I have
JAVLX
JAWWX
JSVAX
JAOSX
Hey! You have done well. You have a good split between domestic equities and foreign stocks, but I think you should look into some small cap growth and small cap equity mutual funds.
Have you looked at the American Association of Individual Investors?
If I were young or even middle age, I would be investing in small cap growth mutual funds or stocks. Go here for excellent low cost advice (http://www.aaii.com/aaiiportfolios/commentaries/stockportfolio/200701comment.cfm).
Don't be alarmed at the low cost – it has some of the best financial advice on the Web.
If you have lots of time before retirement the magic of compound interest will just keep building and building. It really works and if you keep investing and re-investing your proftis every year, in 10 or 15 years you will be surprised at how it mounts up. In 30 years you could be a millionaire which probably won't amount to much in 30 year owing to the the ravages of inflation. But stocks are a good hedge against inflation.
By that time you may need a money manager to manage your money – probably before when you reach the $500,000 mark. Heck! If you have achieved that much, you probably don't need a money manager – you are the best judge of where to invest your money by that time.
And that's the primary reason to keep investing in small cap growth stocks – they will flog inflation to death.
When investing in mutual funds, select the no-load funds only. Do not invest in mutual funds with a "load", an up front commission that you have to pay before when they sell you the mutual fund. Some charge as much as 10% which is a rrip-off. Many studies have shown that the no-load funds do as well as the load funds and sometimes a lot better.
Look at the AAI Shadow Stock Portfolio. I would try and emulate that portfolio if you want to invest in stocks. It was up 25% as of November 2006. The Vanguard Index fund is only up 14%.
AAII has some of the best financial advisers and the cost is very low. They have excellent guides and advice.
You may need a broker so go to e-Trade or Scottsdale who have low commission rates.
Do your own due diligence. Your own ideas are the best. Do not depend on someone else to select investments for you. Learn about investing so you don't have to ask what stocks to invest in.
Be self reliant.
Remember what Emerson said: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
Find stocks that have steadily rising net profits (earnings), low debt, and good P/Es, lots of cash, companies buying back their stock..
What interests you? Find stocks that pique your interest and passion.
You need fast growing good stocks with good earnings and in good sectors. You need to learn more about the stock market before you even think about investing in it.
The stocks world is divided into 12 sectors such as energy which chevron belongs to. It is next to last in the sectors list today.
Technology is numero uno, but things can change in a new york minute, but within the sector, the fastest growing are computer services, not Microsoft. Then, Electronic Instruments and controls. Next is computer storage devices.
The next hot sector is Healthcare, but heed the warning below. Go here for sectors: (http://clearstation.etrade.com/cgi-bin/Itechnicals?Event=srp&Section=redge&Refer=/redge.html)
The best software is Vector Vest if you can afford it. It has sector investing.
Here is a free Web site for charting stocks: (http://www.incrediblecharts.com/).
First of all, stay away from "professional brokers" and tips coming to you via e-mail or friends and acquaintances. And tips at Yahoo! Answers. And e-mail tips. Do your own due diligence – don't rely on someone else. Read Emerson's essay "Self Reliance.
Hey! They will say anything to get you to buy their junk. If it's too good to be true, it is.
Remember this, they are just sales people trying to sell you what their firm is pushing. They are not security analysts or financial planners, not even financial advisers. Trust me, I know from experience that they cannot be trusted especially with a million dollars. You risk losing it all. A million dollar account is known as a "whale" and they would love to get their greedy little paws on it and suck it dry. They just want to make commissions on what they buy and sell for the suckers, err…clients..
Get this book: The Market Gurus: Stock Investing Strategies You Can Use from Wall Street's Best (Paperback)
by John P. Reese (Author), Todd O. Glassman
Risk avoidance is the name of the game.
Remember, the harder I work, the luckier I get.
Penny stocks are highly speculative. I would avoid the ones under a dollar a share. For example, Best Buy started at less than $5. So there are some good companies, but it takes a lot of digging to find the good ones. You are looking for companies with good earnings, little debt, low capitalization, and good P/Es. For stocks under $5, very few will meet these requirements.
Stay away from the pharms unless they have patented drugs – do not invest in generic pharms, no growth there.
Check out which business sectors are the most popular and invest in the companies in those sectors. The number one, two and three are: technology, health care, and cyclicals (retail). These change periodically so keep current.
Go here for a list of growth stocks: http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/newsanalysis/ratings/10345212.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
There are these lists all over the Web – you pays your money and takes your chances.
Watch CNBC, but don't pay too much attention to the talking heads, except for Jim Cramer, the wild man – but he tries to teach you how to invest and has some great advice.
Get Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World by James J. Cramer
Listen to Jim Cramer on CNBC.com
Go to Clearstation for quotes and tutorials on investing at (http://clearstation.etrade.com/). Sign up is free. Look up a few stocks. Do their tutorials. Check out the sectors.
Get this book: Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (Wiley Finance) by Bruce C. N. Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Paul D. Sonkin, and Michael van Biema.
Another good book: The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens: 8 Steps to Having More Money Than Your Parents Ever Dreamed Of (Motley Fool) by David Gardner, Tom Gardner, and Selena Maranjian
Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich by James J. Cramer and Cliff Mason
I Want to Make Money in the Stock Market: Learn to Begin Investing Without Losing Your Life Savings! by Chris M. Hart\
Sensible Stock Investing: How to Pick, Value, and Manage Stocks by David P. Van Knapp
Stock Investing For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)) by Paul Mladjenovic
All About Stock Market Strategies : The Easy Way To Get Started by David Brown and Kassandra Bentley
The Motley Fool Investment Guide and their Web site (http://www.fool.com/).
The Little Black Book of Microcap Investing: Beat the Market with NASDAQ/AMEX Microcap Stocks, OTCBB Penny Stocks, and Pink Sheet Stocks by Dan Holtzclaw
How To Make Money In Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad, 3rd Edition by William J. O'Neil
Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management by Alexander Elder
Big Trends in Trading: Strategies to Master Major Market Moves (A Marketplace Book) by Price Headley
Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds (Paperback)
by Charles Mackay (Author), Andrew Tobias (Foreword) This book talks about the Tulip craze in Holland where people would mortgage their homes to buy Tulip bulbs. Same thing happened in 2001 – 2002 with the Internet bubble that brought the stock market to its knees. The dot com companies were the Tulip bulbs.
Buy Investors Business Daily. It has lots of tutorials and I like it better than the stodgy Wall St Journal.
Money Game by Adam Smith
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings (Wiley Investment Classics) (Hardcover)
by Philip A. Fisher. Recommended by Warren Buffet who took $100,000 and grew it to $34 billion!
Value Investing with the Masters by Kirk Kazanjian
Valuegrowth Investing by Glen Arnold
The 5 Keys to Value Investing by J. Dennis Jean-Jacques
The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed. (Collins Business Essentials) by Benjamin Graham. Warren Buffet was his student at Columbia.
The Money Masters by John Train
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore
Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor by John C. Bogle
Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them: Lessons From The New Science Of Behavioral Economics by Gary Belsky
Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! by Phil Town . See his Web site at (http://www.ruleoneinvestor.com/). Free sign-up. I got the book at the library.
Listen. You don't have to spend a lot of money on these books – most can be found at your library and those that your library doesn't have they can usually get from other libraries in your state.
Most of these books talk about stock and mutual fund investing, but for a good introduction to other forms of investing Gerald Appel has a great book called Opportunity Investing – How to Profit When Stock Advance, Stocks decline, Inflation Run Rampant, Prices fall, Oil Prices Hit the Roof and Every Time In Between.
First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman Not a book on investing, but it's a nice segue into the next book.
Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton
Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance by Marcus Buckingham
Finding your strengths is important when investing. These books teach you to build on your strengths, what you a good at. Everyone is good or passionate about something. Why not get better at what you are good at?
Another good book is: Opportunity Investing: How To Profit When Stocks Advance, Stocks Decline, Inflation Runs Rampant, Prices Fall, Oil Prices Hit the Roof, … and Every Time in Between (Hardcover)
by Gerald Appel
Most mutual funds do not even keep up the the return on the S&P. That's like 99% of them.
Vanguard Index funds are a no brainer.
A CD is better than a savings account. They range from six months to several years. You cannot touch your money tho until the time limit is up.
Check out this Web site on Direct Investment Plans where you can buy shares directly from companies: (http://www.fool.com/School/DRIPs.htm). Usually no fees and you can buy one share at a time.
Bonds are probably the safest. But they are not for the young. You might try a bond fund. They might return 5 or 6 percent. At 5% a million would return $50,000 a year – not a bad income. Remember, you have to pay taxes on the $50,000.
There are also municipal bonds and the income from them is taxfree especially if you buy them in a state that offers them, but they only pay about 3%, but it's mostly taxfree.
Look into Fidelity sector funds. Buy the top three, then in six months look how they are doing and if not so hot, select the next three that are best. Do this for a few years and you will make lots of money.
Kindest Personal Regards,
Walt Brown
Site Build It Certified Webmaster
http://buildit.sitesell.com/waltera1.html
capecod1@capecod-beaches.com
http://www.capecod-beaches.com/
wab@theworld.com
P.S. This is a life-long learning process. Reading these books and applying the rules to analyzing stocks that may be good It takes time. Be patient and keep reading and listening. Don't be a sucker and follow someone elses advice. Be your own man or woman. Depend on no one except yourself. You can only get smarter and stronger that way.
P.P.S. Internet has lots of good stuff, for example (http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:technical_indicators:moving_average_conve
Stockcharts.com is very good and their discussion of MACD is one of the best, barring its originator, Gerald Apple, but now we are getting into Technical Analysis and that is not for beginners. But it is an important factor in finding good stocks that are going up and growing. Remember, tiny acorns grow into mighty oaks.
Pick up a couple of books on investing and if you like it, pick up a couple of books on day trading……..
good luck
thanx
I have nothing bad to say about them, and I have not heard negatives from others either. In the survey mentioned above, they also scored well on customer satisfaction.
Some of the more commonly day-traded financial instruments are stocks, stock options, currencies, and a host of futures contracts such as equity index futures, interest rate futures, and commodity futures.
Day trading used to be the preserve of financial firms and professional investors and speculators. Many day traders are bank or investment firms employees working as specialists in equity investment and fund management. However, day trading has become increasingly popular among casual traders due to advances in technology, changes in legislation, and the popularity of the Internet.
Trade Frequency
Although collectively called day trading, there are many sub-trading styles within day trading. A day trader is not necessarily very active. Depending on one's trading strategy, the number of trades made in a day may vary from a few to hundreds.
Some day traders focus on very short or short-term trading, in which a trade may last seconds to a few minutes. They buy and sell many times in a day, trading very high volumes daily and therefore receiving big discounts from the brokerage.
Some day traders focus only on momentum or trends. They are more patient and wait for a ride on the strong move which may occur on that day. They make far fewer trades than the aforementioned traders.
Overnight Position
Traditionally it is suggested day traders should always settle their positions before the market close of the trading day to avoid the risk of price gaps (differences between the previous day's close and the next day's open price) at the open. Some day traders consider this to be a golden rule to be obeyed at all times. Some day traders, however, believe they should let the profits run, so it is acceptable to stay with a position after the market closes.
Day traders often borrow money to trade. Since margin interests are typically only charged on overnight balances, the extra costs discourage them from holding positions overnight.
Profit and Risks
Because of the nature of financial leverage and the rapid returns that are possible, day trading can be extremely profitable, and high-risk profile traders can generate huge percentage returns. Some day traders manage to earn millions per year solely by day trading.
Because of the high profits (and losses) that day trading makes possible, these traders are sometimes portrayed as "bandits" or "gamblers" by other investors. Some individuals, however, make a consistent living day trading.
Nevertheless day trading can become very risky, especially if one has poor discipline, risk or money management. The common use of buying on margin (using borrowed funds) amplifies gains and losses, such that substantial losses or gains can occur in a very short period of time. In addition, brokers usually allow bigger margins for daytraders. Where overnight margins required to hold a stock position are normally 50% of the stock's value, many brokers allow pattern day trader accounts to use levels as low as 25% for intraday purchases. This means a day trader with the legal minimum $25,000 in his account can buy $100,000 worth of stock during the day, as long as half of those positions are exited before the market close. Because of the high risk of margin use, and of other day trading practices, a day trader will often have to exit a losing position very quickly, in order to prevent a greater, unacceptable loss, or even a disastrous loss, much larger than his original investment, or even larger than his total assets.
Even when a position has made a profit, the trader has to offset the transaction costs and the interest on the margin. It is commonly stated that 80-90% of day traders lose money. An analysis of the Taiwanese stock market suggests that "less than 20% of day traders earn profits net of transaction costs".
Day trading is considered a risky trading style, and regulations require brokerage firms to ask whether the clients understand the risks of day trading and whether they have prior trading experience before entering the market.
I don't think anybody gets pissed off because you day trade. In fact one of the popular day trading strategies is to look for a certain "signal" shortly after the market opens, and be in and out of a stock within 1-2 hours.
A day trader traditionally examines a stock for two qualities: Liquidity and volatility. Liquidity means that you can enter and exit a stock at a good price (i.e. when you look at its price it is low, but you expect it to make gains throughout the day). And volatility refers to the price range that the stock is expected to achieve. A day trader will look for stocks he/she believes will make gains in the space of just a day.
Once the stock has been identified the trader requires an entry point, or the best time to buy. There are many different methods for ascertaining this point, but here are a couple of suggestions:
1. A spike in volume can mean that other investors are purchasing the share at its current price, meaning they are confirming that it is currently at a good price.
2. Previous days highs and lows can also demonstrate the best time to purchase the shares.
Investor also have a number of methods for knowing when to sell their stocks to maximize profit and reduce the risks. Scalping is the most popular method, where shares are sold almost immediately upon making a profit. Profits are not always huge, but risk is minimal. Daily pivots is another very popular method and involves judging when the high of the day (HOD) has been reached and selling at that point. Other strategies are to sell shares as they reach a high, and then as they drop back down buy more with the expectation that they will be bought again and the gain in volume will increase the price (this is known as fading).
To minimize risk day traders nearly always employ a stop-loss limit. This limit is placed at the maximum amount you are willing to lose and sells your shares at that point, and doesn't allow you to go further. This can done as either a mental limit, or one you programme into your system.
The reality of day trading is that around 80% of traders lose money, with few making profits in their first few years (see: www.investopaedia.com). And over half of those that attempt it will fail. But with some of the techniques described above and a commitment to evaluating your performance and limiting losses profits can be achieved, and for a few they can be exceptionally large.