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[Ether_Snake]

But what happens is they gave me a certain number of stock options, period. I'm not buying some or getting more after a specific period of time (at least, unless told otherwise at some point).

So I'm wondering, why can I exercise the options (turn them into shares and keep them), or exercise the options and sell them (they give this a different name in french)? What benefit is there in turning them into shares rather than keeping them as options? Basically, why not just give me shares, why stock-options?

 

[funkmasterb]

Hey guys! I have around 30k to invest. I'd like a safer vehicle as my retirement horizon is long, and I have 20k in riskier vehicles. Any tips? I'm Canadian, and would like to make 5-10% over 5 years.

Should I just lump sum it, or use dollar cost averaging and setup something monthly (it's just cash now)

 

[Gallbaro]

Hey guys! I have around 30k to invest. I'd like a safer vehicle as my retirement horizon is long, and I have 20k in riskier vehicles. Any tips? I'm Canadian, and would like to make 5-10% over 5 years.

Should I just lump sum it, or use dollar cost averaging and setup something monthly (it's just cash now)

Dollar cost is pretty much the only strategy that is proven to beat market returns consistently. You would be very hard pressed to find someone in this thread who beats the S&P 500.

When it comes to investment vehicles I would go %60 into SPY and %40 into a gold etf.

 

[Tarazet]

But what happens is they gave me a certain number of stock options, period. I'm not buying some or getting more after a specific period of time (at least, unless told otherwise at some point).

So I'm wondering, why can I exercise the options (turn them into shares and keep them), or exercise the options and sell them (they give this a different name in french)? What benefit is there in turning them into shares rather than keeping them as options? Basically, why not just give me shares, why stock-options?

Typically tax reasons, at least in the USA. I don't know what the tax code is like up there in Canadaland.

 

[funkmasterb]

Dollar cost is pretty much the only strategy that is proven to beat market returns consistently. You would be very hard pressed to find someone in this thread who beats the S&P 500.

When it comes to investment vehicles I would go %60 into SPY and %40 into a gold etf.

Thanks man! I found an ETF based in my hometown that looks promising (CEF.A)

Ugh.. I've been on autopilot too long. Gotta get back into this.

 

[koam]

Is buying Citigroup crazy?

 

[avaya]

Is buying Citigroup crazy?

Yes.

 

[koam]

Yes.

Short term, i mean, they can't possibly drop anymore.

 

[Ettie]

Anyone planning to get into (or back into) GM when they get their ducks in a row?

 

[zou]

Today seems to have been my lucky day. Bought AIB 1.14 pre market, sold at 1.53 shortly after the market opened

 

[TxdoHawk]

This isn't so much stocks, but mutual funds, specifically index funds, so my apologies.

I'm about to become eligible for my 401k very soon. I want to be smart about how I invest, as my match is pitiful.

The most attractive option is definitely the S&P 500 index fund I have access to. My question is this: How dumb of an idea is it to very broadly try to "time" my compensation into this fund over the long term? I'm not talking about daily or weekly jumps here, which is obviously foolish. Am I wasting my time coming up with a method to increase and decrease my contribution as the index trends up and down? Should I just take the advice of most managers, which is contribute regularly at the same amount and let entropy take care of the rest?

 

[otake]

I'm getting into the stock market. I'm starting out real slow, investing in two mutual funds, one moderate, the other aggressive and I'm only putting $50 in each. I'm going to do this for a year and see where I stand. amidoinitright?

 

[Relix]

50 is to small an amount. It will get lost in the shuffle and comission fees probably.

$500 is the bare minimum to get started I say, but if you wanna go ahead be my guest.

 

[Large Professor]

Plus a lot of mutual funds fail to outperform the market. Have you considered buying an index-tracking fund instead?

 

[otake]

Plus a lot of mutual funds fail to outperform the market. Have you considered buying an index-tracking fund instead?

I have, $3K initial investment is too high. Especially for someone as financially conservative as I am. Believe me, this is a huge step for me. I know the amounts are low, but baby steps...

50 is to small an amount. It will get lost in the shuffle and comission fees probably.

$500 is the bare minimum to get started I say, but if you wanna go ahead be my guest.

You're probably right but why is that too small? It can't hurt, why is it so bad?

 

[Lathentar]

You're probably right but why is that too small? It can't hurt, why is it so bad?

I'm guessing you'll be paying commission fees to buy and sell. If the fees are 5 dollars a trade, you'll set yourself back 10% instantly. If you spend 500 it'll only put you back 1%.

 

[otake]

I'm guessing you'll be paying commission fees to buy and sell. If the fees are 5 dollars a trade, you'll set yourself back 10% instantly. If you spend 500 it'll only put you back 1%.

From what I read, there are no fees, it's through usaa.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Nice to see CAE almost at $11

edit: And now over 11, at $11.17

 

[Ovid]

Nice to see CAE almost at $11

edit: And now over 11, at $11.17

Awesome. I'm up close to 80% with this stock.

Markets look good this morning. Since purchasing stocks again in June & July, I'm up 8% as of today (all on very conservative investments).

Best performers DEP and BIV.

 

[mckmas8808]

The stock market has been crazy the last 6 or so weeks.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Awesome. I'm up close to 80% with this stock.

Markets look good this morning. Since purchasing stocks again in June & July, I'm up 8% as of today (all on very conservative investments).

Best performers DEP and BIV.

I only broke even. I had originally bought shares at around 10$ CAD. Should have bought a lot more when it was at 5 or 6:|

 

[Large Professor]

Google is flying in the after hours.

 

[Monroeski]

I have, $3K initial investment is too high. Especially for someone as financially conservative as I am. Believe me, this is a huge step for me. I know the amounts are low, but baby steps...




You're probably right but why is that too small? It can't hurt, why is it so bad?

If you run the statistics on gains and losses by people investing in stocks, mutual funds, etc., whatever, index funds are basically the overall safest bet you can make. The highs and lows aren't as great with index funds (that's just basic risk/reward that comes with investing in anything), but if you're talking about long run safe bets you basically can't do any better.

 

[Ether_Snake]

First time I see such a big difference between the S&P and the NASDAQ.

 

[TheOMan]

AAPL and GOOG were insane today.

 

[Ether_Snake]

What do you guys think of LMT? BA recovered recently and I can't imagine that LMT will stay at those levels or go lower much more. I think it would be a good buy long term. Might buy next week. It's possible that if the economy really crashes harder then big defense cuts would be likely though.

Interesting post: 70% Of All Stock Market Trades Are Held for An Average of 11 SECONDS

 

[Ovid]

What do you guys think of LMT? BA recovered recently and I can't imagine that LMT will stay at those levels or go lower much more. I think it would be a good buy long term. Might buy next week. It's possible that if the economy really crashes harder then big defense cuts would be likely though.

It's not going to.

 

[Ether_Snake]

It's not going to.

I think it has strong chances to do so. You really find this article far fetched? http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2010/10/18/why-china-is-really-in-big-trouble/

Any idea if it's possible to short the Yen? If so, how to go about it?

edit: Not buying anything for now after all. I'll wait for a big market drop before making any moves.

 

[Vard]

NFLX has been really good to me. I'm 2/2 in my first experiences with trading. Feels good, man.

 

[Ether_Snake]

So what's everyone's view of the markets right now? I have some money saved up but don't feel like investing in stocks right now, everything seems to be up. I'm thinking of waiting for some sort of downturn.

 

[Fatghost]

How does everyone feel about this strategy?

Buying say 1000 shares of a blue chip dividend payer

Writing a covered call at or near in the money for 700 of those shares

If the 700 shares get called away, you keep 300 at a reduced cost basis, if they don't get called away, you have the 1000 shares at a slight discount to market when you bought them.

Does that make sense?

 

[Ether_Snake]

Bought 100 more shares of ERTS at $15.38.

 

[otake]

I'm up by about $5. Sounds sad but consider I only invested $200.

I've almost made up my mind on opening an IRA on an S&P500 index with $3K.

 

[Ether_Snake]

GMO IPO coming, what are your thoughts?

And Canada Blocked BHP's $40 Billion Bid for Potash Corp. Horray!

 

[zou]

Other than LXK, RCI and RIMM recently I've been staying on the sidelines.

Been mostly short long term treasuries and eur/usd. Made a killing last night after the fed announcement, up 20% on my feb calls in a single day.

 

[sc0la]

I am up $180 today on TSLA.

Panasonic invested 30 million in them yesterday and the NUMI plant for the Model S opened a week or so ago.

I don't have lot of shares in it but I plan on holding them for a while.

I have only been dong this for a couple of weeks so this was a fun thing to see today.

 

[koam]

holy shit at Tesla, I was so close to buying them last week. Ah well.

 

[Cloudy]

Bernanke's new scheme seems to causing an awesome rally

Any thoughts on these stocks?


AAPL
MSFT
CSTR
NFLX

 

[Ovid]

Bernanke's new scheme seems to causing an awesome rally

Any thoughts on these stocks?


AAPL
MSFT
CSTR
NFLX

BUY
BUY
Never researched them
BUY

 

[zou]

MFC finally paying off, up 15% in the past 2 days and 20% since I got in.

VOD and RIMM probably my best trades though, up 35% and 30%

 

[Ether_Snake]

I'm thinking of putting 5000$ a year in Guaranteed Investment Certificates with around 3% interest rate. As small as that return might be, after 10 years it's 7000$ dollars. If I do so through my Tax Free Savings account, which has a $5000 limit, I would make 7000$ after 10 years free of income tax.

The only thing that makes me hesitate is that I could probably manage to make more than 7000 over 10 years with $50,000. Over 30 years that would be $87,877.08!

What do you guys think? I need to put more money aside in a more regular fashion and I want compound interest to come into play. I already put some money in stocks, but I'm looking for something else as well. Or maybe focus on high dividend stocks or something like that?

 

[Ether_Snake]

ATVi up over 5% today. I guess there is a lot of confidence in COD since the ad came out or something.

 

[zou]

20% gain on AIB, TBT and UUP calls doing quite nice as well.

 

[Slayer-33]

Is a crash coming?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703723504575425723973560744.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

We're not out of this mess by a long shot yet. Not until unemployment goes down massively, and that won't happen any time soon at all. There's a limit to how much wood the slave can burn trying to keep the house warm until the master returns.

"Try this: Just 61% of the adult population, age 20 or over, has any kind of job right now"

What the F?


Anyway... I want to invest in stocks I have $5k to spend, first time I'm doing it, dunno what to do to be honest, I have been looking at C since it was at $3.8xish

 

[Ether_Snake]

So far every time I get dividends payments they end up in my account. How do I make it so that they are automatically re-invested in shares of the company? Am I gonna be able to do set this up with my bank, and if so aren't there going to be transaction fees? I don't want to pay $30 to buy three shares at $20 each.

And btw Tarius: I have 1020 shares of CAE. How many do you have? I bet you are making a killing. Right now for ever dollar the shares gain, I make a thousand. I hope this thing keeps going up for a long time. I'm guessing in the future they could end up being bought if the shares to go up too much, so either way I'm thinking this is a good long-term investment, even if it was to fall suddenly for whatever reason. I wish I had bought more when it was down!!!

 

[Fatghost]

So far every time I get dividends payments they end up in my account. How do I make it so that they are automatically re-invested in shares of the company? Am I gonna be able to do set this up with my bank, and if so aren't there going to be transaction fees? I don't want to pay $30 to buy three shares at $20 each.

And btw Tarius: I have 1020 shares of CAE. How many do you have? I bet you are making a killing. Right now for ever dollar the shares gain, I make a thousand. I hope this thing keeps going up for a long time. I'm guessing in the future they could end up being bought if the shares to go up too much, so either way I'm thinking this is a good long-term investment, even if it was to fall suddenly for whatever reason. I wish I had bought more when it was down!!!

Call the company directly. Not every company offers DRIPs though.

 

[sc0la]

TSLA is up 30% since I bought it late Oct. :lol

I just bought this because I believe in what the company is doing and expected to hold on to it with out it doing anything until they started producing the Model S in 2012.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Good move. I have been bearish with cars in general, but in emerging economies there could be some good companies to look into. China and India are likely to see their car producers get bigger shares as more people move into the middle class. Tata Motors' shares are at their highest. Car sales just reached a record in India. http://us.rd.yahoo.com/finance/exte...575605653048280266.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs

BTW CAE up over 4% after earnings. Go go go CAE!

 

[Ovid]

So far every time I get dividends payments they end up in my account. How do I make it so that they are automatically re-invested in shares of the company? Am I gonna be able to do set this up with my bank, and if so aren't there going to be transaction fees? I don't want to pay $30 to buy three shares at $20 each.

And btw Tarius: I have 1020 shares of CAE. How many do you have? I bet you are making a killing. Right now for ever dollar the shares gain, I make a thousand. I hope this thing keeps going up for a long time. I'm guessing in the future they could end up being bought if the shares to go up too much, so either way I'm thinking this is a good long-term investment, even if it was to fall suddenly for whatever reason. I wish I had bought more when it was down!!!

No Ether_Snake, not nearly as much as you. Even though it was cheap back in '08, I still limited my exposure to the company. The bulk of my shares were bought at $6 though. CAE is a great company. I would stock up on more shares if I had the money. Didn't you buy a lot of your shares at around $12.

Anyways, my only recent stock purchase was MRF (American Income Fund). I purchased shares last month. I'll probably buy more before December.

 

[Ether_Snake]

No Ether_Snake, not nearly as much as you. Even though it was cheap back in '08, I still limited my exposure to the company. The bulk of my shares were bought at $6 though. CAE is a great company. I would stock up on more shares if I had the money. Didn't you buy a lot of your shares at around $12.

Anyways, my only recent stock purchase was MRF (American Income Fund). I purchased shares last month. I'll probably buy more before December.

I bought my shares when they were at around $10.00CAD, before the crisis. Never bought more when it dropped.

I am planning on investing in some minerals, energy, and resources mutual funds in early 2011 through my tax free account. The return rate seems decent, usually at least 8%. Is there anything I should know? Will I still get the dividends?