys mess up, you sure do love to take down everyone with you in the process.

Stretch

01-17-2009, 08:13 PM

Different shakes for different folks.

I don't have the time (that's a lie), energy, or motivation to actively manage what savings I've managed to build up. 20% of my 401(k) is in bonds, and the rest are in funds that are supposed to mirror the S&P or get exposure to growth in developing countries. I had $8K in a Roth IRA in a Vanguard fund, which is down some 35% at this point.

I have somewhere around $20k sitting in an online savings account earning like 4.00%, because putting money into the market without some thought / research is about as bright as putting your penis into a vat of battery acid at this point.

Ignot

01-17-2009, 09:05 PM

It is the way you explain it. Your saying a 4% money market would not out perform a market index because of inflation risk for the time frames specified by the OP? or were you just rambling because you like to make yourself look smart?

And yeah, a baby can buy stocks or even build a portfolio. But what if your a guy that owns his own business, has 3 kids that need to go to college, has $3 million in the bank, owns 2 houses, wants to retire in 15 years and be able to travel 3 times a year, while making sure your kids have a certain amount of money when you die, do you really think he can manage a financial plan at fucking E-trade better then with a professional?

Yes

Oh, my bad then. I didn't know that everyone in the general population is an expert on Financial Planning. I guess when people call me for help I should just tell them to figure it out because they know the same as me. Shit, maybe even more!. There is a stick so far up your ass we would need the jaws of life to pull it out. If you honestly think the general population have the knowledge of a CFP and the time and resources to implement and execute a long term savings strategy then I'm done arguing with you because you are a complete ignorant moron.

Fallen

01-17-2009, 09:22 PM

Lol.

phantasm

01-17-2009, 09:37 PM

Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc.

PRAA

Debt collectors will be showing huge profits this tax return season, which should push the stock price up to a nice selling point by July 09.

Back

01-17-2009, 09:47 PM

The best way I know to make money is to work. As far as long-term investments? Don’t live beyond your means. (in other words, don’t get a bunch of credit cards and max them out)

You can see my comprehension of investment in my comment above. But I have heard of something called a “charitable trust fund”. It’s those foundations you see in the credits while watching PBS or on plaques when you visit a museum.

Does anyone have an opinion on the worth of such a venture?

Miscast

01-17-2009, 09:57 PM

Statistically you are no better off putting your money in the hands of a pro as you are putting your money in the hands of the broad market itself. That is a time tested fact.
:yeahthat: A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel is a good read that explains that.

Revalos

03-29-2009, 10:36 AM

I figured I'd post and say that I'm still alive...even if this investment scheme hasn't worked out too well so far.

Here we are at just about 4 months out from the deadline:

MO - Down 16% from where I bought it.
CAEI - Down 71%
UTF - Down 28%
HELE - Down 11%
UTX - Down 12%

Totals - 2,424.14 out of my original investment of 3,000.00 - Down 19% overall

Still better than it was a week or two ago...I think the overall value was below $2000 at one point.

Hope things are well back in y'alls neck of the woods.

Euler

03-29-2009, 11:27 AM

I lost you the least amount of money! Does that mean I am winning?

and stay well.

Skeeter

03-29-2009, 12:48 PM

how did budweiser end up?

Revalos

07-15-2009, 01:15 PM

So...I've fudged a little bit on the dates because lets face it...the economy was even worse than I could have imagined before I went to Iraq, but things are finally positive overall! So I'll hold onto the stocks until July 31st and we can have a party in August at some point as the next installment of the DC/MD/VA drinkathon.

Here's where we are as of right now (12:40 PM 15JUL09):

MO - Altria
Bought at 19.6236 (with dividend reinvestment)
Currently at 16.7696
Investment of $423.34
Now Worth $355.83 (a loss of $60.57, 14.54%)

I think this one could still come back...probably not by the end of the month though

CAEI - China Architectural Engineering Inc.
Bought at 3.79
Currently at 1.68
Investment of $196.45
Now Worth $84.00 (a loss of $105.50, 55.67%)

This stock was actually around fifty cents at one point about a month ago, then went up 200% after they got a big contract. Still sucks though, will probably take a few years to come back.

UTF - Cohen & Steers Select Utility Fund
Bought at 12.5153 (with dividend reinvestment)
Currently at 12.2091
Investment of $688.71
Now Worth $665.08 (a loss of $16.67, 2.45%)

I'm concerned about this one...it was doing well when the oil markets were thinking they'd rebound...now not so much. Breaking even seems like a blessing.

HELE - Helen of Troy Cosmetics
Bought at 15.97
Currently at 21.52
Investment of $406.20
Now Worth $538.00 (a gain of $138.75, 34.75%)

Euler's logic definitely worked for this pick. Their profits surged to nearly their 2008 levels completely against their forecast. Everyone has to look nice, even in a recession.

UTX - United Technologies Corp.
Bought at 50.7462 (with dividend reinvestment)
Currently at 52.85
Investment of $1,307.58
Now Worth $1,354.55 (a gain of $53.92, 4.15%)

Solid pick Kranar. Definitely a good long term. It has maintained its value in the face of significant pressure and the dividend has made up for the losses it faced during the deeper parts of the dive last year.

$72 kept in cash

Initial investment $3000.00
Currently worth $3069.72

----

So, it doesn't look like I'll be flying anyone in from Europe with the money gained, but definitely a round on me at the drinkathon. I learned a lot of good lessons from this... mostly that dividends are good, sometimes I should listen to advice on Budweiser, and that even not making a ton of money can be pretty fun to watch.