It looks like my stock investment SATC may be starting to take off. Satcon makes large scale DC to AC power inverters to connect solar panels to the power grid for companies.

I guess that adds a new rule of thumb to the standard investment guidelines -- buy cloudy, sell sunny

Nice one.

Come one stock market. Burn rubber and crash already!

I bought SDS, which is an ETF that is caled UltraShort S&P 500. If the market crashes, I make money. Provided I sell before it recovers.

I bought apple back in 2007, about 6 months before the first iphone came out... haven't looked back since.....


my old roommate had some solar stocks.. i think those are good long term, but the prices for the technology have to come down, for them to become more particle. when someone can buy a 1000W+ panel for 1-3$ per watt then i think you will see a much larger increase in those companies sales.

I have been looking into FOREX Market. I am still a novice, so I have lost some money. LOL Now I am getting deeper into FOREX theory and trading techniques. Hopefully I will become a pro someday!

I bought almost $1000 of Apple stock back in 1997. I recently checked my Portfolio and after splitting... 4 times? and running up to current, it would now be worth ~$90,000

It would be, except I sold it in 2002 to help pay for my wedding. I got $1100 back. But hey, I don't have a crystal ball and >10% isn't a bad return.

Thats what I keep telling myself anyway.

snazzed

Don't look at it as $1100 from $1000, but instead you got $1100 + wife from $1000

Nice thoughts! I totally agree with you htnut!

DJIA
9,854.55 -283.97 -2.80%
NASDAQ
2,133.79 -86.86 -3.91%
S&P 500
1,039.03 -35.54 -3.31%

As of 3:25 EST - Is that enough of a drop for you? It certainly will be a huge hit for the energy stocks I'm in

Scott

Nope. It was down when I shorted the market. I need the S&P 500 to go down another 200 to 300 points. Then I might get happy.

On the bright side, once it goes down, it eventually bottoms out and goes back up. I tried to explain this to my sister who retired recently. She seen her IRA get cut in half last year. On the very day it bottomed out, she panic-ed and bought an annuity that she's stuck with for 10 years. If she had just stuck it out, all of her money, and then some, would have recovered.

My 401k, when I see things like this comming, I put it all into a guaranteed fund that doesn't lose money. Then when it starts to look rosy again, I move it all back into high-risk mutual funds.

The problem with the markets now, is that they are losing the "real" investors. They say 70% of the markets are controlled by high freq traders who buy and sell in milliseconds not knowing or caring what stocks they buy and sell....they have no interest in investing in companies who are listed on the Indices to raise capital for their operations. This is what the markets were created for, but I think at some point there will only be traders and speculators left and no investors. If it were up to me, I'd open a new stock market where people have to call in and bid, like old times...no programs to buy and sell millions of stocks a day, only real investors who want some reasonable return by loaning their money to whatever company they choose.

::: get's down from soapbox :::

There is a site called sharebuilder.com that "used" to only allow you to buy or sell shares in a stock only once a week, for $4 a trade. I see that it now has grown from that to allowing daily real-time trading.

It was something I would never be interested in because if you happen to snag a real loser, (or a good company that just ran out of favor, due to government policy change, etc), you'd likely loose all of your investment before you could get out of it.

That's not good either, but the guys who buy and sell the same stock within milliseconds are one of the main reasons you are seeing huge swings in the markets which cause real investors to leave the market. Then they have the gall to tell you "it's good for the markets"....translation...."it's good for my self serving purpose".

I believe that you are correct. The goal for the individual trader is to recognize this and profit from it. As always, reverse what a beginning trader would do (I know what that is, lol) and trade just the opposite.

I read a trading book a few years ago that was a compilation of bios of other traders. The one that remains with me to this day said "What I do is just wait for money to lay around an go pick it up." By this, he means don't try to force a trade. Don't trade and hope. Wait until you see an opportunity arise and jump on it. Of course, in order to see an opportunity, you have to study and become observant. There are stocks that double and triple in value very day/week/year. You just have to be able to recognize the opportunities. For the market, in general, buy when everyone is selling, not when it has already gone up and looks like a good buy, because it probably isn't.

It looks like stocks are falling some more today. Yessss. Burn baby burn! My ETF with ticker SDS makes money when the market goes down.

Yer gonna get yer butt kicked, man.

Confucius say: Better to get butt kicked than to lose all your money.

Well my SDS went from 36.50 to 38.83, a 6% increase, while the market went down. Not too shabby of a deal.

I got lucky yesterday when I bought OREX stock for my sister's account. It's a pharmaceutical company that's trying to make a diet pill. One other company VVUS (V V U S), has a diet pill due to be approved/disapproved tomorrow (Thursday 07/15/10) and it's causing all of the other pharmaceutical companies with diet pills to quickly increase in value.

Don't count your eggs before they've cracked all over the floor, reassembled themselves, cracked again, reassembled, maybe gotten bigger, and you're ready to make an omelette.

My eggs keep cracking all over counter.

Burn baby burn! Yesterday I bought SPXU which is a triple make money when the stock market goes down. Please crash, please...

Oh yeah. The market has always recovered after a crash, so no worry.

Shove it.

Seriously, dude, it's in really poor taste to be gloating about the market going down right now, especially when so many people have lost so much--and I'm not talking about investors as much as people who were sold on 401Ks and 403Bs as acceptable replacements for pensions.

I have 401k too. But keep the money in a safe guaranteed fund when the market is poor. I used to roll with the ebb and flow of the market, cry when it's down and gloat when it's up, but since then I've educated myself and gained some experience. The sheeple that prefer to keep their head in the sand instead deserve to loose their money. Just my humble opinion.

Oh and btw, here's an article that says the stock market crash of 1929-30 is almost the exact same as 2008-10, on a chart comparison, and the next big leg down is due now, or real soon.

Link

So, if you can see all this crap coming, why can't the investors managing 401ks and 403bs?

Each mutual fund, and other items you have the choice to invest in are all topic related. Such as mid-cap growth, for instance. So that's the only area they concentrate in. If the mid-cap growth stocks go up, it goes up, if they go down, it goes down, ad nasium. Most of them, all they try to do is whatever the market is dishing out at the moment, in anticipation of the stock market going up as a long term trend.

Edit: Sure they try to beat the market. But beating the market may mean if it goes down 20%, they only lost 18% instead.

It takes active management to actually make any money. They are making money off of your money, whether you make any money or not. So, that only leaves you in control.

Past performance is no indication of future performance, though.

True. But if you compare the chart that's in this link I provided with the past 4 years of the DOW, chills will run up and down your spine.

When comparing charts like that, you have to take into account the fact that economies have changed drastically around the world over the last 80 yrs and the world was a much different and "larger" place back then. One likes to think that with govt's cooperating(unlike in the 30's) we can avoid the same errors made back then.

The market goes up and the market goes down, but in the long run it goes up more than it goes down. That's all that anyone can realistically know, but it should be enough. Anyone who claims to be able to tell when, in what direction, and by how much the market is going to move is either a fool or a charlatan.

...or Jim Cramer. Oh, sorry John, you said fool. I stand corrected.

What you all have said is true but have you even looked at the charts I mentioned?

This video explains it well.

I've seen comparisons made before but there are different factors involved today than 80 yrs ago. That's not to say things won't end up the same way or completely the opposite, nobody really knows and that is why there is so much $$$ sitting on the sidelines.

This is all I'm pointing out. Here's the 2 charts.

The first one is the Dow Jones Industrial Average from about 1929 to 1930. It made a Head and Shoulders at the high on the left, then a big drop and made an inverted Head and Shoulders at the bottom, then slowly climbed or retraced about 50% of the way back up and made another Head and Shoulders just before it dropped again to the lows made the first time.

The second chart shows the same scenerio, but is 2007 through 2010 today. Not exactly the same, but pretty close. There's no guarantee that it will continue down as it did in 1930, but it HAS followed the same pattern, so far.

Edit: Kind of like a "Dead Cat Bounce" but on a much grander scale.

DJIA 1929-1930


DJIA 2007-2010

Recently I talked to the President of a private reit based in Southern Ontario here. Being private, they are not listed on the TSX or NYSE, and therefore are not subject to the wild fluctuations of said markets. This reit's business model, in a nutshell, is based primarily throughout Ontario investing in rental apartments in secondary markets. That is to say, generally they look at cities like Barrie, Kitchener, Oshawa ect vs downtown Toronto, Hamilton ect. They buy up blocks of apartment buildings so that they keep the managerial fees to a minimum as they can hire a person/team to then run more than one ap't in a particular locale. They look for buildings with approx 95-96% rental capacity so they can go into the apartments which are vacant, then upgrade them to increase the value of the next rental. Annually, they pay out 8% with a monthly distribution which is in line with a couple of other private reit's I've looked at.

Have any of you guys/gals looked into private reit's as an investment possibility? thoughts?

Not me. I got out of my "short the market/make money when the market goes down stock" because I was losing money.

Normally what I do, is, by using Scottrade, I look at what has either gone up big or gone down big and then watch them on a chart. If the one that goes up is holding it's position, I might buy some and just watch it closely, like I did on Friday. Or, I might see something that went down big, but then is quickly going back up. That one is a lot more risky and definitely has to be watched real close.

INFN is one of those stocks that went up big overnight, then I bought it on Friday at 8.35, now it's still going up and is at 9.60. Parabolic price increases tend to have a quick downward jump also, if some big holders decide to cash in.

This particular stock, I bought into yesterday, is going up fast, and may still be a good buy. It's a Chinese company that turns coal into gas that's not harmful to the environment (or so they say). I probably wouldn't buy without the ability to watch it close, though.

SYMX - Synthesis Energy Systems, Inc.

JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA JVA

I got my first 50 percenter with JVA (Coffee Holding Co.) stock. (It only took 1 week.) I no longer have an online broker with my money in it, but this was some of my sister's money that I've been trading with. I decided to take the low risk, no-worry option, which was sell all but the 50% profits and keep that in JVA. I've been wanting to do this for years, but just never got a hold of a good one in time to make any profits from it.

Damn. If you had written JVA one more time in your previous point it would have gotten me off the fence.

It does prove a point, doesn't it. I'm just not sure what it is.

The point is that you're spamming.

Have you got anything without JVA?

Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA Jay Z AARP VNA

Jeeez, JP, now I'm going to have that going through my head all day!

No spam here.

I have to disagree. I'm not trying to sell anything. Just relating an experience. And, JVA JVA JVA JVA, etc is one of them.

No, what it seems like you're doing is trying to pump a stock up, which falls under this board rule:

Participants may not use the Forums to post or transmit advertisements or commercial solicitations of any kind.

Maybe I'm wrong about what you're doing, but that's sure what it feels like.

Ah. I was just excited about it. And this is the thread for stocks.

That you started.

So I'm going to start a thread on Golf equipment and then post golf equipment SPAM and say it's OK, because this is the correct thread?

I gotta admit, even though many of his posts and shouts have left me scratching my head, and even though I chimed in with a Spam joke, I'm not too concerned about a forum rule violation here.

AFAIK, CatBrat is not a majority shareholder/partner/executive in JVA, nor is he a commissioned stock broker. While he does own a few shares and could conceivably profit if we all dash out and buy JVA stock, and while there is some sort of goofy cheerleading going on, my take is that this thread is a legitimate attempt to discuss stocks and that his motive was not to inflate the stock but instead to do that which we all do when we recommend a receiver, an album, or a beer: share knowledge and the joy of our discoveries.

I'm with the Doc on this one.

I agree with JP and David, I took Brian's post as a friend sharing some knowledge about a stock he liked.

You got it right. I get e-mail spams all of the time from someone who bought some penny stocks and is trying to get others to buy and then make a profit from it at their expense. That is something I would never do, especially here on this forum. That would just be a dasterdly thing to do.

My intention was to share a stock that I liked at the time. I did make an easy 50% from it out of a 600% journey it had already made. Then sold all but the 50%. So I now have about $4000 worth of this stock that basically didn't cost me anything. I just thought it was kinda cool.

It was not a penny stock, and was trading over 1M share/day.

Yup, I agree, JP. I was going to post a very similar message yesterday but withheld (imagine that).

OMG! I agree with Cam!
If it happens again, you must send Mark down here to slap me.

Attn: Mark;


AARP and VNA????

It appears that you have an aging issue going on.

Don't worry. AARP won't find you until your 49th birthday. And they WILL find you. And it WILL scare you.

If they had recently turned 49, AARP could have located Osama and Whitey.

I sure am glad that I moved all of my 401(k) from mutual funds to "Key Guaranteed Portfolio Fund" (like a savings account), a couple of months ago. I'm getting paid a meager 2.10% interest, which is a whole lot better than riding the market down. When a bottom is identified, I'm going to buy into "Maxim Index 600" which is a low cost fund of small cap stocks. Small caps go down the most in a bad market, but go up the fastest in a recovery. In an IRA or cash account, you could buy TNA instead (an ETF of small cap stocks).

In another account I made 15% on the way down by buying SDS (an ETF that's the opposite of the S&P 500). It goes up when the market goes down. I've sold that one to lock in the gain.

Now, I'm just waiting for a bottom. It might not recover as fast as it did in 2009-2010, though.

I primarily use these 2 sites for information, other than news:

1) www.StockTiming.com
2) www.MrBananaHeadStocks.com

So, you can see that I get excited when the market goes down. The more I can build up my 401(k), the sooner I can retire. I plan on converting it to an IRA and trade my way through retirement, so hopefully, I can keep up with inflation and make a good living this way.

People who say you can't time the market either have never tried, or tried and failed. Or they just parot what everyone is saying. That's where the site StockTiming helps a lot and makes it easy. And.. you never trade against the direction the market is going. And.. you always sell a trade before it becomes a loss, even if you just bought it, and it turns around and heads the wrong direction. And (one more).. you keep it as long as it's making money.

It would be interesting to compare a large sampling of active investors' portfolios against those of hands-off investors who put everything into index funds over the long term.

Would the active investors' portfolio value be significantly higher enough to justify the huge time investment required? Remember that all the time you put into trading stocks comes with an opportunity cost: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2009/06/15/the-time-cost-of-investing-does-obliviousness-pay-off/

I've compared my results with those, non-opportunists at work. Most examples go like this, about 2 months ago before the latest downturn. "I've almost caught up with my high before the down turn in 2008.", as compared to my "That's interesting, mines 40% higher than it was then".

Well, at least I haven't lost any money in my 401k. It's been in Guaranteed Funds (think savings account) before the market fell, plus it's sitting at it's highest dollar amount. I'm now just waiting for something that looks like a bottom to get back into risky stuff that moves the most and has the lowest fees. That also doesn't gripe when I trade my money in and out of. I've received letters from my 401k (whomevers) that's told me not to trade so much. So far, I haven't gotten any of those in the past 2 or 3 trades, so perhaps it's related to exactly 'what' I trad in and out of. You just got to love the lack of communication from financial people.

I left a comment in a 401k blog recently, that told about my method. This is in a blog from a so-called "financial expert" that says the best strategy is just to buy and hold. Of course, my comment got deleted since it didn't agree with his philosophy.

Today's the kind of day that I'm glad my 401k is at it's highest level ever and it's in cash equivalent.

Just had to rub it in.

Now if the market would settle so I can buy back in at low price.

Give it a year or so, there will be plenty of settling.

I took a chance and bought risk that'll take place tonight. Hopefully the market will recover for at least a few days, before I convert it all to cash again.

Roll them dice.

It is stories JUST like this one that explain why a good friend of mine had to file for bankruptcy. Knowing his persona, i see virtually identical character traits common to gambling addicts.

No one will burst your bubble Cat, except yourself.
I wish you all the best in your investing, but i have to say that your incredible amount of risk taking as evidenced by your trading actions could seriously jeopardize your expected early retirement. I'm hoping you don't have family banking on your presumed long term success.
The fact that traders with this attitude don't see this in themselves, creates the ridiculous swing markets that we see.

Panic traders and crystal ballers.
And every one of them THINKS they know how it all works.

It's not risky, IF you sell high and buy low. It's always those that panic and sell when the market goes down that loose. So, far, I've been able to keep my 401k at it's highest level. If the market plunges while it's in risk and not cash, the smart thing to do is wait it out, like I did in 2008/09. Many people I know paniced at the lows and sold out, including my retired sister, who lost 1/2 of her money. I warned her not to, but she did it anyway. Bought an annuity with almost 100% of her money, which at the time was 1/2 of what she had.

So. Yes, you can loose good money, if you don't know what you're doing. But to make money (even in a 401k), timing the market is the best way to do it when you don't have a lot of time. I subscribe to a site called Stocktiming.com that helps with the overall market timing situation, and I study charts.

It's not the small time traders that cause the market swings, nearly as much as the institutional traders such as mutual funds and hedge funds that trade in enormous quantities. But there is an upside to this for the opportunistic trader and that is market volatility makes him rich. You just trade the huge swings as best as you can.

If I bought SPY (fund that mimics S&P 500 index) in November 1998 and held onto it. Today, it'd have the exact same dollar value as it did in 1998. You can't say that buy and hold works.

One more thing. I have to make this work for me, because it's what I plan on doing for a living after I retire. 8 years of playing in a ROTH IRA has taught me some valuable lessons about how dangerous trading is.

Unless you buy low and the market keeps going lower, as has happened to my brother on occasion.


No, but Warren Buffet can. Have you ever read anything by Soros, the guy who bet against the pound and won?

He was a seriously mathematical guy who did significant risk modeling to backup his trading. His stuff is not easy to follow.

You may well end up being good at day trading, but short term moves are driven by market emotion and are not reliable so you are engaging in a fairly high risk activity. Hopefully you are aware of the risks and are taking steps to manage them.

Stock market talk always reminds me of this WSJ article.

Good article. I've read books about the emotions of trading and experienced the emotion of fear and greed many times over, so I know all about that aspect. But to have the ability to make decisions based on probable outcome, at least in my experience has been more of a negative one. Doing thinks Buffet's way can take years to make any money. (Also, he buys large enough portions that gives him rights to make changes in the company itself. Not something your average trader can do.)

Out of all the different things I've tried, trading-wise, there is one thing that works for me, so I should stick with what works. I make more money, just by buying momo (momentum). JVA was an example stock a few months ago. It shot up about 500% in just over a month. I got into the tail end of it and made a quick 50%. These don't happen every day, but if your patient and observant, it can work. Just be quick on the sell button if something should go wrong. Buying, then watching something tank, hoping it'll go back up is another no-no. Hope will not make you money. I held JVA for about 4 days, saw the weakness, then sold out just before it tanked. Same with the over-all market, you can't see suprise events coming, but you can see weakness and strength and patterns.

After more thinking on this subject, I thought I'd comment further. Sorry guys, but I just had to, to let you know that there is some method to the madness.

What I did with my 401k was,

1) I noticed market weakness, before the last big drop we had, 2 or 3 months ago, so I was being conservative and careful and transfered my money from risk into cash. Then we had the big down move. I didn't lose any money.

2) Once, while the market was at it's lows, I moved from cash into risk, hoping to ride it back up.

3) It went down a bit, then back up, where the market started to look weak again, so I moved it back to cash.

4) Now the market is down at it's lowest point during this latest market mini-crash, and we had a day of positive market movement. It could go either way from here. Probably small up, and then a possible big down. I moved money back to risk in order not to miss any possible upside, incase of major move.

The end result, either I make lots of extra money on the upward move, either short term, or long term... or, I didn't lose as much as everyone else did in the next big fall... either way, I win.

I hate mutual funds. I got an 85 day buying restriction on the one I just sold, because I only held it about 4 days. lol.

Back in the day when I didn't have a lot in it, I'd trade in and out about every other day, when I thought it'd do me some good. But when more money is involved, they start crying and throwing restriction letters around.

Oh well. there are a few more funds available, but only 2 or 3 that gain/lose the most in market movements. I can roll the 401k over to an IRA on April 7, 2012. Woopie. Trading individual stocks is mostly a no-no, but some well traded ETF's should work out about right. (I can buy and sell them all day long without restriction, if I should feel the need to do so. Oh, the market is going up, buy SPY. Oh no, the market is going down, sell SPY and buy TVIX. Oh no...).

Woohoo! 401k looking good today. 1 year market gain, around 15% after today. Around 9k increase in last 4 weeks. Market timing does pay off.

I'd sell and convert back to cash on any market weakness with perceived major downward movement. Better to save what's been gained, than to chance it for possible upward move.

One exception to above is if market makes surprise big downward move. Don't want to sell near the bottom.

This sounds like way too much work. I'm going to stop reading this thread and go back to methodically spending all my existing money.

If you run out of things to methodically spend on, I have a list of things I need...

Funny. The 1 year return on my 403b, from 8/31/2010 to 8/31/2011, was 13.7% -- and that's with me doing absolutely nothing other than making my automatic bi-monthly contributions.

Does market timing really pay off?

Did the 13.7% include contributions? If not, I'd say that was pretty good. The 15% does not include contributions. Today when I checked it, it was at 15.59%

Also looking at 9/27/2010 to 9/27/2011, if that matters. From 8/31/10 to 8/31/11 it was only 10.27%.

Normally, when I do nothing with my 401k, I'm looking at around -4% to 4%.

After thought: Probably all the fees they take out of it is sucking it dry. I've complained about that for a long time. The only way I have of fighting back is market timing.

Cat, I think you'll find this BBC interview interesting - BBC Speechless As Trader Tells Truth.

Peace

This is nothing new to me. Traders make money when the markets go up. They can make even more money when the markets go down. It's all about positioning yourself one way, or the other.

Most people wear rose colored glasses, and don't know and don't care about all of this. Their choice.

Well that TZA I bought a while back was defiantly a mistake. (TZA goes up when the market goes down. Goes down when market goes up.) But at least I reversed the damage by buying TNA (opposite of TZA, goes up when market goes up.)

My 401k is liking me though. I rode the market down in cash, and am riding it up in risk. Where most people are probably a little under break-even, I've made 20%, so far, in the past 3 months.

Could have been 40%, if I was fortunate enough to buy at the bottom. Experience helps. Maybe next time.

I'm old enough, I want to retire some day soon. Just doing nothing and letting time take it's course isn't going to work for me. I got started saving for retirement much too late in life. So now I need to supercharge it whenever I can. I'm also putting 20% of my own before tax money into the 401k. At the start of this year it was 15%. At start of last year, it was 10%. By the end of next year, I plan on contributing around 25%. I just increase it a little at a time. I can feel the pain from the decreased spending capability.

I just checked my 401k return rates and was amazed at what it was, compared to others in my company. For example my 1 year rate today is 17.66%, and another employee that I checked with was 1.43%

1/2 year = 6.51%
1 year = 17.66%
2 year = 20.25%
3 year = 42.53%

It could all be gone tomorrow...

If it is, then everyone would be hurting, and it would be misery loves company.

I doubt that the US dollar would ever be devalued that much. The US government would probably lie, steal, kill, whatever, to keep that from happening.

I can see a possible world bank in the mix. To me that would be a fulfillment of biblical prophecy in Revelations where it says, "blah, blah, blah, would not be able to buy or sell, etc, etc.". With no cash, and electronic means used only, and one outfit in charge, and they don't like you (with prejudice), then you might see your account turned off.

Booyah! My 401k is now 63 percent away from retirement. Up from about 75 percent at the beginning of the year. And up from 84 percent away 3 years ago.

One of these days.

This is information that is relevant only to you.

True. I'll refrain.

I like hearing positive changes in peoples lives. Whether it's money, health, the type of beer someone's brewing etc., it's only relevant to the person it concerns. It's a matter of different personal interest's whether they do or don't appeal to an audience.

If one of my damn sores healed and I would be able to get out of this bed, I think some people would be happy to hear it, even though it's only relevant to me.

I could honestly care less about stocks, but I'm happy you're happy. Boast away, Cat.

Agreed.
I hung out here long after my Axiom purchases because I felt I actually got to know people and they became virtual friends. Now I have even met more than a few in person and consider them among my real friends.

You don't get to know people by only discussing technically relevant items. It's the humor and diversity of the regulars that keep me posting and not drifting off to my next crazy, product research.

This is not a flame to Peter. I consider him a friend also. Just expressing an opinion.

"Diversity keeps spacetime from getting stuck heading straight towards the inevitable disaster, giving us time to concentrate on the next inevitable disaster."

((For those of you who are waiting for me to acknowledge 'The Doctor' as the blame for that quote, I'm afraid I have have to take the credit this time. Although, I'm sure it was Doctor inspired.))

Your quote sounds like the current situation with the stock market.

I'm glad to hear when others are doing well too... but this thread, in my opinion, seems more like a forum for bragging and when others are having a hard time in this economy, I think it's in better taste to be humble of one's good fortune.

Yup. I think so too, bud. But most, if not all of us are guilty of it. There's no difference between any of the many threads or posts about peoples fancy new purchases (computers, exotic cars, beautiful houses), and someone posting their excitement when their doing well in the market. It's technically all bragging (NOT with any ill intent), and it's all good fortune. Just in varying degrees and tastes.

There's been dialogue amongst forum members in this thread, and I assume a lot of it was valuable. With exception to one post I've seen that was objectionable, I don't think there's a "rubbing it in everyone's face" theme; but that's just me. If there is, then that's definitely not cool.

BTW, I loathe the whole market and trading charade, so I'll obviously take a new car thread over a stocks thread any day .

For me, it's my foreseeable future job in retirement. One that I've chosen, because I think it will provide the best standard of living after looking over all of my other options. Especially, if I end up jobless. Better to trade the market than end up homeless as well. If I had started saving early in life, things would of been different. But now I have to plan on how to support myself with much less than an optimal retirement amount. And be able to live adequately and not as a pauper.

The key here is experience and passion in order to make this work. Most people find the market boring. I can't afford to do that. Trading is now in my blood and it's hard at times, not to get excited about it. Especially when I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

I expect comments about how most traders don't make it. That's true, only about 10% will make it. That's because the other 90% don't have years of practice first. They trade by emotion and don't follow a good set of rules. I've spend a good many years losing money in the market. I know the risk. You have to take as much gamble out of each trade as possible. Don't go for the big gains. Always settle for the steady and more sure smaller gains. (But not too small. CD's don't pay much.)

For anyone that's interested at all in stocks, check out EGAN eGain Communications Corp. It's a cloud computing commerce company that's based in California. I bought some yesterday. It looks to have a huge upside potential. (Knock on wood.)

Has anyone looked at DDD (3-D systems)?

I've converted 77% of my 401k over to an IRA, and bought some DDD. Have to keep a close watch on it, because don't want to get caught in any quick down drafts there. But this is a stock I call a parabolic. Straight up for the past 6 months. Looks like it still has some room to grow.

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickch...p;x=43&y=17

I haven't really been active in recent years... Another stock that has been successful for me is gpc, they are a parts supplier for automotive stores.



When i was in the military, some of the guys would ask me what to invest in. I had no problem telling them what i bought. However, i would never discuss the number of shares that either i had, or how many they could afford. I wanted to keep the $$ private, as that can be a sensitive issue for some people.

Here's a Motley Fool's recent article about 3D printers. Pretty cool devices. Looks like "The Fifth Element" movie's technology coming to life.

My family and everyone I knew growing up and even now, thinks financial matters should be hushed and kept secret. I never knew or learned anything about financial matters. Ever. Finance seemed like such a BORING subject that I never planned for any kind of retirement. As a kid it was drilled into my head, "Jesus will be coming back before you need retirement, so don't worry about it." Well, my folks died, and they left nothing to me or my siblings. Or rather, everything was left to my brother who's in a nursing home and won't, and can't make any decisions concerning this matter, with the state of Missouri as his guardian, who is no help in the matter.

So, given my experience on this subject, I think people should be more open and educated in the matter. How else is anyone going to learn and be able to base their financial standing amongst other human beings. From what I've heard, most retiring Americans have less than $50k when entering retirement. To me, that's just proof that keeping things secret is going to end up ruining peoples lives and the country they live in.

I agree that finance's shouldn't be a secret. Also, most people 30 years old or younger have less than 10,000$ in savings.. I didn't discuss the $$ amounts, because that can cause problems if people know how much $ you have, or don't have.... This was an issue that i did not want to deal with.


Like i said, i was more than happy to share with people, several people were able to make a pretty good amount of money.... When i bought Apple, a lot of the guys i worked with would give me a hard time about it... which was ok with me, because the price was going up just about every day... If they would have bought some, they could have made some cash as well..

Oh... that kind of stock.

I gave up on stock-picking in the conventional sense, moved what was left of my RRSP onto a fairly conservative couch-potato-type strategy, and invested in one of these in green with a black spiderweb finish :

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/1103176...tical-synthetic

I've been very happy with it so far.

John- Shhhhhhhh! We don't talk about guns around here anymore!

No guns here, just a big 'ol hunk of fiberglass

Yeah, but you could beat someone over the head with it!

True. It's not like Axiom sells anything that could be used as a weapon...

http://www.axiomaudio.com/stands.html

Yeah, no kidding.... We know how well that went over... Like a lead balloon..

Lead balloons... also useable as a weapon!

F&*k you mark ... Damit... i can't even get in an analogy without Fing it up eh??

Go Sprint!

$4.80 ^^^

Go Sprint Nextel!!!!

$5.30

Go Sprint!

You should really get into bitcoins.

Never heard of bitcoins, until now. A new kind of currency, but not fully developed, it seems. I've never been involved in any Forex trading.

Go Sprint! $5.63 High of day. Last High of day was 5.49.

I just need it to get to $20-25, so I can start thinking about retiring. I'm tired of working full time. Then make it double a few more times in retirement. It'd also be nice to build a new home (with theater), pay cash for a new car, vacation to Hawaii once or twice a year, etc. etc.

"Wake up! Wake up! You'll be late for work!", Oh, I must have been dreaming.

aapl 703$ and counting!

MSR is up 28% today!

What is MSR? Yahoo chokes on it when you try to get quotes.

I'm not tellin'. But I made a freakin' fortune today!

MSR = My Seeping Rhoids?

*cancels invitation for Mark to come over and sit on my new couch

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail.

I just wanted to see what happened if I threw Cat some Nip.

I figgered as much. Now to go cypher for a while.

I thought it was Mark's Square Room.

That's where Mark's Satanic Rituals take place.

Damn! That's good- I wish I had thought of that!

And Peter- How else would I get those speaker feet?

Hey, it's Friday!

BYOB is up 10%.

But TGIF is up 20%.

Instead of an IPO, today we'll discuss the merits of an IPA.

Awesome. I'll taste-test. It's Noon here right now.

Sprint! Sprint! Sprint! Go! Go! Go! $5.70

Could be $10 by end of year!

Was $2.50 about 4-6 months ago.

Wow. I wonder what happened to Sprint? It went from $5.70 to $4.85 in 5 days. Glad I got out before it became a loss.

Seems all stocks I buy, this happens. It's like letting the air out of a tire. All I have to do is buy a stock, then ssssss.

Just an idea, but maybe you should stop buying individual stocks and start investing in stock market index funds?

I do that in my 401k. Rolled over about 70% of it into a traditional IRA so I can invest in the stock market. I've got about 10 years experience trading with lesser amounts. So far, I've gone from always losing money, to making usually small gains (2 to 10%) without losing money, with only 1 50% gain under my belt as the best I've done, so far. I need to take that to the next level of actually making some money. If only one could short the market in an IRA (without buying an ETF/ETN that shorts the market. Those go down when the market goes up or flat. Kind of like a casino, where the odds are stacked against you).

My biggest mistake was getting started saving money too late in life. Now I've got to pull a rabbit out of my a%*. I mean hat.

You might want to read some information about gambling addiction and how most problem gamblers work up a system that they believe will be good for them . . . because what you're doing . . . it's not investing.

There are investors and there are traders. I fall into the trader category more than the investor category. I've been through the compulsive gambling thing in the past. Been there, done that. I'm not a day trader. I'm more of a position trader. But I would sell a stock as soon as I bought it, if I felt I had made a mistake.

Day trader: Never leave a position open overnight.
Swing trader: From a few hours to a few days.
Position trader: From a few days up to several months.
Long term trader: Hold a position from several months to several years.

Rule #1 is "don't lose money.", Keep a close eye, or close stops on it when you can't watch it. Buy when the stock is moving up, hoping it continues to move up. Sell as soon as it starts to go down, unless it's a small upward correction, requires judgement call.

Each industry requires it's own rules. You wouldn't trade a pharmaceutical stock the same way you'd trade a tech stock.

Where things break down and always fails, is when you don't follow your own rules.

Is trading gamboling? It is at first because you don't know what your doing. But as you gain experience, it becomes more of a skill than a gamble. A good comparison is playing black jack at a casino, where the experienced player would pull back his bet when he sees that the dealer might have a better hand than he has. This is not allowed in the game. But if it were, it would remove a large percent of gambling out of the game.

Work up a system? Yeah, you have to, regardless of what field of work you do. Your results would be truly random without one. This is my system in a nutshell. Go, make money with it. lol.

Big mistakes in stock trading when I first started.

Hold onto a losing stock. Don't ever sell it, until it gets really cheap. This is also called investing.

Buy a penny stock. Watch it become even cheaper.

Hold on to a stock as it slides below your buy point. There's a very good chance, it'll never be that high again, or that break-even event might be months or years away.

Using IBD (Investor's business daily's) guidline to not sell a stock going down until it's lost 8% (hoping it will go back up), will lose you more money in the long run, and you will never make it back up.

Picking stocks on IBD can be a good thing to do, but it's the rare bird that will make you any money. Most of them that are rated A+ have already seen their glory days and are about to turn down. I used to subscribe and did extensive analysis on the stock prices in spread sheets on my laptop. Did this for a few years.

Buying stocks that just took a big hit in price. 90% of these will continue to surprise you at how cheap they can really get.

One more I just thought of, buying a low volume stock, that hardly anyone is buying. This one can be really hard to sell.

So, what stock should you buy?

Find one that has a good story. That has high hopes of future income, and has just been placed in the spotlight with talking heads on CNBC, etc. talking it up. The more exposure, the better. Make sure there is plenty of volume of stocks trading hands. And most importantly, the price is constantly moving up.

Upward stock movement is caused by perception of future expectations.

Watch it like a hawk, because one day soon, weeks, months, maybe a year from now. It's probably going to crash and die. Try to get out at what you think might be the top. (ie learn how to identify a top.)

Oh, and don't buy an IPO (Initial Public Offering) stock. This stock has just started trading recently. Almost always goes down, and it has no past history of trading, so you have nothing to base it's future on.

All of my reits(Canadian) have done well over the last couple of years, the best one gaining about 70-80%. They have all paid 5-8% dividends on top of that. Also have one private reit that pays out 8% virtually tax free.

I would also agree with some of the previous advice, you don't want to lose what you already have...all of my "conservative" stocks are doing much better than the risky high flyers.

No, its called bad investing. What Warren Buffet does is called investing.


I knew a guy in university that traded penny stocks as a hobby. Small money. He consistently made 5-7% after brokerage fees. He had a system that worked quite well for him and he always followed it. There are many ways to make money in the market.

The moment emotion gets into the equation it becomes gambling. From what I have seen, it is much harder than people think to keep your emotions in check.

Concerning reits, haven't looked at them in a while. USA 10 to 20% ytd. Canada 70 to 110% ytd.

The things I listed have been my experience and observations. YMMV.

Concerning emotion. A good system takes emotion out of the equation as much as possible. Emotion happens when you get taken by surprise and don't know what to do.

Concerning Warren Buffet, he ends up buying enough of the stock that he gets some control over what happens in the company. Maybe not 100% of the time, but I've read that he does this. Then I'm sure he sells out before major losses. He wouldn't make any money if he didn't. So, theoretically all investors in stocks are traders. They have to bale sometime. Nothing goes up forever.

That reminds me of the joke...

"How do you become a Millionaire?"

answer...You start off with a Billion dollars and buy an F1 team.

Check out CTIX - Cellceutix Corporation. OTC-BB stock.

This one might be the real deal. 6 drugs in pipeline. An emerging bio-pharmaceutical company. Treatment for autism, cancer with fewer side effects, and cancers that don't respond to other treatments.

I bought 10,000 shares yesterday. (Not to be interpreted as, I jumped off a bridge, you go and do the same.)


http://investorshub.advfn.com/Cellceutix-Corporation-CTIX-12580/

I may have picked a winner this time. While the market sinks, CTIX sings.