School me on how to buy stocks

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JR

JR

Pissed off senior member.
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Ok, I have been thinking about it for a long time but it is one of those things that when I start reading about it I loose interest and end up back here reading about cars so say I had a few extra Franklin's and I wanted to invest in a really cheap (at the moment) auto company for ***** and giggles just to see what happens with it later in my lifetime. How would I go about doing so (in car guy terms) without paying some overpriced jackass in an office 50 bucks a month to tell me that I'm still broke?
 
at 82 cents a share GM looks good but there in bankruptcy and a common share holder could lose it all. try one of the online companys like etrade or scotttrade
 
Don't talk to the financial analyst I used to bowl with. Couple of years ago he was really talking up XM Radio and how it was just getting ready to take off. Long story short, the $1000 I put into it is now worth $45.
It took off alright, right to the crapper!
 
thank howard stern for that mess xm and siruis but there is acouple of nice banks i like citi being one of them bank of america and wells fargo the other solar companies are kewl too like evergreen solar and canadian solar
 
When I saw that the economy was in trouble I dumped all my retirement into a Money Market account and didn't lose a dime. Actually made a little over the last couple of years. I am sure you have heard stories of friends and family losing half of their retirement. My parents lost about 40%. Right now all of my retirement is going into a freedom fund. It is cool seeing your money grow $2K a day every so often. My advice is to invest and make sure you monitor it every week or so, but don't move it very often because of the fees involved. My only advice is to do a little homework and watch the market trends. Right now is a great time to invest if you can.
 
blackjax said:
at 82 cents a share GM looks good but there in bankruptcy and a common share holder could lose it all. try one of the online companys like etrade or scotttrade
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Yeah that. Etrade is a good one. If you want to make money in the stock market just look at what i am doing and then do the complete opposite.
 
yea ive been thinking of doing this also but then lost intrest. and the thought of losing money turned me off but i might give it a go again
 
Don't buy stocks if you are afraid of loosing all of your money. Invest in a Mutual fund since it can't go to 0.

GM probably isn't the best buy since the government will own 60%. As you know the government is not very good at running businesses, hence Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
 
There is alot to know about stocks before investing.You can get an account online (I use scottade) for free. Sign up and take your time watching different stocks, you don't have to invest just to watch.Get some books and learn as much as you can, knowledge is power.If you are unable or don't want to keep a close eye on your investments then you should hire someone to do it for you. Don't get emotional and use your head. Now is a great time to start.Good luck and have fun.
 
I do all my own investing online through one of the Canadian banks and pay $9 per transaction, I'm sure the U.S. banks offer the same thing. Shop around as the price to buy and sell varies from $30 to $9 per transaction (whether you buy 1 or 1000 shares). Actually as far as I'm concerned there are only 2 areas of investment, for the near future, that I would recommend and they are oil company stocks eg. Exxon/Mobil and corporate bonds. I don't think that oil is finshed it's climb as the summer driving season is here and the Saudis are holding production to existing numbers so oil will continue to rise therefore oil company stocks will follow. Also, the Chinese and Indian economies are starting to recover and they will be the driver when it comes to oil demand in the long range. If you're going to buy corporate bonds go for 5-10 yrs that pay 6-8% yearly (yea they're out there) from companies that are going to be around for the next 10 yrs. This obviously means stay the hell away from financial institution bonds, car company bonds and I think you can guess the rest. I invested heavily in canadian oil companies starting 4 months ago when they're stocks were cheap the price for a barrel of oil was way down and I've almost recovered to where I was before the crap hit the fan last year. I'm still big time into bonds and for the long range that ain't going to change.

Terry
 
Investing in a car company now is speculative, so use your play money, no serious money. My wife and I invest in no-load mutual funds for retirement. Most fund companies (Janus, Vanguard, Dodge & Cox, hundreds more...) offer low, medium, and high risk funds. Let the experts work for you. You can view thousands of funds' returns and risk ratings on www.morningstar.com
That said, we lost about 40% of our retirement in the meltdown, and about 30-35% of our kids college money. I'm not holding our fund companies responsible, it damn near happened to everyone across the board. Badart, you're a lucky dawg for bailing out when you did!
 
Invest in mutual funds. Even in a down market the funds re-invest dividends so you gain shares and when the markets rebound you have greater wealth. Age plays a role in how much risk you should expose yourself to.
 
Scamp: You ask about a good way to buy stocks. We've heard some advice on stocks to buy and who they use but not really how so this is for you Scamp. I use Charles Schwab and have signed up for a Schwab 1 account. With this tool you can and will send them funds to place in this account. You can also get checks and write em at your liesure on the funds placed in the account if you need it around the house. Till that time it sets there in the account and does gain interest but is available instantly to do a trade should you decide on doing so. You will talk to a broker and let them know what you want to do. They WILL NOT give you any advice on what to buy but can give you stats on past performance of a particular stock. Be sure of your terminolgy because you can get in over your head. The broker will repeat back the order you have placed so listen well. When you send funds to place in your account you will be able to have a margin account on that same money. Dont just consider buy stock. There maybe more money made selling stock you dont own while it's losing it's butt and that's where the margin account comes into play. Digest that for now Scamp and let me know if you need more. Dont think dollars, think percentage.
Small Block
 
Small Block said:
Scamp: You ask about a good way to buy stocks. We've heard some advice on stocks to buy and who they use but not really how so this is for you Scamp. I use Charles Schwab and have signed up for a Schwab 1 account. With this tool you can and will send them funds to place in this account. You can also get checks and write em at your liesure on the funds placed in the account if you need it around the house. Till that time it sets there in the account and does gain interest but is available instantly to do a trade should you decide on doing so. You will talk to a broker and let them know what you want to do. They WILL NOT give you any advice on what to buy but can give you stats on past performance of a particular stock. Be sure of your terminolgy because you can get in over your head. The broker will repeat back the order you have placed so listen well. When you send funds to place in your account you will be able to have a margin account on that same money. Dont just consider buy stock. There maybe more money made selling stock you dont own while it's losing it's butt and that's where the margin account comes into play. Digest that for now Scamp and let me know if you need more. Dont think dollars, think percentage.
Small Block
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There's quite a bit of risk to playing with margins and selling short, if things don't go your way you can called on the margin and have to come up with the cash to cover the margin. If you don't have the cash you'll have to sell stock you do have and probably at a loss. On the other hand if things do go your way your golden x 2 :-D

I've been on both ends of da shtik :munky2:
 
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