Hi all -
I’m starting to get interested in trading stocks and mutual funds and I was wondering if there is anyone else around here who has the same interest. “Hobby” is not quite the right word, as that implies I have the money to blow on playing around! But I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on useful sites and things to think about when choosing an investment.
Bought my first penny stock today, woohoo! 
Please be careful with your investments and I would advise you getting professional investment advise, no disrespect meant to anyone on C&F.
I took advise form a great friend of mine when I worked in Pharmaceutical Research. I bought shares of some stock for $124.00 per share. Now its like $3.24 per share.
Just be careful.
Keith
My husband is a really big fan of the Motley Fool website:
http://www.fool.com
I know more about investments than I would like to admit on a public board. First thing I am going to do is slap your hand with a virtual ruler because you are looking for investment advice on a public forum, and you bought a penny stock. So-called investors that do one or the other or both, lose money over the long term an overwhelming percentage of the time. You might beat the odds, but you are off to shaky start.
Investments are a funny thing. Most other products sell better when they are on sale. Stocks sell better when they are higher in price, and more popular. Some people that spend six weeks researching the purchase of a microwave oven that cost $200 will purchase $5000 worth of stock on a hot tip from a stranger.
I learned long ago to stay away from giving advice. The few times I bent that rule, I either became frustrated or regretted it. So I will stay on that track, no advice. Good luck to you.
Hey, I never said I wanted people’s secrets or to be told what to buy. Lay off, will ya? Sheesh, nevermind.
Jen F, thank you very much for the useful reply. That’s more the sort of discussion I was hoping to spark.
BillChin, KD, please don’t bother continuing this thread, I don’t want an argument and I won’t be responding. Thanks for your concern though.
Yeah, be careful, Beth. You can get burned really easily. My wife Doesn’t like the idea of investing in stocks so we stay out of the market, but I know a thing or two. Reading what BillChin wrote about people trusting strangers with large amounts of their money reminded me about all of the phone calls I get from slicksters with hot tips. In my business, I’m a high-value target. I have, over the years, come up with all kinds of ways to dodge the calls and put them off. The best one yet was when I acted all excited and said I had a couple of million dollars but we would have to go through my bankruptcy trustee. 
The guy hung up immediately. I usually have to hang up on them. Point being is there are a lot of shysters out there who are very adept at talking you out of control of your money. and they make money whether you do or not. There are good ones out there too, of course.
Best thing I could tell you is to get some assistance. Maybe you could ask your family and extended family if they have a long-term relationship with a trustworthy individual or firm. And stick with a plan that is conservative for the long term. Ther rate of return is lower but at least you have a much less chance of losing everything.
Best of luck to you,
-Paul
Hiya Paul! I love that line about the bankrupcy. 
To perhaps set your mind at ease, I am indeed working with an investment firm, and I also am putting next to nothing into this until I learn what I am doing. Easy to do when you don’t have a lot of money to blow, as anyone who knows me can tell you!
Motley fool is a good site, though I haven’t fully registered there yet. Any others that people have found interesting? www.cnnfn.com is good too, I’ve found.
I follow the ideas in Ben Graham’s book “The Intelligent Investor”. It is based on identifying undervalued stocks. I have gotten a 16.5% compounded annual return for the last 13 years.
I do all my own research and use a discount broker. I never take advice on what stock to buy from anyone. I want only myself to blame.
I use a buy and hold strategy. Five trades a year is a lot for me. The goal is to find stocks with a long history (10 to 20 years) of good financial performence that are selling at low price/earnings and price to book value ratios. I look for P/E less than 15 and P/book value less than 1.5. I also want a low debt ratio.
I wind up with boring investments like shoe companies, but I don’t invest for excitement.
Angelo
My apologies. Best of luck to you. There are a ton of free resources online and at public libraries. You will find them easily enough. Your local library may carry any or all of the following: The Value Line Investment Survey, Morningstar Mutual Fund Reports, S&P guides and Outlook. There are also many financial magazines at most public libraries. Online sites include Bigcharts.com, Finance.yahoo.com. If you have cable there are financial TV channels. Otherwise there are a couple of TV shows on broadcast TV that some armchair investors watch.
I will share something. There are 1000 ways to make money in the stock market and at least that many ways to lose. A strategy or tactic that works very well for one person may be useless to the next person because their personalities are different. If this sounds cryptic, it is meant to be. One person put it this way, “know yourself, because the stock market is an expensive place to find out who you are.”
To put it in some every day perspective, there are people who clip coupons, there are those who are loyal to certain brands, there are those who want buy the latest and greatest new thing. Whether it be clothes, cars, gadgets, whistles, whatever, there is often no right or wrong answer as to style. In my mind the same is true of investing, there are many styles to choose from.
I know Bill said he was sorry, but I am not sure why. Please dont think of this as any flame I think he was teaching you a lesson, Investigate before you buy, And dont rely on giving and taking advice as the results can lead to to blame and hate. If you do take the advice make sure to use it with your consent.
Beth,
I got stomped in the last big crash but didn’t lose too much. I walked away from it then with my tail between my legs. At the beginning of this year I thought I would have another go…just for the buzz!! It’s more fun than putting spare cash into a Building Society although nowhere near as safe!!
This time I decided to do more research in the companies I wanted to invest in. Some of the criteria I use…Would I buy their product or use their services. What are their assets compared with liabilities, basically are they making a profit? (Or less of a loss than the previous year) How are they performing in relation to their competition and sector?
Dividends are nice to get and a company who give a dividend will usually have a positive track record.
Annual reports are good tool. (2003 annual reports) can be got and delivered free of charge in the UK. I expect the same applies in the US
The above doesn’t always work in the short term as we humans are very fickle and usually go with the herd. If a big company in a sector has some bad news it will impact on the whole sector or even the whole market.
I can only talk about the UK market, at the moment UK businesses are generally doing very well although this doesn’t seem to be reflected in recent market movements, as the FT index is going south, which is probably a good time to buy…If only we knew how much further the market will go down? At the moment higher interest rates, the American markets and to a degree a weak dollar are all having an effect on the UK market.
As most people say Penny shares are very risky. Even if a company is doing well doesn’t always mean the stock price will go up. With penny shares the word seems to be “buy on rumour and sell on fact”
Keith mentioned about Pharmaceutical Research companies, a lot of money can be lost if a new drug doesn’t come up trumps, on the other hand if it works…
After all that waffle I had better go and play my whistle!
Dave.
This is the advice I’ve been given and it’s worked well for us:
Save up enough to live on for 6 months. After you get a significant amount (over about
$2500, or whatever the minimum investment is), keep it in a money market account so you get better interest. Credit unions sometimes have money markets without extra fees, over a certain balance.
After saving that amount, start putting money in a retirement plan (TSA, IRA, etc.) If you work for a company with a 401K plan, definitely put it in there. The plan should have an investment advisor who can determine your risk tolerance, etc. and help you pick investments.
If you change jobs after investing in a 401K, roll the money into an IRA. Do this every time you change jobs, keep putting it into the same IRA. Don’t leave it with your old company’s 401K.
If you max out your 401K (which is difficult, I think the annual limit is something like $12000), start putting money into things like Roth IRAs, etc. Get a financial planner to help you at this point, as you will be making some serious money if you’re maxing out your 401K. It’s well worth using a fiinancial advisor, because unless you know a LOT about funds, it’s difficult for people not in the business to determine what is the best fund for their needs.
Robin
If either you or your husband (or both) work for a company that offers a 401-k program with company matching funds make sure you are investing enough in that to max out any company matching funds before you even think about other investment vehicles!
Unless the 401-k fund manager (usually a major investment house) is incredibly stupid or you are very wise you will have a hard time earning enough on outside investments to offset money you don’t take from your employer via the 401-k.
Also, 401-k programs are tax defered.
Yeah, my company’s 401-K matches 2-to-1…I don’t know of any investment I can make myself that would give me that kind of rate of return year in and year out
Yeah, unfortunately I’m missing the 401 stuff - I’ve never had a permanent, 401Kable job and it will be at least another year and a half before I do.. 
Sweet. The best I’ve had was a company that matched 1-1 on the first 4% and 1/2 - 1 on the next 4%.
The company I work for now is pretty cheap, they only match like 1/2-1 on 4% and it’s still much better than I could hope to do in outside investments!
Read!
There are hundreds of books on the topic. Most usually cover much of the same ground. If you don’t have lots of cash on hand, and even if you do, you should practice for a while (6 mos + of daily attention at least!) without spending a nickel by “paper trading”. Trading only on paper with no $$ involved. Think of it like a fantasy foot ball league. You select certain stocks and set up tracking mechanisms that make sense and work for you (each book tends to offer dozens of methods) and then you follow the “life” of a proposed trade. If you would have made money your balance sheet will reflect that. If you would have lost money you should have plenty of data to learn from so as not to duplicate mistakes when using cash, bucks, green backs, dinero, moolah, ducketts, scrillage, or lettuce for the kitty. 
Learn the differences among all (or at least a good chunk of) the investment vehicles out there. Some have distinct advantages over others depending on your personality type.
Are stocks your thing? Maybe bonds are better for you. Are you savvy enough about the economy to use either depending on market conditions? What about commodities trading? Precious metals, foreign currencies,… pork bellies and oranges?
Day Trading? 
:roll:
What about Real Estate, or Tax Lien Certificates?
401Ks are great if you don’t have the discipline to sock money away regularly, but as you mention, they aren’t available with some jobs and as recent history has proven, don’t add up to much if a snake is at the helm of a company. Roth IRAs allow for TAX FREE growth (not tax deferred… Tax FREE) A Better option for ME. IMHO
Another tip of an ice burg… Tax shelters. 
Look into them.
Fact- The average American will earn well over 1 million dollars durning their life. Why do so many people die penniless? It’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep.
Fact- The two largest debts that Americans pay on are #2-- their mortgage, and #1 - Taxes. 
Find ways to reduce both and you will have much more to invest wisely.
What ever you do… take it as seriously as you would running and owning your own business. You wouldn’t start a venture on that scope without knowing a thing or two about the industry, would you?
It’s not difficult information, but there is a lot of it, and it can be pretty detailed. Spend some time with it. 
If you are only in it for the thrill of making a few quick bucks then you are just as well off driving to Reno and pulling the slots for a weekend.
Best of Luck!
Scott McCallister
If I was in a lower income bracket, they’d match 3 to 1!
Shame I didn’t work here when I was in my 20’s 
at the moment i’m investing in stuff that don’t give me headaches,
stuff like drink, plenty tunes, all the criac and my girlfriend
and there’s no locks or bolts 'round me! (mary kate dannaher, The Quiet Man, 1952)
Trust me - a girlfriend is not an investment, especially if she becomes yer wife!