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A nice little 4% pop on NOK on this news, i guess: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120425-710230.html
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Apr 25, 2012 16:39
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Pitnicker posted:You might remember me as the guy with the crazy situation of having pretty much every penny to his name invested in AAPL over the last four years during its meteoric rise.
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Apr 25, 2012 17:23
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Ulf posted:They do it by not having every penny to their name in the market, much less in a single stock, are you insane. Haha, yes, I am insane. I won't reiterate how I ended up in the situation (see my other posts in the thread if you're curious), but once I was the financial crisis happened and I just didn't see any better options for my money. It was foolhardy and I'll never do it again.
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Apr 25, 2012 18:16
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Pitnicker posted:Haha, yes, I am insane. I won't reiterate how I ended up in the situation (see my other posts in the thread if you're curious), but once I was the financial crisis happened and I just didn't see any better options for my money. It was foolhardy and I'll never do it again. If I were you, I'd just tell everyone that I'm psychic.
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Apr 25, 2012 18:26
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KO announcing a stock split, Exxon increasing Dividends....good time to be long blue chips.
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Apr 25, 2012 19:37
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imabmf posted:KO announcing a stock split, Exxon increasing Dividends....good time to be long blue chips. About three months ago I was deciding between KO and MCD. Dammit.
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Apr 25, 2012 20:37
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Pitnicker posted:Hello thread. Just a quick tip, read up on the 3 Peaks and a Dome Pattern and check what Stock Trader's Almanac has been saying over the past few months. I went short a month ago and continue to stay short. In terms of stress, shorting is much more difficult because your gains are capped but losses are open.
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Apr 25, 2012 21:06
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evilwaldo posted:Just a quick tip, read up on the 3 Peaks and a Dome Pattern and check what Stock Trader's Almanac has been saying over the past few months. Losses are technically capped at 100% unless you're margin trading, but with a company like AAPL you're never going to lose 100%. (Still treat all stocks like you could technically lose it all though..) The last two weeks were a little heart wrenching for me, but I'm back to doing pretty okay after today  .
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Apr 25, 2012 21:09
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Well your loses are not really capped except by the fact that your broker will liquidate your assets when your account reaches zero or your margin borrowing limit for you. If you had enough assets in the account this could never happen.
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Apr 25, 2012 22:20
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Inverse Icarus posted:About three months ago I was deciding between KO and MCD. I threw a ton of money into VTV
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Apr 26, 2012 00:03
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COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:I always tell people not to invest in an index but to invest in 6 or 7 great companies for the long-term. Do you not believe in specific risk? 
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Apr 26, 2012 12:45
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Fuschia tude posted:Do you not believe in specific risk? I actually honestly believe it is a better strategy with a higher probability of giving you good returns as long as you're not an impulsive retard. But I fully realize that this belief is like a religion belief, and not backed up by anything besides hearsay and personal experience. v  v.
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Apr 26, 2012 13:13
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Is anyone still following STVI? Pump and dump or a company with actual potential?
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Apr 26, 2012 17:32
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Rurutia posted:I actually honestly believe it is a better strategy with a higher probability of giving you good returns as long as you're not an impulsive retard. It also has a higher probability of leaving you in tatters. What if one of your 6-7 "great companies" was Enron, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, or Freddie Mac ? Or any other "great company" that has turned out to be not-so-great. With that few stocks in your long-term portfolio, you expose yourself to a lot of risk. Your personal experiences might not include owning a large chunk of a company that went bankrupt (or near it), but don't think you're immune to it.
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Apr 26, 2012 19:38
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flowinprose posted:It also has a higher probability of leaving you in tatters. What if one of your 6-7 "great companies" was Enron, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, or Freddie Mac ? Or any other "great company" that has turned out to be not-so-great. With that few stocks in your long-term portfolio, you expose yourself to a lot of risk. Your personal experiences might not include owning a large chunk of a company that went bankrupt (or near it), but don't think you're immune to it. I feel like I made it abundantly clear that I'm aware of the risks and that my beliefs are tenuous and based on no firm grounding or backing. That was the entire point of my post. With that said, while I don't believe I'm immune to leaving myself in tatters, I do believe that it is possible (and that I have) construct a strong enough portfolio with this strategy that even if I do get left in tatters, being in an index fund won't do me much better either because then it is indicative of more systematic problems that is hitting across the board. When it comes down to it, I agree with most of the theory behind why index investing is a smart choice. Diversification and riding the market, is definitely a great hands off approach. But it just seems like to me that this is more helpful for people who may have issues with self-sabotage when having more control over their portfolio vs someone who is able to stick to their investment plan (when to buy in and when to get out). I think one day, when I really have time to delve deeper into this, I will read more recent papers than the books I have gone through. But as it is, this is just what I have gathered from what I have read. I'm always welcome to being educated by more hard evidence.
Rurutia fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Apr 26, 2012 |
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Apr 26, 2012 19:43
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Rurutia posted:I feel like I made it abundantly clear that I'm aware of the risks and that my beliefs are tenuous and based on no firm grounding or backing. That was the entire point of my post. With that said, while I don't believe I'm immune to leaving myself in tatters, I do believe that it is possible (and that I have) construct a strong enough portfolio with this strategy that even if I do get left in tatters, being in an index fund won't do me much better either because then it is indicative of more systematic problems that is hitting across the board. Yeah, this is how I feel. I think what you give up in risk you make up for in profits and vice versa. If you diversify too much, you risk cancelling out profits. People are naturally risk averse so each strategy depends on a person's risk tolerability and how much time they want to spend on their investments. But yeah, things happen like Enron or MF Global. Hopefully you would be diverse enough to withstand such a crazy event.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:23
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COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:I think what you give up in risk you make up for in profits and vice versa. That's the whole point. Risk is going to be inversely related to return. Lower profits from diversification equal lower risk. Unless you have information the market does not, or you feel you can somehow beat the S&P (you probably can't), you are better off with a index fund because your risk exposure is going to be through the roof.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:44
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Since it's related, and since a bunch of people have been called crazy in the last few pages, I'm just going to post some thoughts here. Please let me know if I am crazy. I really like the idea of owning a piece of a company directly, and I like the ability to balance my portfolio a bit. Throw some more money into T over VZ if I think AT&T is going to do better soon, investing in VMWare because I love their products, little things like that. There is some emotion here, and I haven't ever really done a thorough technical analysis. I only started investing about a year ago. My dad tried to get me interested in markets when I was a kid, even bought me some mutual funds and had me check on it every so often in the WSJ, but I didn't care and just played video games. I wish I had paid more attention, and now I'm playing a lot of catch up. I read several of the books recommended in the OP and decided that I was moderately risk adverse, but still wanted to buy stocks directly. I settled on a portfolio which is mostly dividend stocks in the Dow. I checked out "Dogs of the Dow" and all that, and I didn't really like the idea of investing in the top 5 or bottom 5 or whatever, I just invested in things I felt that I knew or understood, products/services I like, and things I see as "not going anywhere". That last bit is extremely subjective, and I'm not sure even I have a definition about it. My modest portfolio is currently filled with shares of T, VZ, MRK, PFE, KFT, INTC, GE, VMW, and MCD. I work at Cisco and received RSUs and participate in the employee stock purchase plan, so every so often I get a block of shares of CSCO as well, but usually I sell them immediately and invest in other companies. From when I started, all of my stocks are up except MCD which I bought recently, so obviously I'm happy about my decisions. I consider myself a long-term investor. I'm not looking to buy AAPL today and flip it tomorrow. While I'm sure many people make tons of money doing that, I can't stomach it. I'm fine letting a stock sit and reinvesting dividends. I've begun thinking that I'm even more risk adverse than I had thought originally. Even though I claim to be a long-term investor, I check the stocks a lot. Like, I usually have a google finance window open at all times on another monitor in my office while I'm working. There's no real REASON for this, I don't think I'd ever see something on that screen and immediately go "I NEED TO SELL ALL MY VERIZON!", but for some reason I feel compelled to constantly check. I'm beginning to think that this is because I'm terrified the money will up and evaporate, and maybe I should be looking into ETFs or Mutual Funds instead of my current strategy. Am I crazy? Does anyone have suggestions or tips for someone in my position? Someone who's new and still feeling everything out? I've done well enough so far with my choices, but really that was luck / the economy happening to improve while I was investing.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:53
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Cheesemaster200 posted:Unless you have information the market does not, or you feel you can somehow beat the S&P (you probably can't), you are better off with a index fund because your risk exposure is going to be through the roof. Yeah pretty much this is what I'm thinking.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:54
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Cheesemaster200 posted:Unless you have information the market does not, or you feel you can somehow beat the S&P (you probably can't), you are better off with a index fund because your risk exposure is going to be through the roof. This has pretty much been my super safe investment strategy. Obviously, "safety" is relative, but my long term savings is not something I want to gamble with. That said, I also have a "short term" account through which I do my market research, and dive into riskier, but potentially more profitable investments. Over the course of about two years, I'm only slightly higher than even. Probably should have gone the safe-but-stable route for that as well.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:54
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COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:But yeah, things happen like Enron or MF Global. Hopefully you would be diverse enough to withstand such a crazy event. This is exactly the point, though, you aren't diverse enough with only 6-7 stocks. It doesn't even take a company going broke... what if a couple of your picks remain stagnant for years at a time (see Cisco, Google, Microsoft, etc). If you had a $1,000,000 portfolio, you'd have at least $140,000+ in a single company. Investing long-term with retirement as the goal, this is simply too large of a risk to take. I mean don't get me wrong, I pick stocks some myself (which is why I read this thread)... but I don't do it with my retirement savings. It's more of a hobby (or a gambling problem?). In response to Rurutia, you can never get rid of systematic risk. You technically still have that even if all you own is a single stock. What you can get rid of is specific risk, which is the risk associated with owning such a small portfolio. However, an odd thing happens as you eliminate specific risk... it turns out that your returns start to mimic the market as a whole. Why not save yourself some time and fees and just own the market as a whole as inexpensively as possible by buying index funds? I realize you probably understand all of this perfectly well. I just wonder at your sanity if you're doing it with your retirement savings.
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Apr 26, 2012 21:03
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In theory the benefits of diversification depend on the correlation within the markets. In the current environment with most stocks moving in lockstep, then having a portfolio of 20 stocks would probably produce the same diversification benefit as having 50 or more would produce in normal times. Another issue, of course, is the distribution of returns; an individual stock is more likely to go to zero than infinity, but between those the shape of the distribution is perhaps less well understood. As such, I do think there is room to make individual stock selections with at least part of your portfolio; individuals positions are not necessarily for knowing what the market doesn't know, but could be for caring about what the market doesn't care about.
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Apr 26, 2012 21:08
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flowinprose posted:This is exactly the point, though, you aren't diverse enough with only 6-7 stocks. It doesn't even take a company going broke... what if a couple of your picks remain stagnant for years at a time (see Cisco, Google, Microsoft, etc). I'm kind of curious as to where I said that I was trying to get rid of systematic risk. I'm not, it's impossible. That's why it's systematic. I honestly just disagree with when people say: Cheesemaster200 posted:your risk exposure is going to be through the roof. (The implication that your risk rises exponentially much faster than your potential profit.) I think there are a lot of factors to consider here, and this is quite a blanket statement to make. I'm not currently planning on (and don't) have $50k+ in one company. I make decisions as the need arises and I keep myself as diversified as necessary, but in a weighted manner and not just with quantity. But I strongly believe that if I just do what everyone else does, it's the nature of the market that I will barely beat inflation, if at all. That's really all you're doing by owning 'the entire market'. And if that's the case, I might as well live it up right now, buy some houses to rent out, and live off of that for my retirement. (or die early and enjoy my life) To conclude, I'm young, and I have a ton of time to learn and make mistakes. If I was closer to my retirement by a couple more decades, I would probably much less nonchalant about it. But with that said, by then hopefully I'd also have the experience and knowledge to still be good with having total control over what I invest in. edit Hobologist posted:individuals positions are not necessarily for knowing what the market doesn't know, but could be for caring about what the market doesn't care about. I just want to say that understanding this is what I have come to learn in my investments. VVV Also, this is very true. That is to say, I am currently very poor and will continue to be for the foreseeable future barring one of my investments taking off like I think it might. Rurutia fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Apr 26, 2012 |
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Apr 26, 2012 21:10
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You should be able to do just fine with 6-7 well researched stocks. Unless you spend all your time researching stocks you wont be able to do your homework well enough to pick out more. Holding more than around 10 individual stocks wont provide decent diversification as you will have trouble doing your own fact checking and as someone else put it, why go with your 10th or 11th best idea? If you don't want to put in the research effort an index is probably the way to go.
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Apr 26, 2012 21:14
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Wow, I certainly dodged a bullet by dumping my CHK a few months ago.
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Apr 26, 2012 21:14
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Rurutia posted:I'm kind of curious as to where I said that I was trying to get rid of systematic risk. I'm not, it's impossible. That's why it's systematic. Sorry, I wasn't implying that you were trying to get rid of it. I was just pointing out that it is still there while adding substantial specific risk on top of it by owning such a small portfolio.
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Apr 26, 2012 21:25
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So glad I bought AMZN on the dip a couple weeks ago.
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Apr 26, 2012 22:59
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minute posted:So glad I bought AMZN on the dip a couple weeks ago. Same. Anyone have any input on the AIG warrants, I've never done any option type trading, I was thinking on buying some for my IRA.
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Apr 26, 2012 23:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIMwMsY0ndo Stop trading and start investing kids.
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Apr 27, 2012 01:26
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cremnob posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIMwMsY0ndo that dude seems awfully upset about those numbers
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Apr 27, 2012 02:44
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Inverse Icarus posted:that dude seems awfully upset about those numbers Looks like he's down 25k. Probably went into the weekend with a big position and expected only a small gap down. That's what you get for doing that. I could never handle that risk and it would ruin my whole weekend because I would be obsessed over it.
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Apr 27, 2012 04:10
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idolmind86 posted:Wow, I certainly dodged a bullet by dumping my CHK a few months ago. Same here. I lost a little money on it, but drat natural gas is in a horrible position. There needs to be a massive change in natural gas usage and infrastructure if it's ever going to turn around. More NG power production, more LNG freighters/pipelines to ship internationally, more homes using NG for heat, and maybe crazy stuff like more NG powered cars. CHK might be in a decent position in 20 years.
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Apr 27, 2012 09:40
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scavok posted:and maybe crazy stuff like more NG powered cars If I may: fuel cell cars go commercial in 2015 (despite the fact that media attention on them has died off in the past decade) almost all commercial hydrogen comes from steam-reformed NG but yeah, that's a while away, and whether or not it's a long shot depends on whom you ask
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Apr 27, 2012 14:22
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As soon as Cummins gets natural gas fleets that are cheaper to operate then diesel, demand will be fine. The commercial fleet gets replaced around every 7 years. I love natural gas as a power source. Eventually Israel or Iran will nuke the other one too so it has that going for it.
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Apr 27, 2012 14:39
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scavok posted:Same here. I lost a little money on it, but drat natural gas is in a horrible position. There needs to be a massive change in natural gas usage and infrastructure if it's ever going to turn around. More NG power production, more LNG freighters/pipelines to ship internationally, more homes using NG for heat, and maybe crazy stuff like more NG powered cars. CHK might be in a decent position in 20 years. We need to cut back on supply. It is just insane that we pump it out of the ground only to store it back underground because we have so much. Just stop producing so much in the first place. I can't see the price rising by much until demand destruction takes place.
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Apr 27, 2012 14:44
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evilwaldo posted:I can't see the price rising by much until demand destruction takes place. But demand destruction won't take place until there are higher prices. God I love gambling on catch-22s.
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Apr 27, 2012 16:07
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What the hell STX and WDC.....
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Apr 27, 2012 16:43
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bam thwok posted:But demand destruction won't take place until there are higher prices. God I love gambling on catch-22s. My bad, I meant supply destruction. We have to lower production in order for inventories to fall.
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Apr 27, 2012 16:49
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MrBigglesworth posted:What the hell STX and WDC..... Falling prices, I suppose. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-27/western-digital-plunges-on-price-cut-report-los-angeles-mover.html Also, I know everyone loves apple earnings, but amazon also crushed it. edit: also this OIBR that we have decided to march from 14 to 18 in two weeks. This was supposed to be a dividend thing 
Turkeybone fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Apr 27, 2012 |
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Apr 27, 2012 17:17
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evilwaldo posted:My bad, I meant supply destruction. We have to lower production in order for inventories to fall. You could always buy some futures contracts on US gas, then hire a couple of Nigerians to blow up a pipeline. There might be a few minor laws against that, though.
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Apr 27, 2012 18:23
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