Let's gamble.
Speaking strictly on the merits of the stock (not on the morals), should I buy BP stock in the next day or two?
http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:BP
Yes, it's a good long-term bet.
No, you'll lose money.
Deadline tomorrow: should I buy BP stock?
Let's gamble.
Speaking strictly on the merits of the stock (not on the morals), should I buy BP stock in the next day or two?
http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:BP
Are you drunk again?
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
I don't think you'd lose money on it, but there's probably better stocks to buy for the long term.
If the new cap is found to have issues and it winds up dropping more, it might become a better deal.
I wouldn't. There's a lot of unknown potential liabilities for the company. Despite its fairly strong balance sheet and cash flow, there are other energy companies out there with similar financials but much less uncertainty. Certainly you pay for the lower risk (BP's stock is quite low right now) but I think there are serious questions about BP's medium-term financial situation. If you're looking at very long term investment horizons, though, it might be worth it given its fairly low P/E.
The best time to buy a stock is when a company's stock is in the toilet but the company's still strong. If you have an extra chunk of cash lying around, a fairly high risk tolerance, and you don't have any scruples about investing in the company that spoiled the Gulf, buy it. I think its a good bet.
EDIT: if you're going to buy, do it before the results of this new cap come out. If it ultimately fails, the stock's not going to take much more of a hit. But if it stops the leak, the stock may jump.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
This is sorta unconstitutional, isn't it?
I agree the well tests could give a big pop. But I am concerned this will somehow inhibit their ability to grow their cashflow because of special regulations that impact just BP...Meanwhile, a House panel voted Wednesday to ban BP from obtaining new offshore drilling leases or permits for as many as seven years. A separate House panel may vote as early as Thursday on a measure to make it harder for oil companies with a history of violations to drill.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...600444990.html
I think the violations part of that is the key. BP has several hundred violations that date back as far as 2005 they haven't accounted for, combine that with the accusations of the rig workers for further violations; should the government sit idle while BP continues to expand while ignoring both worker and environment well being?
I'm not sure I follow you, Dread. Are you objecting to the first bit (the vote to ban BP from obtaining new leases) as being unconstitutional, or the second bit about the vote to ban oil companies in general to obtain drilling leases if they have a record of being naughty?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Don't worry about it. When the leak is plugged and the most visible effects of the spill are papered over and Congress goes back to the Republicans at worst nothing more will happen. Yeah BP's going to spend a lot of money paying people off in the Gulf, but that's temporary and they make obscene amounts of money so will easily cover it and remain profitable.Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Nope. Why would it be? Are you claiming it's invidious?
Your objection to it is, of course, that it's not the standard bidding practice. Sorry Dread, but Congress is ultimately the regulatory body *yeah, yeah, these days it's the Executive branch that actually does it, but that's because Congress has been delegating more and more of its functions to the Executive since practically the first session. Constitutionally, the permanent regulatory authority still lies with them* they determine what the standards are. You literally can't accuse Congress of breaking the law. Because what they choose to do IS law. You can only whack them for being unconstitutional. One assumes you think any deviation from current standard practice violates the equal protection clause but that won't go anywhere, due to how they *and no, they're not unique in this* constantly violate regulations. Congress *and the Executive, using authority and functions Congress has ceded* have the authority to ban companies from operating in US jurisdictions entirely, for a host of different reasons. Doing so is not a matter for the courts, though it may be challenged there for being done on unconstitutional grounds. There is no judicial process, no set of civil torts or criminal charges for forbidding a company from operating, because that power doesn't lie with the judicial system.
Last edited by LittleFuzzy; 07-15-2010 at 05:36 PM.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
...Arghhh!!!
...really? I beat out Rand, Loki, and Dreadnaught in picking potential stocks to invest in, and my whole education involving anything related to money and the stock market is Economics 101......I would've invested* back when it was at ~ $27 a share, which it was around several times for nearly 12 - 24 hours since I made that post. Hell, I wouldn't even have to have waited as long as Loki was suspecting, I probably could've dumped the stock today for a tidy $11 profit per share, or perhaps waited till tomorrow when it might actually hit $40, and gotten $12 - $13.
Edit: Back to your question, no, I would've bought it weeks ago when it was below $30. Its price is only going to go significantly up until the cap is successfully put on, and then a bit more when the relief wells are finished, then its likely to get hammered again as the government lays into it when its no longer necessary to have them around to shoulder the costs of the cleanup and compensation they have to dole out.
*If I had a significant amount of disposable savings just lying around, which I do not.
. . .
Deadline tomorrow: should I short BP stock?
What do you think you should do?
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Probably just sell the few shares I currently have and not short. I've never really tried shorting before. But I could see lots of other people selling shares tomorrow, and there's suggestions that the oil cap might not hold out, which would cause another tumble.
I truly don't know, maybe one of the other money-grubbers like you has an opinion.
But considering that you are you, I would seriously suggest going with your own instincts.
Unworking? Take a couple of days in the great state of Georgia.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Buying stock is "money-grubbing"?
The question is---are you investing, or trying to time the market and act like a day-trader?
I think you can be reasonably sure that Wraithy took the comment exactly the way it was intended, Geegee.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
No doubt he did. What of the other money grubbers?
Maybe you don't own stocks or have investments, Lolli?
You're probably right. Just cash out now, and not take on any additional risk. This is already a much sooner payoff than I was expecting when I bought. (I wish I'd bought more)I truly don't know, maybe one of the other money-grubbers like you has an opinion.
But considering that you are you, I would seriously suggest going with your own instincts.
Unworking? Take a couple of days in the great state of Georgia.
I've been quite busy IRL so haven't had as much chance to follow this, but I replied to you back then saying that it was no "sure thing" either way. Like Dread said at the start of the thread, I said back then, it's gambling. You may think you know which way it'll go, but then again you may think you know who'll win Saturday's football game. Either way, its not a done deal....Arghhh!!!
...really? I beat out Rand, Loki, and Dreadnaught in picking potential stocks to invest in, and my whole education involving anything related to money and the stock market is Economics 101...
Edit: Back to your question, no, I would've bought it weeks ago when it was below $30. Its price is only going to go significantly up until the cap is successfully put on, and then a bit more when the relief wells are finished, then its likely to get hammered again as the government lays into it when its no longer necessary to have them around to shoulder the costs of the cleanup and compensation they have to dole out.
*If I had a significant amount of disposable savings just lying around, which I do not.
I think we can be reasonably sure no one but you would ever take it badly, or think it was worth being a bitch over.
I also think we can be reasonably sure that Wraithy doesn't want financial advice from you. I seem to remember your trying to tell him he shouldn't be investing in the stock market, and you don't seem to have a very good understanding of investments in general, either.
But, unlike you, I can admit to a general lack of knowledge in that area.
So, no, my investments are not in stocks. They probably should be, but the only way I would is if I thoroughly understood the stock market. And, if I felt the urge, Wraithy would be one of the first people I talked to looking to increase my general knowledge on the subject.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Sorry, I wasn't aware this was just something between you and Wraith.
It's not necessarily "bitchy" to take this thread with a wee bit of seriousness, even though it's in General Chat.
I'd never tell someone they shouldn't be investing in the stock market, but would say a trusted advisor is crucial. I'm comfortable with my investments and know more than quite a few people, and how to find good advice.
If it were just between me and Wraithy, it wouldn't have happened in a public setting. I have multiple methods of having a private conversation with Wraithy.
I made a simple comment to emphasize something Wraithy already knows perfectly well - that, while my advice on any number of topics is spot on, he should probably remember that I am filthy commie scum.
And I am pretty sure that is a sign that I am taking Wraithy's investments pretty fucking seriously.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Good decision. While it is true that in the long-term the stock market as a whole generally tends to perform better than cash savings or other non-property investments, it is still only a generality.
Averages are made up of highs and lows, they're not uniform. It would be a bad mistake to pick any individual stock semi-randomly and expect that to inevitably go up with the market, anything can happen to that company and any company can fail.
My personal advice as the most simplistic way to invest in stocks is: Don't. At least don't invest in individual, specific stocks. Invest in whole categories of stocks, eg a DOW Tracker etc - and even then only if you can safely save your cash for a very long time (decades) without needing to withdraw it. In the short-term or even medium-term a stock can perform badly. The FTSE stockmarket is down now on where it was 12 years ago. An investment 12 years ago of cash stuffed under your mattress would have performed better, let alone cash savings in a bank with compound interest.
For Wraith: Unless you know what you're doing, shorting is quite dangerous.
Then why tell him to "go with his instincts"? That's usually not a great idea for investing. Gut feelings have too much emotion and fear / mania.
For bp specifically, we had posted about this elsewhere. I sold probably half my shares and held the other half with a wait-and-see attitude. Disappointed they suspended the dividend, but I think it might come back over time. (They might even be merged with another company, who knows.)
My personal opinion is never try to time the market, even though it looks "simple" and appealing, unless that money can be flushed down the toilet. I'd never buy something with the plan of selling soon at some peak, because short term capital gains are taxed higher than long term ones. ie if you don't want to hold it for at least five years, then it's a gamble like Vegas or the Lotto.
Not that stocks aren't already a "gamble".
Since at the moment the main purpose of my investments is to insure two kids a college education (complete with grad school, if desired), without being dependent on financial aid at all (even though there is a reasonable expectation of scholarships for both) I just prefer safe investments.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
You're making assumptions again.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Indeed, I'd agree with that. Not sure your oldest's age but if you consider that the markets down on 13 years ago here in the UK - you wouldn't want that for yours would you!
Best bet for stocks is for someone out of college saving for retirement decades away. Even then paying off loans nowadays and investing in property is probably a better and safer bet. I can afford either to buy a house or buy stocks, personally I want a house much more and long-term its probably better anyway.
She turned 11 today (and I have had a bit of an emotional moment realizing that I am old enough to have an 11-year-old). I probably could have been less cautious, but the last thing I would ever want is for the two of them to feel trapped out of some sense of not wanting to burden me. And, if they get scholarships and grants and all those other goodies, the money will be theirs after graduation for a down payment on a house or a few years abroad or whatever floats their boats.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
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