Anyone dabble in the stock market?

I have some extra cash and Im considering my investment options. Looking more into stocks at the moment. Any HBTers dabble more than me and have any suggestions to keep an eye out for?

 

I used to dabble and at the moment am out. If you have money that you would not mind burning then go for some of the more risky stocks. You stand the chance of making a lot of they pan out. look at KKD. they were doing well a few years ago and tanked last year. Id buy that and wait 5 years and it will go way up again.

But I have to say that I am NOT playing in the market at the moment. Its to risky for me.

YMMV

 

Keeping my eye on Microsoft. Say what you want but with a p/e under 12, ZERO debt, $9 BILLION in CASH, and it's selling for low 20's, there's a whole lotta good there. I think they'll get through the winter.

 

As a wall st guy IMO this market is offering some really attractive long-term investments. I'd say stick with the great companies with great brands that pay dividends. For example, I own PG, PM, and DEO as my LT defensive plays. All 3 of these are paying nice dividends and are consistent steady growers. You'll never lose any sleep while owning companies like that.

Also if you'd like to stay more diversified you could look at some balanced mutual funds.

 

My nickel's worth.

I typically buy companies paying dividends which are consistently generating cash, trading at low price/book or price/sales ratios, and which have very little or no debt. I don't believe in chasing things like PEG ratios which are tied to some analyst's guess of future numbers, or the obsessively worshiped P/E which is pretty much worthless, since earnings are a fictitious number a company can inflate by playing numbers games or spinning off subsidiaries to shift liabilities making them look like equity (remember Enron?).

Tangible assets minus debt gives a sense of the brick and mortar value of a company, yet a quick search shows there are plenty of companies with a franchise more valuable than their office furniture you can find trading at close to or even less than the net value of their assets. Often such companies are trading at low valuations because they took a temporary earnings bump which caused a selloff of the shares (did I mention Mr. Market is overly obsessed with the one number, P/E).

I don't follow this method because I'm trying to impress anyone or even beat the market. I'm following it because it's a model I can understand, and it's pretty similar to how Warren Buffett and other value investors go about analyzing securities.

Tech is attractive right now. Usually anything tech related will trade at insane multiples because of over-exuberance, somehow people think tech companies will somehow magically grow faster than other brick and mortar businesses (they don't) and will pay more for such a fallacy. HPQ and INTC are currently trading at multi-year lows, yet they are solid performers. Intel keeps setting new records for generating cash, yet every time they announce earnings they take another beating because the bear market thinks we're in for the next great depression when they listen to the future earnings outlook (boo hoo).

Manufacturing took an unfair beating because of high commodity/supply side cost inflation. Now that inflation is stabilizing and the outlook isn't looking as bad as the consumer confidence index would lead one to believe (those numbers would make you think we just had a nuclear war), I think these stocks will be poised for a comeback. Maybe not this year, or next, but I am not in this to make fast money, am I.

Energy companies are going through a bear market after a huge bubble around 2005. I am stymied by how Exxon and other oil companies are trading at 9 times earnings and nearly book value while they are raking in the largest profits of any company in history! It's almost as if the market HATES them for making more cash than they could drive to the bank in a convoy of semi trucks. A bunch of solid utilities paying great dividends are trading at less than book value. Recession going to hurt their earnings? I think not, and with oil prices stabilizing they will return to excess profits (raise the rates as costs go up, keep them the same as costs drop).

Avoid financials, avoid retail, most of all avoid any companies which are over-leveraged. The runup of borrowing costs in the credit markets is going to kill any company which is short on cash. I think we're going to see a string of large companies going bankrupt because they suddenly find they can't get the credit they relied on to run their business. Anyone buying stocks of companies because they look "cheap" while overlooking the debt load is facing a potential 100% downside for a minimal upside. The value investor's most important goal is to preserve capital.*

* footnote: I dabbled in WM as a risky bet when it was at $5 knowing I could lose it, or get a 4x gain if they made it. I lost the bet and lost it all. But I treated it as a bet. It was outside of my normal strategy, and was made with capital I could afford to lose (a bonus).

 

Has anyone considered using the companies who have unusually higher than average options volume as an indicator for the price direction of the underlying stock ?

The smart money is looking to get maximum leverage...

I have been testing this technique recently at a site Practice Investing | UpDown.com where you play with a fictional $1 million portfolio ... the goal is to beat the market.

Lots of fun, and no risk

I like RIG, RIMM and IDEV

 

Cool website. Now I can test how little I really know about the market with no risk.

 

I just started in the stock market a month ago. Only $100 for starters, and I'll add a bit every now and then. I'm playing with low cost stocks and not in it at the point where I'm going to make a fortune anytime soon.

 

I am user kappclark, and I am finally starting to make some money..

 

I joined up. I'll send you a message on there.

 

Yeap bargains abound in tech right now. INTC and MSFT are both good bets. As an investor you HAVE to love any company trading at a discount which has a monopoly or near monopoly!

 

I'm beginning to like Corning (GLW) again at this price. Low dividend but it's only at a 3 PE ratio right now due to fear of less spending on plasma/LCD panels.

 

I just can't pick em. Every stock I buy that looks like it will come up tanks, and the ones I look at buying and decide not to are the ones that gain 50% in a single day.

 

I'm thinking that's your problem. The way I see it (in my relatively untrained way), the market is really volatile right now. From day-to-day or even month-to-month, you're going to see so many price swings, it's hard to know when or what to do.

However, for somebody like me, who's looking at a decade or more to grow, there are a lot of bargains to be had in the market. Basically, every public company is on sale right now, and if you've the stomach for buying some stocks and holding them (no peeking!) for several years, a lot of great companies, like GE and MSFT are "on sale" so to speak.

Stay away from the automakers, though. There be monsters there.

 

Right now the market is ruled by two factors:

1) Forced selling by hedge funds and mutual funds who are facing record redemptions and margin calls.
2) Fear.

#2 has almost died out, as indicated by the slowing volume of trades and increased volatility. #1 will take awhile to work its way out of the system.

Look for a big rally once the hedge funds and mutual funds which are out of cash are done eating their own lunch....

I should add my portfolio is down about 30% but I'm not that worried because I'm in it for the long haul. Considering I have stocks trading at less than book and P/E multiples of 3-4 and 7% dividend yields, yet the companies are solidly generating cash, things are certain to turn around some day.

 

I think General Motors would be one I'd invest in. The government isn't going to let them go under and their stock is 3.10 to 3.25 right now. Look what happened to United Airlines, their stock was real low and they recovered fine.

 

Washington Mutual they were @ $1200 a stock, now @ less than $2 and they will make it IMO and there is about 4 billion still tied up in court.. You can’t go wrong W/ AIG you know the Government isn't going to let that one die.

 

i bought fannie mae..... I took the gamble

 

Take a gamble with JRCC ...

What will our new president do to the Coal industry ?

 

Where do you think the S&P will be in 3 years?

I think an S&P index fund is a great option right now.

 

I'm playing with the low end stock and had shares in WAMU and FRE. I watched the WAMU go up a few cents and then decline to it's previous poor state and I got out. Did the same with FRE. I know long term is probably the way to go, but I'm just starting out and trying to get ahead a bit. I don't have much faith in any of the companies involved in banking or mortgage, it seems like these stocks are really controlled by day traders who have thousands to invest and make a profit when the share price goes up a nickel.

I'm trying to make a small profit with a few hundred dollars and it doesn't quite work as well as the big boys. I am learning a lot about how the market cycles through out the day and starting to pick up a few other things, so it's paying off I guess.

 

I have no idea how this stuff works, but if I buy some super cheap big 3 auto maker stock what do i have to loose?

 

They ain't gonna bail out GM.

My opinion, yours may differ.

 

Good companies to buy right now are financial institutes, technology companies, and steel companies. I just bought some stock today and did some other investments so I can make a return in the future. November is the buying time for stocks and it is the time to buy now because of where the prices are. Do not expect much of anything for a little while as the stock market looks like its going to be down for a little bit.

 

Look at what has happened to the Coal industry ! (JRCC, NCOC) ... will they ever come back ? Are they afraid a new broom sweeps clean ?

Any short sellers out there?

 

I can't afford to short sell. I like reading all of the posts in stock forums like google.
I just bought 30000 shares of XXX, and it went up a dime. I made 10000 bucks.

Wish I had that kind of money to throw around.

 

They could also make the same money on the way down by shorting..

I have read that short selling is "unamerican" ..I have never done it, but that is ridiculous.

It is counter-intuitive that you can make money on a falling price, but people do it every dau.

I defer to the wisdom of The Bird on topics of stocks and investments.

 

Anyone else got a few bucks invested in some penny stock just hoping to get lucky?

 

I'd say invest in companies that make hearing aides & hearing aide batteries. All these kids with the car stereos blasting & the ipod earphones stuffed into their ear canals are going to be going deaf in a few years, as will a lot of the baby boomers who stood too close to the speakers at all those Grateful Dead concerts, not to mention all the hearing damage that is happening in Iraq & Afghanistan at the moment... Seems like a sure bet to me, but I'm NOT an expert, hell, I ain't even in the biz; but that's what I'd do (if I had money). Regards, GF.

 

I bought a couple hundred shares of F the other day when it was 1.27