Off Topic, Investments

[Geoman]

I just got back home and found the bottom blew out today on seven of the ten stocks I own, DARN. I know they will recover, but heck, it ticks me off. Anyone here dabble in stocks/bonds? Turtle was supposedly good in stocks but the bully Paul kicked his butt and now there's no one to play with...... THANKS FOR NOTHING PAUL!

On the serious side, the newsgroups are jokes on this topic, so I thought some here who are precision type thinkers (seriously, some of the BEST tradesmen in the world have been on this newsgroup over the years, and there are some GREAT people sharing daily on here now as well!! So, maybe these who are the best of the best in the HVAC tech world is also or could become the best in the market and share their insights concerning investing and web links. It would be interesting to see Marc go against others on this group, such as Paul, Mike, Fish and others!!! Man, that would be interesting to see how everyone thinks concerning the market. Marc, if your reading this, are you as good in stocks as you are in HVAC-R?

My sites I enjoy are:

[Bubba]

Ive dabbled in them for a long time however, Im much more comfortable with mutual funds. They've done me quite well over the years. The only single stock I still own is P&G and it also has done very well for very long. Bubba

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

Ditto on the above.

I'm into several mutual funds, fact is I re-allocated just today as some of them weren't performing to my expectations.

[gofish]

Hey Rich, A computer dood I know is telling me about a local So Cal Bank stock that a few months ago was in the penny stocks, & now its up to $3-$4, and this guy is saying if he gets the contract he's expecting, his game plan is to run the stock up to $24 or so by yr's end. One aspect of his biz deals with CC processing for the various banks. I'll get the name of the stock & let you know......

[Geoman]

YES, nothing like inside info :-)

For a beginner I haven't been doing too bad. I was up 43% but I got tripped up in the learning stage last Feb 26, and wasn't watching them. They'll come back but you can't recover the loss, its gone, have to look to the future.

Thanks, Fish Rich

[Joseph]

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify...

and don't forget to take profits...

I have done OK by not putting it all in one basket so to speak. Only bad beat I had was WorldCom/MCI, road it all the way into the ground. Moved some money into blue-chips, 1st of this year, up

6.68% (IBM, GE and AT&T). I must say that even these blue chips have been on a roller coaster in this current market. Remember advice is cheap, look at the facts to make your decisions. Most of the time your guess is as good as anybody elses, as I recall throwing darts will beat the advice of most experts anyway.

YMMV, Joseph

[Wes]

Do you want to "dabble" in the market, or do you want to invest with some long-term goal in mind?

When I dabbled, I did silly things like buying more and more Lucent (LU) as its price shot up to over $80. Then it shot down, and I rode it all the way to $2 before I finally sold.

For my "investments" for the most part, I use low-cost index mutual funds that offer broad market exposure. You would not do wrong by putting your money in Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index and Total Bond Market Index and letting it ride. The allocation between these two would have more effect on long-term performance that any other factor.

I've done very well in REITs but some of the bloom is off that rose, although I still have positions in SPG and MAC. I used to also have GGP, which is nearly a twin to SPG. I sold it and some of my SPG to limit my investment in this area to no more that 5% of my total portfolio. In hindsight, keeping GGP and selling SPG would have be a slightly better move, but with dividend reinvestment, I'm still up over 500%, with a per share cost basis of -$24/share!

BTW, this personal 5% rule of mine would have me (or you) owning no fewer than 20 stocks if I was investing only in individual issues.

IMHO, there is way too much emphasis put on "beating the market". If your goal is to have $XX when you need it and you can achieve that goal by realizing 90% of the market's return with lower risk, isn't that enough? Who cares whether you "beat" the next guy?

You must decide: are you engaged in a competitive sport or are you investing for your future?

Regards,

Wes

[Noon-Air]

Too bad, I only had 2 shares of LU when it crashed, and when it got down to $0.58/share, I bought $500 more. :-) Dividends are re-invested. I have also been holding a bunch of AT&T, Comcast, Wyeth(started out as American Home Products), BP Oil, Exxon, and several others.

I am waiting for interest rates to go up again to buy into Ginnie Mae again.

Its not about "beating" anything, its about long term investment, and when I get closer to retirement, putting it into a managed no-load fund to get the income, and not having to worry with it.

[Joseph]

You might want to look at equity-indexed annuities for safe investment into the market(from reading your post you may already know about it). They seem to be a very good transition from risk as we get older and need less growth and more security.

Joseph

[Joseph]

Recently read the "keys to superior returns" is "fees and asset allocation", which I believe means diversify and stay away from loaded funds or high cost trades. Definitely watch out for loads and hidden fees. for the smaller investors it can be very detrimental to the long term growth and profits. One thing I haven't done yet and want to look into further is stock purchases directly from the company itself.

Joseph

[Noon-Air]

Joseph,

Most companies will sell direct once you own 1 share.... a lot of the other have a small buy in to get the initial shares....some as low as $250. Check into AAII, the fee is small, but they periodically send out a magazine that in different issues list all of the companies that you can buy direct, and in other issues list all of the mutual finds, etc. Its well worth the bucks to join.

[Wes]

Good for you.

Why wait? The best time to buy is when you have money.

When I refer to beating the market, this is the mantra of most fund managers and their advertising. I'm simply suggesting that this metric be avoided. And of course, on average more than half of the managed funds do worse than the market, when management fees are included.

So, I don't believe that you can invest in managed funds and quit worrying; then you have to start worrying about the manager(s).

Wes

[Joseph]

thanks

[Geoman]

Broker comparisons and charges

[Geoman]

I keep hearing about 'take profits', what exactly does one mean by that? I thought that was the intent of buying stocks? Are you suggesting to get out of a stock when it goes up a certain percentage, even though it may have another 30% ?

Rich

[Joseph]

Yes at times I think you should.

If I buy a stock and it's good... up 20% and may still keep going up. I will sell off the 20% it went up and keep the original capitol investment in place, let it continue to grow? Sometimes I may sell 50% and hold the rest and even sometimes take it all out(depends on the stock). It is a way to protect against drops but it also has a way of limiting some potential profits too. The profits taken can then be considered capital gain to be saved or used in future markets.

If you buy a stock and it goes up 50% and then down 25%, you really only see a stock that went up 25% the other 25% was lost. If you had taken 50% in profit, you are happier with the 25% drop...

400 + (50% x 400) = 600 - (25% x 600) = 450 400 + (50% x 400) = 600 - (25% x 400) = 500

YMMV, Joseph