Any Stock Guru's out there?

[tpdncr4christ]

So we've got this stock project in Economics where you have to invest money in certain stocks, and if you make money you get points, and if you loose money you loose points. I've lost 6.31% of what I started... which is not good. Any one wanna help me out? Just like tips to get started, or should I just keep gambling and hope I hit a high hitter...

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by tpdncr4christ

So we've got this stock project in Economics where you have to invest money in certain stocks, and if you make money you get points, and if you loose money you loose points. I've lost 6.31% of what I started... which is not good. Any one wanna help me out? Just like tips to get started, or should I just keep gambling and hope I hit a high hitter...

Being an listener to Suze Orman (you know she is out about being a lesbian) on her TV program about money, I have often heard her say that a good rule of thumb is to get out of any given stick once it dips below 10%. Of course, one can set one's own figure. You can lose your shirt if you only think about having to win. Part of managing risk is knowing when to stop.

You may, in the end, lose much less than your other players and come out ahead.

Suze has lots of books- I have a few. Good stuff. Smart. Funny. No BS.

She also talks a great deal about young people and IRA's. If you don't have one- get one now. The compound interest that will acrue will mean that, if you didn't save another penny after you are in your late 20's, you would retire with a large nest egg.

Open an IRA for your birthday tomorrow and have money put directly into it from whatever job you have- or will have.

[andrewlittle]

The first rule of stock market investment is that there are no gurus - just very good guessers, some of who keep their ear so low to the ground all the time, that the slightest financial rumblings are as clear as a bell to them.

Do you have the time to watch the stock market every minute of every day, to read every snippet of financial news, to read every significant business report? No! Well then, welcome to the crappe shoot.

Rule number two: if at first you don't make money, panic. Sell everything at a loss and cower while putting what's left in your mattress. Everyone loses money on the stock market, at some point or another. Losing is the teachable moment - the time to learn what you just did and why it went south. Why have you lost money so far? What did you inverst in and why? Did you diversify, or put all your virtual eggs into one basket? Learn, analyze what you did and why, and what happened and why.

Rule number three: You only lose money if you sell when a stock is down, unless the compnay goes out of business. When a stock goes down you lose "worth", unless of course you borrowed money to invest. In that case, it wasn't the stock that was the poor investment, it was the loan. The trick is to realistically assess the reasons the stock decreased, whether or not the trend is likely to continue, and what will trigger you selling the stock. You do this right after PANICKING and, of course, the obligatory switching of stock brokers.

Rule number four: You learn just as much, perhaps even more, if an investment loses value. It causes you to take investing seriously, doing your homework, or to choose safer avenues of providing for your future. Your investments are about learning something - play with the funds, but don't sweat the losses. Adapt. Be flexible. Be willing to change philosophy or develop one in the first place. The goal is to learn - what can you do with the points, anyway? Eat them?

[Jamie McDaniel]

Austin, what time frame are you working with? In other words, when is the big sell day? The end of the semester?

If you have 2 months to work with, I say buy ADBE. They are about to release their biggest software upgrade in their 25 year history and there is a lot of pent-up demand. It won't go through the roof or anything in the short-term, but I think there is a very good chance you will see a 10% increase.

However the key to doing well in the stock market, as other have indicated, is to only invest money you can leave in the market until you make a profit. Sometimes that is several years. Where people get into trouble is when they invest the $10,000 they need to pay for something 6 months from now hoping to increase it to $12,000. Then their stock goes does and they are forced to sell at a loss.

[andrewlittle]

Okay, if you want to risk - a company called Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc (HOS) dropped 22% of its worth in early January, based on bad news about potential investor and financial reporting fraud.

Here's the old greedy investor coming out in me.

The stock is still in its slump, despite just (February 15) garnering a long-term defense department contract for improving and managing housing for military personnel. The slump is related to the bad news, and the good news has not offset much of it yet. The down side, at least for the short term SHOULD be pretty limited - it already took the hit. The upside is sizeable (moderately 10-20%, potentially more) depending on the bad news from the suit. That news is unlikely to get worse than it has been, so any news will likely give it a bump up - unless of course, the news includes theft or embezzlement.

Long term the stock has been steady within the $30's, and was right around $38 before the January news. It's now around $25. Shouldn't get much lower, if at all. 20% bumps it to $30 which is the low side of its recent history. Potentially more is possible.

If I was still looking for short term (30-90 days) profit taking, this one would very high on my radar.

Take all this with a grain of salt - it's always a crappe shoot - and the management of this company couldn't even spell "ethical", never mind live by it. In the olden days when I was unscrupulous, I would have loved this kind of story.