Stocks

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I'm sure it'll pay off in the long run. It's a huge conglomerate of medical companies.

You can count on everyone getting sicker and sicker, that's for sure.

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It was $5 I bought some to see what happened, then it dropped to $2.20 I bought more having heard Mullaly talk about them having prepared for this and retooling factories and new generation Hybrids next year. January in the big drop it hit $1 by the time I got home and money in my account it was $1.60, I bought more

Great way to do it, as long as the company is not in trouble. It's positive actions that make money from stocks.

38% is a large gain and a true trader would take the profit and wait.

I always remember some analyst on CNBC in 2000 saying this economic downturn could last 15 years. Well, we're into the ninth year!

P.S. I buy shares when they're high and sell when they hit the bottom, panic when I see them shooting up, buy at the top, panic when they drop and sell at the new bottom. It's better than computer games.

I started dabbling in the UK stock market just over 12mths ago ... made a few £s, and racked up a whole load of paper losses (at least I don't have to sell - yet).

What I can't get over are the number of times I get it wrong. When I sell, having made a few £s, the price invariably rises. Yet when I hold the price drops - every time.

Still, there is one positive side to all of this: as I said to my wife, if I spend our money on Naim equipment I'm likely to lose less. So far I've bought a SuperNait and a Fraim (base + 3) this year so that's £4k+ I haven't lost on the stock market!

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I buy shares when their high and sell when they hit the bottom, panic when I see them shooting up, buy at the top, panic when they drop and sell at the new bottom. It's better than computer games.

You must be very rich, or poor!
Joking aside the art of successful trading is to be completely unemotional about it count.d.

I started moving cash back into equities at the beginning of the year,
having sold out & moved to cash & gold in Oct' 2006.
I've been drip feeding the cash in to shares & my gains are about 6% in the three months.

There are lots of good companies with solid order books & no debt &/or good cash reserves out there.
Their shares have been dragged down in the carnage & are crazily undervalued.
However there are also lots of poorly run companies with dwindling orders & large debts to service.
IMHO many of these will fail in the next year or two,
so it's not the time to invest in tracker funds or in a scatter gun style.

For those thinking property might be a good investment prospect this article is worth reading.

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You must be very rich, or poor!
Joking aside the art of successful trading is to be completely unemotional about it count.d.

It used to bother me in 2000 if I got things wrong, but I've learned not to be affected. I genuinely do it for a bit of fun and if I make a bit of money, all the better. For the past seven years, I never chase a rising stock, nor catch a falling knife.

With hindsight from the (bye now) well known Swedish bank crisis of the early 1990's. Buy bank stocks, they are ultra cheap right now and in a couple of years the banks will again make obscene amount of money.

JohanR

I don't agree JohanR, because the causes & nature of the two crisis are very different.

No doubt the the time to invest in banks will come,
but US analyst Mike Mayo said just yesterday that banks are heading for more trouble.
He reckons that “mortgage losses may be halfway to the peak.”
But “card and consumer losses may only be about one-third of the way and industrial,
and commercial real estate problems (except construction) seem in the early stages.”

In other words, the banks have still to feel the worst impact of consumers and companies going bust.
On top of this, in the longer run,
they’ll face “lower revenues” (less loans and fees) and “higher expenses” (more oversight costs).
That’s not to mention that they’re likely to have to maintain “permanently higher capital and reserve levels” in the future,
meaning they’ll be less profitable.

IMO banks along with other whole sectors (e.g. retail) should be avoided when buying shares for the time being.

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Originally posted by 555:

For those thinking property might be a good investment prospect this article is worth reading.

What a superficial and pointless article. I can't see what her maternity leave has to do with it and therefore can't see why she mentions it. Is it really that interesting? I think she has a case of "mummy-brain". I guess she was due back at work and had to come up with something. In fairness, the screaming $h!+ machine she just brought home is likely limiting her to 3 hours' sleep a night so at least she has an excuse.

You've missed the point winky.
Merryn is the chief ed' of Money Week & has just returned from maternity leave,
so in the article she's contrasting now with what was going on six months ago.
Merryn has a great track record of correctly predicting events.
She called the property crash, oil prices on the way up & down, sub-prime & resulting the credit squeeze, etc.

You're probably right. I didn't like her tone, so thus the rant. The article seemed mainly anecdotal and thin on research and analysis, though. Is she a journalist or a finance professional?

I stand by my comment on the SSM .

well I"ve certainly had my share of buy high, it goes up gets me excited, then DROPS. This ford thing was just good timing and not because I am a great investor, not with all my red numbers. But slowly things are getting better.

I certainly do have more bond funds now than I did a year ago. I also look at Mutual Funds charts and they're doing the same thing as the 2000 bust. It took a year leveling out, but started back up tho I'm sure it's not going to have the rapid rise of the past decade.

I'm not as aggressive as I was. I do tend to buy stocks that have a dividend so as the year goes on each quarter they buy more of the stock.

I've heard of cost averaging. Buying the stocks regularly whether it's going up or going down. Simply because most people, and that means some knowledgable advisors, miss bottom of market and when to sell at the top. I have several Index Funds in the US, European and world markets, They're certainly cheaper than aggressive managed stocks that can even fail in good times. but it sure takes an iron stomach to go thru drops.

My best friend that reads the Economist has advised me I've done as much as possible, "now turn off the computer and go read for the next year." I think he's right.