The Investment Thread

In this thread we will discuss all things related to investments: securities, commodities, currency exchange, pertaining news articles, etc, as well as methods and ideas that will help create a new business and/or product.

 

I'm interested.
You start.....
?

 

An interesting article that I read the other day...

...

 

After reading that article, I've decided to adhere to those principles and see what kind of results I come up with.

I'm currently using Scottrade and have yet to delve in to commodities, dividends, bonds or options. In the near future, I plan on getting more into those means of exchange.

I'm currently holding positions in Lululemon Athletica Inc (LULU) and (SINA). Both of these stocks price per share have reached their 52 week high and are now retracting.

More news on LULU:

SINA is also overheating right now and will see a dip in price until the end of the week.

Other stocks that I am currently watching are (BIDU), (KKR), (SIRI), (MCP) as well as a few others that I will name later.

I frequent www.bloggingstocks.com , www.investors.com , and AOL Finance for my daily dose of news related information.

 

One of my favorite blogs to visit:

http://daytradingstockblog.blogspot.com/

 

Recently I've gotten into forex trading. For those of you unfamiliar its trading on foreign currency. That's a blog I usually get some good information from.
http://www.forexblog.org/

The only down fall to forex trading it's extremely volatile since you markets are constantly changing and require you to pay attention to the news daily. Slight political or economic shifts could mean hundreds of pips per day. You guys should check it out.

 

I'm going to have to look into this. Lulu lemon is huge out here. Thanks.

 

What has helped in the past choose some investments, which I enjoy at the same time because I like business in a general/academic sense, is to read. I read several magazines and newspapers everyday including your typical run of the mill Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, WSJ, etc. Even if they don't outright tip you off, a lot of time if you are receptive, you will pick things up between the lines that tell you, "look into this company."

 

Check out Black Enterprise as well fam. Its a great magazine they even give you five companies to look at every issue.

 

Yes indeed, I'm subscribed, as well as jet and ebony...I love to read, my mag rack is deep lol

 

How does everyone feel about the current stock bubble?

 

you beat me to the punch...I was gonna word it differently (more novice. I never got into trading) but isnt scary to get into due to the SEC fraud that has been rampant in the last few years

 

From the market trends i am looking at, i see the market being flat and then tanking within the next 3-6 months. Margins have been high; the main reason the market has been up; but there are a lot of market pressures such as the ECU rates increasing, the middle east crisis and the related gas and oil price spike, the weak job/wage growth. Add all of these together, and the situation is very similar to 2007. Once the margins start going down, the market will defintely start plummeting. I'd keep an eye on earnings report and profit margins.

Also keep in mind the very simple axiom, buy low and sell high. Now is not a time to find pricing at lows, necessarily, though there are some interesting markets out there that will do well even during the expected downturn.

Edit: Also keep in mind that there will be a heavy swath of budget cuts all through out the local and state governments. This will definitely impact spending and consumer confidence, leading to a market down turn. It's gonna be a vicious cycle.

 

So true but there has to be a way to capitalize on it. Maybe saving as much capital as possible so that we can profit on the coming downturn?

 

That's exactly right. I wish I would have been prepared for the economic downturn that bottomed out in March 2009. There was lots of money to be made from that.

In the midst of a downturn, you can profit by shorting the stocks you see most volatile to crashing. Shorting involves borrowing shares with the intent that they will go down in price and then profiting from it.

I have yet to do any shorting but am learning more about it each day. You will need a margin account in order to use this method.

In addition to shorting as the prices are falling, you can eventually accumulate tons of shares at a much lower price so that you get 200-300+% gains once they bounce back.

Some stocks still haven't bounced back since the market crash of 08-09.

 

I did something similar with by buying Sirius. I bought in at .30 cents a share and it's up 1.16 last time I checked. I'm only sorry I didn't buy in at .06 like I wanted to. I followed a friend's bad advice. I took the Warren Buffet approach to investing and invested in something I know and use. I banked on the fact that during a down turn people still need entertainment and if its not too expensive people will still get it. One of the many reasons FB is so huge and valued at 50 billion.

 

There are a lot more regs around short selling after the last market crash; much harder to do.

 

Has anybody dabbled in currency trading? Any recs?

 

Yeah I've dabbled in Forex trading. Its very time consuming but you have way more leverage to work with. You thinking about it?

 

As long as Employment/Unemployment stats aren't working in our favor, the market is going to bleed. All the bull years have something(s) that drives that growth, well we don't have anything to drive that growth, be it truth like growth and expansion, or fake like the technology bubble.

Speaking of bubbles...one that has much potential, school loans. All those subsidized and unsubsidized loans that people aren't necessarily capitalizing on by finishing school or making enough income to offset the initial investment into themselves. I don't know if this debt as a whole has the end game volatility like the housing bust, but as I read things don't look good in that specific area. Plus we've already had the school v. work debate which plays heavily into this topic...