Does anyone invest in stocks, bonds ?

looking into it and very interested. What is OT's look on it ?

lol no

lol no

CHOASXIII

Yeah. Bought some stocks in Ford @ 9 bucks just cashed em friday @ 14 bucks.Fightingfan

No. It was never even considered.

My IRA is invested entirely in index funds with a mix of stocks and bonds. That said, I see buying individual stocks without any broader strategy as basically akin to gambling.

My advice is this: buy the market. But a cheap and low cost index funds. One that follows the S&P or Dow. Spread out your purchases too - buy it like 3 times per year, every year to cost average. Unless you are warren buffet, you will not consistently beat the market.

I do, about 40% of the money I have goes into stocks and I trade once a month. Investing in stocks can give you higher returns with the money you already have than just putting them into bank accounts whose interest rates are far below that of the inflation rate. Knowing that my money loses value overtime due to inflation was a key motivation for me to start investing in stocks and funds. That of course comes with the risk of actually losing money, but that can be mitigated by educating yourself, researching your potential investments, having diverse investments, and not freaking out or being emotional over short / mid-term turmoil and losses.

Would I recommend it to someone who's living paycheck to paycheck? No.

Would I recommend it to someone who doesn't have much in his/her savings? No.

Would I recommend it to someone who has enough income to save a substanial amount and have already done so? Yes

My advice is this: buy the market. But a cheap and low cost index funds. One that follows the S&P or Dow. Spread out your purchases too - buy it like 3 times per year, every year to cost average. Unless you are warren buffet, you will not consistently beat the market.

sonicare

Im actually very interested in this...where can I learn more about the subject? also can this stuff be made from abroad?lightleggy

[QUOTE="Fightingfan"]Yeah. Bought some stocks in Ford @ 9 bucks just cashed em friday @ 14 bucks.-Renegade

A little. Not much of an authority on the matter unfortunately though. I hope to get more involved when I go off to college.

My IRA is invested entirely in index funds with a mix of stocks and bonds. That said, I see buying individual stocks without any broader strategy as basically akin to gambling.

superfluidity

looking into it and very interested. What is OT's look on it ?

Young_Charter

Senior services have been great to me over the past decade, and it's only going to get better as the baby boomers age. I've dropped about all my tech stocks except AMD (I'm a fan) and couldn't be happier.

Look for health care providers that cater to seniors, nursing homes, hospice care and so on.

A bit off topic, but is anyone on the I-bank or hedge fund track?

Like others have said, buying individual stocks is generally not a good idea.

I've made quite a bit of extra money purchasing OCZ and nVidia stock, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that i keep up on tech/computer news nearly every day and i can keep an eye out on products and patents a lot of tech companies plan. You generally want to do a lot of research into a company before you consider buying individual stock.

Mutual funds or ETFs will serve the average person better.

I got couple of thousands. So one day, I got bored and decided to play a little stock game in etrade.

A bit off topic, but is anyone on the I-bank or hedge fund track?

TacticalDesire

I have a 401k. It's doing suprisingly well. 2012 returns were near 10%.

A bit off topic, but is anyone on the I-bank or hedge fund track?

TacticalDesire

Well, technically when someone says I-banking they mean working with M&As, but I-banks do have large Sales/Trading and Asset Managment divisions (obviously).

I'm currenty in Asset Management, looking to eventually end up in HF (probably will do Equity Research first). I recommend going to WallStreetOasis.com to get some advice on landing an offer for a job/internship and more info on the different areas of finance.

With regards to the OP, just invest in an index fund. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT try to active manage if you have no idea what you're doing. You'll end up doing worst than the indices.

And for fvck sakes, if you want to actively invest, don't just by 1 or 2 stocks. Make a portfolio and diversify. Unless you like unnecessary risk with no reward to correspond to it.

I do. It can be a good source of income if you learn how to do it properly. But remember that the only reason some people make money is because a lot of people don't do it properly. In those cases, it's just another form of gambling.