This. 9/10 online stock suggestions are trying to pump and dump on you. I made that statistic up out of thin air. Do all your own research and make sure your gut feeling is good about a company. There are unbelievable amounts of new retail traders since the C word happened. They are throwing money and trading ideas around like candy and some are profiting a lot while others take brutal losses. on robintrack you can see when all the RH users pile into a stock for the first time, it shoots up, then crashes, while the RH user base stays strong in the stock. They are getting clobbered most of the time.
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Yep. A very simple well diversified mix of low cost ETFs or mutual funds are best if people want to make money over the long run and not pick stocks based on various message boards.
Keeping your eyes open to the financial news also helps..... like the fast approaching housing bubble and lots of foreclosures after the election. Some people are shorting real estate with an ETF like DRV cause #@%&# will hit the fan if people aren’t paying their mortgage.... banks have no other option than to start the foreclosure process.
No offense to you or anyone else in here. But most of what people post in here are unrealized gains and or short term gains taken out of context.
I agree with GMFan above and others in here.
Just because one person posts a stock that went up 160% over a short time frame means nothing. It does mean something if we knew what that persons realized return on investments were over his lifetime, not a 6 month period or 6 year period.
If the OP has some play money and wants to do some speculative investing there is nothing wrong with that but he needs to be aware, that when he invest that way, it should only be money he can afford to lose.
Further down the line choosing companies with solid earnings, growth and even dividends, if he wants safety but the safest of all, for most people, without question are mutual funds, ETF really no reason to buy individual stocks, except for the fun of it and certainly, without question, some conviction and want to invest in a company that you feel will bring rewards for you to add to the mix is nothing wrong with that as a percent of your portfolio, just keep in mind, over time, most funds and individual stocks do not beat the overall market averages, yet to me, funds make my day more interesting, but even then I choose things similar to index funds, throw in the mix a large solid company which went up during Covid (WMT) and actually kept me in the blue for this account during this period and a tiny bit of speculation for interest and fun.
Investing is a long term commitment along with a lifestyle that involves paying for stuff you buy, instead of borrowing money from others to buy stuff you cant afford to buy and shouldn't be buying. (means stay out of debt to others and to banks) that really should be step one or else you are giving your returns back to the banks.
Once you do not have debt, its fun to plow money into funds ect and watch money grow. Its a long term plan, not short term get rich quick, without question many do get rich quick, also many go broke over night but there is a heck of a lot more "wealthy" Americans who rationally invest in funds and retire comfortably without the stress of how a handful of companies may perform.
I'd be a buyer of GE and selling calls and puts at $6.
No offense taken. I wanted a MAWL and white phos binos, mount, and helmet for < $3k. I'm going to pull it off. To me, that's realized gain and meaningful in a finite way.
I'll never invest seriously in the market, and never have before. I just was a cheap opening to make easy money and took it. My gains posted ARE lifetime, rofl. This pandemic has made my life worse in many ways, and raised my stress level, but I am a complete mercenary personality with stuff. When change happens, I always seek ways to take advantage. This is how I did it, this go.
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This thread is just this side of snarky, but also very informative. I have almost no understanding of the market, yet a MASSIVE fascination with it. I did start a RH account in early Dec. '19, my total investment to date is $189.55, and my current portfolio value is $373.14 for a profit of 96.86%. Do I have ANY clue what I'm doing? NO! That's why I'm enjoying myself. I don't have thousands to lose, heck I don't have 100's to lose. I have a goal of seeing a $500 balance in my portfolio, after that I have no idea.
I have an incredibly boring trading history since the account beginning. I bought Corbus Pharm early, sold for a break even. I bought Sprint when it was in the $4.50-$5.00 range on a complete gamble that the T-Mobile merger would go through. That ended up working out well, those converted into T-Mobile stock at a good premium (I think my 14 S shares converted to 1 TMUS share).
I bought Plug Power in the mid $4 range, currently sitting at $12.01. I still thing Hydrogen fuel cells have a place in the OTR and last-mile delivery realms, as battery tech that can provide the range necessary is still (IMO) 3-5 years out at minimum. Probably 10.
The only other two holdings I have are 5 shares of DAL that were $22.83 each, closed today at $29.22. I truly think airline stocks will rebound, and getting in for $100 at near-rock-bottom prices, considering their 52 week high was in the $60 range and the 5y average was in the 50's.
Last but not least, I'm the proud owner of 801 Dogecoin. This one is ONE HUNDRED percent a joke, $2.45 invested. Who knows, could be the next Bitcoin!! Kidding, of course.
I have an incredibly boring trading history since the account beginning. I bought Corbus Pharm early, sold for a break even. I bought Sprint when it was in the $4.50-$5.00 range on a complete gamble that the T-Mobile merger would go through. That ended up working out well, those converted into T-Mobile stock at a good premium (I think my 14 S shares converted to 1 TMUS share).
I bought Plug Power in the mid $4 range, currently sitting at $12.01. I still thing Hydrogen fuel cells have a place in the OTR and last-mile delivery realms, as battery tech that can provide the range necessary is still (IMO) 3-5 years out at minimum. Probably 10.
The only other two holdings I have are 5 shares of DAL that were $22.83 each, closed today at $29.22. I truly think airline stocks will rebound, and getting in for $100 at near-rock-bottom prices, considering their 52 week high was in the $60 range and the 5y average was in the 50's.
Last but not least, I'm the proud owner of 801 Dogecoin. This one is ONE HUNDRED percent a joke, $2.45 invested. Who knows, could be the next Bitcoin!! Kidding, of course.
I invested in doge. Took 30% profit when it spiked. I think it's a joke too. Made my $10 though, lol!
I wish I'd invested in PLUG. I actually got 1 share free. I mainly invested in Helix because:
-I have a 6-12mo plan.
-HLX is cash + even in 2020.
-HLX has strong management with very positive insider sentiment.
-Their book valuation is several times their share price even now, 50% recovered to pre-Covid/OPEC levels.
-The share price was artificially driven down by: market sentiment, opec v. Russia, and covid, all at once, even though nothing much actually affected the company, which will make a rapid recovery very likely, and indeed, I am up by 175% today since March 16, 2020.
HLX is also a company I follow on fb. They're legit cool. Like, I wished I worked for them when I was younger, cool.
I am not a stock person means a ton of risk for you. Mutual funds unless you like gambling and also following market closely.
Couldn't help but buy another 1,000 MAC shares today at $8.14. Its paying a dividend soon, and the earnings report and call were decent. They still have positive FFO (important metric for REITs) even with being shut down in some states. If you do the math on their market cap (1.3 billion) and the square feet they own, (51 million) its like buying commercial mall real estate for under $30 a foot. They rent on average this footage for $60 a year. its totally crazy. I'm deep in this thing now and hoping for big gains next year. Price to book value .49, meaning the shares are priced at half the book value of the assets. Their interest expense was cut in half vs last year, lower rates are going to help profits a lot, and the inflation will drive up sales per square foot. Things will just cost more in the future. MAC April 2009 $9-10, MAC April 2010 $44, not saying it will do that again but who knows. Gamble at your own risk!
Don't buy individual stocks. I have learned my lesson. I let the PROS manage my investments. Yes, I pay about 1% / year, but they easily beat my investment choices. I use Fidelity Portfolio Management. It has paid off big time.
Yeah there is always ideas to use some of those big box spaces. Amazon is already dabbling in brick and mortar with the Kohls return system. I've always been in real estate all my life and it hasn't let me down. Even though average malls are slowly dying, the top 50 malls they are very profitable. Simon Property group and Macerich have most of the top malls. They are in places where you simply cannot replace or compete with the existing centers because there is no land. Macerich has one of its big boxes leased out to google for 10 years for high end offices for example. Another big box they actually turned into a small hospital. They can do almost anything with these spaces. Grocery tenants are interested as well. Sometimes they take a big box and turn it into 2-3 medium boxes. Before the issues, this company was able to pay out 75 cents a quarter and has since cut it down to 15 cents to stay liquid. 15 cents yields over 7% today. They pulled out of the 08 recession with a less liquid capital market than today. Another interesting stat on MAC is the short ratio, roughly 46% of shares outstanding are held in a short position. Those traders will have to rebuy those shares at some point or their losses will be unstoppable. Its also mostly institutionally held, Ontario teacher's pension board has 17% of the shares. So those shares won't be up for grabs when the shorts have to cover. What about bankruptcy? MAC's debt is almost entirely non recourse mortgage loans on their properties. If a mall center is losing money non stop they can just give it back to the lender without penalty. Their mortgage leverage is only about half.
In a world where owning and renting your own property has hardly any yields and is a lot of work i have turned to things like MAC SPG for my rental income. They are seasoned professionals with big shares under their own belts working day in day out to maximize the portfolio. All i had to do was click buy.
“ All i had to do was click buy. “
About 7 years ago I was had some REITs for their nice dividends but sold everything and jumped on the FAANG bandwagon. My portfolio is up 60% YTD and happy with the results.... was 100% cash in January 2020 because I felt the market had run for a decade without a recession, it was time to take profits.
I do believe Amazon should buy dead malls like they did in Ohio, bulldoze entire mall and build new distribution centers.
Investing in physical real estate is not as easy as HGTV noobie thinks it is. Lots of people are loosing their @#*&%# on rental properties but still have 100% of all the financial liabilities, taxes, insurance, association fees, special assessments, etc....
Tons of horror stories of people having rental properties with zero rents being paid / Airbnb / Vrbo. Rent moratoriums across the nation.... yet people have money to spend foolishly while screwing over their landlords.
I know someone will chime in and say they have 25 properties and they are getting 100% rent paid on time....
About 7 years ago I was had some REITs for their nice dividends but sold everything and jumped on the FAANG bandwagon. My portfolio is up 60% YTD and happy with the results.... was 100% cash in January 2020 because I felt the market had run for a decade without a recession, it was time to take profits.
I do believe Amazon should buy dead malls like they did in Ohio, bulldoze entire mall and build new distribution centers.
Investing in physical real estate is not as easy as HGTV noobie thinks it is. Lots of people are loosing their @#*&%# on rental properties but still have 100% of all the financial liabilities, taxes, insurance, association fees, special assessments, etc....
Tons of horror stories of people having rental properties with zero rents being paid / Airbnb / Vrbo. Rent moratoriums across the nation.... yet people have money to spend foolishly while screwing over their landlords.
I know someone will chime in and say they have 25 properties and they are getting 100% rent paid on time....
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Yeah physical real estate is pretty hard. I sold off my 4 unit when the cap rates hit 5% cause it just wasn't worth keeping. I think the FAANG stocks are overbought but who knows they could just keep going cause so many think they are 'safe'.
Case in point, Apple. Apple has been raising revenues despite forecasts of declining hardware sales. While pundits were focused on iPhone sales numbers, Apple has grown its App Store and other services. They make close to $1 billion a week from their App Store alone.
Companies like this are the conglomerates of the future. They are well worth investing in.
Apple is a great safe bet but for my personal goals its just way too expensive from a P/E ratio, price to book ratio, the dividend is almost nothing. I want to take a bit more risk and get some more gains. I know Apple will keep growing but the have some set limits ahead. Tech will keep advancing and that could make phone prices drop a lot. They already came out with a very powerful $399 iPhone SE. I'l consider buying a new iphone this fall but i've gotten nearly 3 years out of my iphone X and its still good. At some point everyone has an iphone that wants one. Its getting saturated. They can also run into an advancement wall where the phones no longer get faster. What are you gonna do then? Put 6 cameras on it? Without major improvements there is less and less of a reason to upgrade it.
But if you follow the 4% rule then it’s not really a issue, right?
If you research AAPL you will find that their focus is on services and has been for some time now. The iPhone is just a vehicle to those services. Apple has shown that it is nimble and ahead of the curve. Good companies do that. The examples of companies that sat on their laurels and watched change come and go without adapting to it is long.
For novices and pros alike, this video is an excellent guide on how to evaluate stocks before buying and it is only 2.5 minutes long
P.S. It is a joke.
P.S. It is a joke.
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