The Stock/Investment Thread

[Dreadnaught]

Ohhh, so you bought a stake in the company. I was perhaps thinking of "vested" in the traditional sense of a company giving you options that vest. So then what is the choice ahead of you?

Now the question is even more on-topic!

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I use ING Direct for my cash savings and have found their affiliate Sharebuilder good for trading. Plus the integration between the savings account and the trading side helps if I want to move quickly on something. $9.95 per trade, with the usual options for dividend reinvestment, etc. I track performance by manually uploading trades into profiles in Google Finance, though tracking dividends in Google Finance is a fracking mess and I don't do it.

My buying/selling cycle is pretty long. Right now I'm focused on accumulating long-term investments, so I sell rarely. What I have sold has usually been after 8-12 months.

My goals are also modest at this point; now that I've saved enough cash for emergencies, I'm focused on earning a return that's higher than my savings account (without touching my emergency savings fund).

[Illusions]

Ohhh, so you bought a stake in the company. I was perhaps thinking of "vested" in the traditional sense of a company giving you options that vest. So then what is the choice ahead of you?

Now the question is even more on-topic!

It can only be moved to a retirement fund. I don't really have enough time to research them, nor would I likely be the best at understanding what said research was telling me, so I have yet to do anything with it. I was looking into IRA's, but I'm not exactly sure what to do there.

Also I myself didn't. It was one of the benefits that I was given for working there after X amount of years. The amount I'm vested was based on the amount of money I was earning + how long I continued working there after the original amounts were invested.

I use ING Direct for my cash savings and have found their affiliate Sharebuilder good for trading. Plus the integration between the savings account and the trading side helps if I want to move quickly on something. $9.95 per trade, with the usual options for dividend reinvestment, etc. I track performance by manually uploading trades into profiles in Google Finance, though tracking dividends in Google Finance is a fracking mess and I don't do it.

My buying/selling cycle is pretty long. Right now I'm focused on accumulating long-term investments, so I sell rarely. What I have sold has usually been after 8-12 months.

My goals are also modest at this point; now that I've saved enough cash for emergencies, I'm focused on earning a return that's higher than my savings account (without touching my emergency savings fund).

Any ideas of how bad it could get for me? Simply from this thread I'm tempted to use a part of my tax refund, $2500, to do some experimental trading for a month and see how it goes. If I could out perform my retail job in earnings though, the extra time could be put towards improving my resume and searching for another job, or just having extra money on top of whatever else I earn. Minimum wage + Part Time sucks to all hell when you're paying off $400 a month worth of college loans.

[Dreadnaught]

It can only be moved to a retirement fund. I don't really have enough time to research them, nor would I likely be the best at understanding what said research was telling me, so I have yet to do anything with it. I was looking into IRA's, but I'm not exactly sure what to do there.

Also I myself didn't. It was one of the benefits that I was given for working there after X amount of years. The amount I'm vested was based on the amount of money I was earning + how long I continued working there after the original amounts were invested.

Gotcha, sounds like a pretty standard equity plan with restricted shares. Except for the part where you have to decide what to do with it. Or are they just making you move the shares into a management account that you control so they stop paying fees on it?

Because you've already gotten the shares and presumably paid taxes, a Roth IRA probably makes sense because the appreciation on the shares will be tax free if don't sell before you're 65. That's sort of a long-term proposition there, so a lot depends on what you think the outlook of the company is.

Unless they put these shares into a 401(k) where the contributions are tax-free. In which case just keep them there, that's the easiest thing to do. It seems a bit silly that you can't just put it into a regular non-retirement account.

Any ideas of how bad it could get for me? Simply from this thread I'm tempted to use a part of my tax refund, $2500, to do some experimental trading for a month and see how it goes. If I could out perform my retail job in earnings though, the extra time could be put towards improving my resume and searching for another job, or just having extra money on top of whatever else I earn. Minimum wage + Part Time sucks to all hell when you're paying off $400 a month worth of college loans.

I think it's of course possible to have hits. But most active managers who trade stocks regularly don't outperform the major market indexes. And computers using algorithms to sniff out these rapid opportunities will eventually stumble on the penny stocks you're looking at and could beat you to the punch.

You may want to consider a compromise. Take half of your refund and invest it in some long-term but fairly conservative bets that also pay some dividends (utilities, CPG, energy, maybe some tech), and walk away. Then take the other half and actively trade it. Then check back in 12 - 18 months and see how far ahead you are. And if you did mak more from actively trading, was it enough to be worth the time you spent.

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Ag- Shorting gold makes some sense because there is a good chance the price increases are an asset bubble. But why short McDonalds and Google? Both are growing quickly, have solid performance and have made clear signs they intend to expand.

[agamemnus]

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Ag- Shorting gold makes some sense because there is a good chance the price increases are an asset bubble. But why short McDonalds and Google? Both are growing quickly, have solid performance and have made clear signs they intend to expand.

McDonald's:
Just look at how far they've grown in profits/stock price, and the expansion potential. Sure they changed their strategy and started offering healthier food, but that can only take you so far. (a 600% increase in stock price over 6 years or so) They have not that much of an advantage over local chains. Furthermore, McDonald's demand peaks when the economy is slow (since it's cheap), and drops off when the economy gets going again.

Google:
They are growing via acquisitions, not innovation, and have been for a while. Just like McDonald's, unless they come up with something totally new, there is nowhere left to grow.

Google, McDonald's, and gold. I don't see anywhere to go but down. Sure, McDonald's is expanding, even in my state in Massachusetts -- because they have cash, not because of sane decision-making. Sure, gold is going up right now because idiot investors think that the US won't raise the debt ceiling and everyone is concerned about inflation, but I think that inflation has already been factored into gold prices several times over. Sure, youtube is popular... but it was popular before.

You all should give me all your money. I'll take good care of it and I'll only take 10% of the profit...