Post: #1

I'm thinking about going into stocks. If you play it right (I've been reading up a lot about it) you can make killer money with minimum input.

I talked with a broker and I told him I wanted to take a dive. Life's too short. Sometimes, you've gotta take risks. You're not going anywhere in life without risks. He was a total flake. He tried directing me to "safe" invesetments. He's not a millionaire either. Everybody keeps saying the same thing,"Don't invest in the stock market." Riiiiight. But they aren't living it up either. It's like taking advice from the world's fattest man on weight-loss.

Any of you guys had success? How'd you start out and what strategies did you use?

Post: #2

Im interested in this too, but I have no idea which stocks to invest in

Post: #3

I've been investing since 2005. Please don't listen to all this BS about making a killing in the market. It is hard. Look at it this way, there are dudes with Harvard MBA's on Wall Street who spend 60+ hours a week working and they still can't understand or beat the market. It is VERY hard for a amateur investor to consistently make a good return in the market.

From 2005 to 2007 I did all right and then the market went to hell in 2008. The S&P dropped 38% in one fucking year and emerging markets went down even more. Imagine losing 38% in one fucking year. That will hurt most people.

The only advice I can give you is to start off by investing in low fee index funds and ETFs that track the S&P or emerging markets. In my opinion, until you start to understand how the market works it makes no sense betting on individual stocks because eventually you will get burned. And nine times out of time a ETF/index fund will outperform your individual stocks as a whole.

I'm actually out of individual stocks because it just takes too much time to understand each company. I really like conservative allocation funds like VWINX. Vanguard has the best mutual funds and ETFs by far. They have very low cost funds as they are a non-profit company.

I've been travel now over a year living off my investment returns and its worked, but I know it won't last forever. Eventually the market is going to go to hell again. It is bound to happen within the next 5-8 years. And keep in mind that the market has done really well since 2009 and there really isn't that much room for it go grow. The S&P's all-time high is about 1550, right now it is around 1340. So it only have about 20% more to grow before it hits its all time peak. If it takes three years to get there that is only a 6-7% return a year. That is not super.

Anyway, just be careful. The market is run by greedy bastards who want to take your money.

Post: #4

Stock Market is designed to scam the average man on the streets. As the say the "house" never loses and stocks are like legalized gambling.

Post: #5

The great majority loses, i.e. transfers their money to a tiny winning minority- this is the nature of trading.

And this is why trading is so great if you know what you are doing - there is a never ending supply of people who will in effect transfer their money to your account, full of hopes and dreams and greed but without any understanding of the markets.

It took me more than 10 years to figure the markets out... thousand of hours looking at charts with no idea of what was going on until it dawned upon me.

It is still hard and always will be but money can be made for sure.

The problem is, and in that respect trading is similar to other endeavours such as poker and chess, you have to study the stuff like a freak for years to succeed, there is no easy way and certainly no magic grail out there.

If you think trading is about following stock recommendations by so called gurus, you will lose.


A place to start is wattstrading ( google it). Extremely basic but a good starting point nonetheless. Get a free demo account with one of the many forex brokers out there and then study the charts for some years. Do not trade with real money, do sim trading first.

Oh yeah, it doesn't matter what you trade...stocks, forex, bonds, oil, gold...they are interchangeable. I don't really care what I trade a long as it moves.

Post: #6

Read the book The Zurich Axioms by Max Gunther. It was written in 1985 but gives great advice on the concepts of investing. I downloaded it free online. Also, don't just dive into the stock market or your guaranteed to get burned. You should practice on a virtual stock market before investing any of your hard earned money. I play on the Virtual Stock Exchange and they give you a hundred grand to play with. It's great practice and you learn about the market without risking any of your money.

My college finance teacher always said to only use your play money for stocks and an amount of money that you can afford to lose. Once you feel confident, I suggest investing in penny stocks and small-cap stocks as you can buy thousands of shares for very cheap. The majority of your investments should be in mutual funds and retirement accounts and not in individual stocks.

Remember, only take financial advice from rich people. The average person isn't going to tell you anything you don't already know or anything that is actually going to help you be successful.

Post: #7

First off, beating the market is very difficult. By some theories, it's arguably not possible. That said, you make some decent returns on indexes, and it's not too hard to understand the all the jargon after a bit. You might need to read a book or take a class for valuation though.

Also my general rule is when Flow at the check-out register is saying to buy "tech" or get a subprime loan, short that shit.

Post: #8

Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.

Buy when people are selling.

Sell when people are buying.

Buy low, sell high.

Buy when blood is running in the streets.

Get into a market before it moves.

If a market is running, either be long or out. Don't chase bubbles.

That is my basic trading strategy.

Easier said than done.

As far as " you can make killer money with minimum input", that is false.

You need to spend tons of time and energy.

In fact, I don't like where the market is right now, I think a lot of the easy money has been made, and I am selling in May and going away for a while (minus a few blue chips and some other positions I am holding long term like ag).

I am waiting for blood.

Post: #9

A must read: 'a random walk down wall street' by Burton malkiel

It is considered an investing classic and offers some sober teachings on the investing industry

Post: #10

The stock market is for suckers (unless you're old money and your family has owned millions of shares for generations). Options and futures markets are where you can make real $ nowadays. And as G said, you have to put in a great amount of time and research.

Post: #11

I've been investing since 1998, and still have to learn to detach from any emotions when making trading decisions - I've found this the hardest part about investing. Always your greed or your fear of loss gets you.
My advice - read a lot, learn a lot, practice a lot - and only after that get into trading. Otherwise you will lose your shirt.
Also, if you have family members that are not US residents, open an account in one of their names. That way, the account won't owe US income taxes on capital gains. This is huge since taxes on short-term gains can be as high as 35%. This opens a lot of opportunities to actively manage your account, vs. putting your money into a fund which avoids making ST gains because its investors don't want them due to their high tax rate.
However, I cannot give advice on how to transfer the earnings back in your name and spend it without running into trouble with the IRS.

Post: #12

Agree with the G on this one.

The stock market on average must more or less stick to the general development of the economy. If the stock market grows, but the economy is in the dumps, the sooner or later, the stock market will have to come down to make up the difference, or the economy will boom and substantiate the gains already made. My personal opinion.

The stock market has grown but there has been no real economic growth in the West to support it - I predict stagnation, major drops, etc. Go short!

Post: #13

Amateur investors have no business selling short- way too risky if you don't really know what your doing.

Post: #14

my basic rules..
the trend is your friend...cut your loses quickly but let your winners run.
...don't argue with the dow. ever. unless you want to lose money
..before anything else..develop a sound money management system. (my system: 2-5% on any trade..potential profit/loss ratio must be 2:1....i stop trading whenever i'm wrong on >2 out my last 4 trades)
also, i'd read up on P&F charts to see your potential profits/losses clearer... and japanese candlesticks(ie heikin ashi) for entries/profit taking.

Post: #15

(06-17-2011 06:49 PM)zoom Wrote:  Amateur investors have no business selling short- way too risky if you don't really know what your doing.

Nothing wrong with going short if you know what you're doing. The real danger is leverage.

Post: #16

(11-07-2011 05:09 PM)Caligula Wrote:  Nothing wrong with going short if you know what you're doing. The real danger is leverage.

Still, limited gains and unlimited losses.

Post: #17

For the novice it is way too risky. If you must invest in stocks, put money slowly into a S&P index fund, like Vanguard. It takes the emotion out of owning stocks of one or two companies.

Post: #18

IT takes YEARS...UPON YEARS...UPON YEARS...of HARD WORK. You can get consistently profitable in 2 years(which is what happened to me)...but...you have to devote a major amount of effort to it. It is not easy money. One of the hardest.

(05-13-2011 11:48 PM)blurb Wrote:  I'm thinking about going into stocks. If you play it right (I've been reading up a lot about it) you can make killer money with minimum input.

I talked with a broker and I told him I wanted to take a dive. Life's too short. Sometimes, you've gotta take risks. You're not going anywhere in life without risks. He was a total flake. He tried directing me to "safe" invesetments. He's not a millionaire either. Everybody keeps saying the same thing,"Don't invest in the stock market." Riiiiight. But they aren't living it up either. It's like taking advice from the world's fattest man on weight-loss.

Any of you guys had success? How'd you start out and what strategies did you use?

Post: #19

(05-15-2011 08:32 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.

Buy when people are selling.

Sell when people are buying.

Buy low, sell high.

Buy when blood is running in the streets.

Get into a market before it moves.

If a market is running, either be long or out. Don't chase bubbles.

That is my basic trading strategy.

Buy low sell high. Really? Lol
Easier said than done.

As far as " you can make killer money with minimum input", that is false.

You need to spend tons of time and energy.

In fact, I don't like where the market is right now, I think a lot of the easy money has been made, and I am selling in May and going away for a while (minus a few blue chips and some other positions I am holding long term like ag).

I am waiting for blood.

Post: #20

Damn iphone sucks for editing text.

Anyway G, I guess you're a WB disciple as many of the things you said are what he is constantly saying.

Post: #21

I've been investing for a minute and my first bit of feedback for you is don't waste your money on a broker.

And respectfully, contrary to other advice in this thread fuck mutual funds as well.

Investing with a broker or fund already starts you out in a hole because they are skimming fees off the top so you need to make that money back before you can see a profit. Funds are worse because you have no control over when a particular stock is bought or sold.

If you're serious about investing (ie, making it part of your lifestyle) then I'd suggest buying DRIPs and ADRs.

Most stocks you can buy direct from the company at substantially less cost than paying a broker and you have complete control of how/when the stock is bought or sold.

A DRIP is a Dividend Reinvestment Plan and the benefit of these is that they reinvest your dividends (normally at a couple of cents per share) buying more stocks so your portfolio grows even if you're not investing additional money.

US firms like Procter & Gamble, Tiffany, etc can be bought as DRIPs. Check out Dripinvestor dot com for a list of DRIPs.

ADRs are American Depository Receipts and you can buy these to gain stock in foreign companies all over the world to diversify your portfolio. An added benefit with ADRs is that some will pay dividends in their foreign currency which can give you an additional currency bump on your profits when the dollar is down.

Like DRIPs, ADRs will also allow you to reinvest your dividends at pennies per share.

You buy ADRs from US Banks that are authorized to buy/hold your shares. Check out Bank of New York and JP Morgan. Those two banks handle the majority of ADRs on the market.

Initial investment into most ADRs and DRIPs is $200 - $500. However, after the initial investment, each additional investment can be made from $50 - $500,000.

When you're interested in buying a stock, first check to see if it is being offered as an ADR or DRIP. It it isn't, then go over to Etrade and buy it. at $9.99 per trade it's still cheaper than a broker.

Additionally, now Etrade will allow you to reinvest your dividends.

The next thing that you need to do is determine your investment strategy. Unless you have a couple million laying around I'd suggest going with a growth and income strategy and purchase stocks that pay dividends.

Invest...every...month. AND LEAVE THE STOCKS ALONE! You're strategy to make money is...GROWTH...and you can't make any money if you're fucking around running off the cliff with the herd selling stocks every time the market takes a dip.

Invest with the expectation that you...may...sell shares on...TEN YEAR...periods.

Respectfully, disregard the anti stock comments. You have to...spend...money...to...make...money.

Make investing part of your lifestyle and sit back and watch your money make money for you.

Post: #22

(05-14-2011 08:38 AM)nomadicdude Wrote:  I've been investing since 2005. Please don't listen to all this BS about making a killing in the market. It is hard. Look at it this way, there are dudes with Harvard MBA's on Wall Street who spend 60+ hours a week working and they still can't understand or beat the market. It is VERY hard for a amateur investor to consistently make a good return in the market.

From 2005 to 2007 I did all right and then the market went to hell in 2008. The S&P dropped 38% in one fucking year and emerging markets went down even more. Imagine losing 38% in one fucking year. That will hurt most people.

The only advice I can give you is to start off by investing in low fee index funds and ETFs that track the S&P or emerging markets. In my opinion, until you start to understand how the market works it makes no sense betting on individual stocks because eventually you will get burned. And nine times out of time a ETF/index fund will outperform your individual stocks as a whole.

I'm actually out of individual stocks because it just takes too much time to understand each company. I really like conservative allocation funds like VWINX. Vanguard has the best mutual funds and ETFs by far. They have very low cost funds as they are a non-profit company.

I've been travel now over a year living off my investment returns and its worked, but I know it won't last forever. Eventually the market is going to go to hell again. It is bound to happen within the next 5-8 years. And keep in mind that the market has done really well since 2009 and there really isn't that much room for it go grow. The S&P's all-time high is about 1550, right now it is around 1340. So it only have about 20% more to grow before it hits its all time peak. If it takes three years to get there that is only a 6-7% return a year. That is not super.

Anyway, just be careful. The market is run by greedy bastards who want to take your money.

^^^^
This

IMO, its more important to worry about a steady source of income to save. If you can secure some money each month, it will grow almost no matter what. The younger you are when you save, and the more you save, the more the market is going to work for you.

Personally, I'm only 27 but finally have started saving the past few years. This is what I do, and I think it's a pretty good model. Somebody else mentioned "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" which is a seminal book which basically explains that you're average person has no edge in the market, and in fact even the pros are lucky/unlucky, with almost no consist track records. Index funds will track large areas of markets for instant diversification. If you're young, own index funds following small capital and emerging markets. As you get older you can transfer your money to safer risk-adverse investments. I put my IRA money (comprising also my matching company contribution) in those index fund accounts.

Then, I have my "fun account". Its were I buy commodities like platinum and silver on whims. Buy some random stocks as well. I can be extra risky here because half of my money goes into my "safe" account. In this account I do more what G Manifesto advocates, and do more fun shit on whims. It keeps the gambler in my happy.

Just something that works for me.

Post: #23

E trade is a broker.

I like most of what you wrote. But i know individual can grown their wealth through active trading of stocks, forex, options, bonds, futures. I am doing that right now. It took years of study and hardwork. Of course, i also invest on the side. There is investing, there is swing trading, and there is day trading. I practice all three.

Re-reading this thread....I will strongly recommend "investors business daily". Also, check out their CANSLIM strategy.

SINCE you like DIVIDEND STOCKS, i will suggest "dogs of the dow" trading strategy.

http://www.dogsofthedow.com/

Just google "dogs of the dow" to read about it and other variations.

(02-03-2012 03:31 PM)PimpishMentality Wrote:  I've been investing for a minute and my first bit of feedback for you is don't waste your money on a broker.

And respectfully, contrary to other advice in this thread fuck mutual funds as well.

Investing with a broker or fund already starts you out in a hole because they are skimming fees off the top so you need to make that money back before you can see a profit. Funds are worse because you have no control over when a particular stock is bought or sold.

If you're serious about investing (ie, making it part of your lifestyle) then I'd suggest buying DRIPs and ADRs.

Most stocks you can buy direct from the company at substantially less cost than paying a broker and you have complete control of how/when the stock is bought or sold.

A DRIP is a Dividend Reinvestment Plan and the benefit of these is that they reinvest your dividends (normally at a couple of cents per share) buying more stocks so your portfolio grows even if you're not investing additional money.

US firms like Procter & Gamble, Tiffany, etc can be bought as DRIPs. Check out Dripinvestor dot com for a list of DRIPs.

ADRs are American Depository Receipts and you can buy these to gain stock in foreign companies all over the world to diversify your portfolio. An added benefit with ADRs is that some will pay dividends in their foreign currency which can give you an additional currency bump on your profits when the dollar is down.

Like DRIPs, ADRs will also allow you to reinvest your dividends at pennies per share.

You buy ADRs from US Banks that are authorized to buy/hold your shares. Check out Bank of New York and JP Morgan. Those two banks handle the majority of ADRs on the market.

Initial investment into most ADRs and DRIPs is $200 - $500. However, after the initial investment, each additional investment can be made from $50 - $500,000.

When you're interested in buying a stock, first check to see if it is being offered as an ADR or DRIP. It it isn't, then go over to Etrade and buy it. at $9.99 per trade it's still cheaper than a broker.

Additionally, now Etrade will allow you to reinvest your dividends.

The next thing that you need to do is determine your investment strategy. Unless you have a couple million laying around I'd suggest going with a growth and income strategy and purchase stocks that pay dividends.

Invest...every...month. AND LEAVE THE STOCKS ALONE! You're strategy to make money is...GROWTH...and you can't make any money if you're fucking around running off the cliff with the herd selling stocks every time the market takes a dip.

Invest with the expectation that you...may...sell shares on...TEN YEAR...periods.

Respectfully, disregard the anti stock comments. You have to...spend...money...to...make...money.

Make investing part of your lifestyle and sit back and watch your money make money for you.

Post: #24

Trading is a zero sum game. A more informed player wins over a less informed player. There is no value created or generated.
- Trading and Exchanges (Book)

Post: #25

(05-16-2011 12:45 AM)bigxxx Wrote:  A must read: 'a random walk down wall street' by Burton malkiel

It is considered an investing classic and offers some sober teachings on the investing industry

gonna check it out
http://rapidshare.com/files/122062284/A_...Street.pdf