Just wondering if there are any active investors who are playing the stock market among us here in sajha. I am a rookie investor myself, so it would be nice to share a few thoughts, ideas, and tips with those involved in it.

From what I have seen in America, owning your own business or being an wise investor is the only way to build wealth. Well you can always hit the jackpot lottery but what are the odds? Investment, Stock Market, and all the financial jargons related to them can be overwhelming and intimidating for first time investors, even more so if you are an immigrant. So, I hope we can make this a knowledge sharing platform to help those who are interested in learning more about investment and stock market in general. And for those of you who have no interest in stocks or investment at all, here is why may be you should reconsider.

We all know about Dell computer and chances are at one point or another we have all used it. If you had spent $5,000 on Dell stocks in 1998 your return as of today would be over $133,000. Or how about ebay? I know I use it for buying and selling time to time. If you had spent $5,000 on ebay in 2003, guess how much would be the value of your stock today? In less than 3 years your $5,000 investment today would be worth over $47,000 today.

Now I am not saying it's a sure thing because you can lose money in the stock market as well and that is why you need to be wise and do your research. So, if we have interested folks, we can make this a way to help each other in a small way.

Thanks.

Well, two of mine were red, one had an earnings announcement today, it went up by a whopping 12%. On average, 5% gain. Very nice. Check out UFPI.

Short Term Money Market fellas...The Yield Curve is pretty flat right now because as the fed as continously been raising short term rates, the gap between short term and long term rates isn't very wide, therefore you would have an incentive in buying short-term 3 to 6 months debt instruments, if you want to get out quickly. Intermediate holding is also a good idea along with buying some futures on metals.

Tomorrow will be a good day to add metal stocks to your portfolio, as we had a pretty decent market correction of an average 2% - 5% down on all these stocks. Era of construction & destruction is still at its full swing....so don't miss a chance to ride this wave!!

What a crappy day, lost 1% today, one of my stocks went down a whopping 9% for no reason at all. Check out PortalPlayer, it's down by almost 41%. To think that I almost bought some shares of portalplayer *shudders*. Hmm, but this may be a good buying opportunity.

Ouch horrible day for PLAY down 41%? You would think it's a good time to get in, but I wouldn't since they've lost 90% of their business. Thug why don't you find out who apple is replacing to spully chips for their ipods instead of portalplayer. I think that might be a good stock to get in, unless its out already and their price just went up 41%

Even though today's been really bad...its still be one of the better week in a while. If we close on the green side tomorrow, i won't complain much about today :p

p.s. uday bro should have bought google 3 months ago when they announced 4Q earnings...after their 1Q earnings afterhours today...they are up almost $100 from where it was 3 months ago!

Finally got rid of WWW with 12% gain.

hukka!
Google is doing good now but let's not talkobut should've/could'ves. You don't want me to get started on that!

I think apple uses wind river(ticker: WIND) for ipod video chips.

Any idea why intel is doing so bad?

Why wouldn't google post higher earnings? Just take a look at sajha's frontpage. About 50% of the page is filled with ads by goooooooogle.

LOL uday bro...yup its no wonder about google.

Dudes check out TIE today...this baby is been giving me quite a ride.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=tie

They announced 2:1 split and this is the second split in less than 3 months. There might be a little pull back before the split so make some funds available if you wanna enjoy this ride...I know i will.

P.S. All in good faith advice hai pheri :-)

hukka nepali,

thank you for referring the book.

You're welcome AP98!

Good luck with your investments.

Guys,

Can anyone of you recommend good Communication and Energy stocks.

Haku

Hey Haku,

IMHO, for communication VZ (Verizon) has a solid future ahead. Energy stock....for energy stock I like Duke Energy. I've been following it for a while now and it's been solid. Here's the ticker.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=DUK

While you are at it, check out TIE too....this stock has more that double for me in just over 3 months and still continues to grows.

Good luck!

Check out WEX, it tumbled almost 30% in merely two days. Thank God I am diversified enough, coz otherwise it would have been a big drop for me. So in essence, it didn't make much of a difference for me, but I'm definitely gonna sell the shares. No point in keeping it.
What do you think of Sirius? It's looking very very attractive. It's only at 4.70 right now--I think it is definitely undervalued. What do you think Hukka?

Hey thugged_out,

I really like Sirius and it is definitely undervalued! I used to own it but had to sell it few weeks ago to add more metal and ethanol stocks. I've been loooking to add SIRI back but the stock is really volatile as it goes from 4.75 - 5.00+ without any kind of news. I truly beleive in satellite radio for the future but for now it all depends on the oil and gas prices. I know cars are getting high tech and almsot all new automobile these days come with built in satellite radio (not just luxury models). So, I think something like ethanol or somehow gas prices comes down so that consumers have more money to spend and satellite radio is worth every penny. Upper class folks already have it but until you can grab the middle class and lower middle class, satellite radio will be a bit of a drawback. Nonetheless, I like Sirius for it's value right now way better than XM...so, I think if it comes anywhere close to 4.50+ range its a BUY. Thrown in about 1000 shares watch that puppy grown in 4-7 years.

BTW, you still keeping NUE? Like most metal stocks that one have had an unbelievable run too and you know it's gonna come to and end sooner or later. I'm in a dilemma on TIE since its more than doubled for me in such a short time.....ahhh greed is a thing of beauty!

How many different stock do you have in your portfolio? I recently cut my diversification from 11 to 6

Dear Hukka Nepali and Thugged out,
I am totally new to this stock market thing. Can u guys tell me how to participate in this trade? I want to invest a couple of grands and try my luck ! I am well aware that I might loose my hard earned savings but then 'no risk no gain', haina ra ? कृपया झर्को नमनिदिनु होला । धन्यवाद ।

There's are tons of brokerage firms you can choose from. Check out this website:
http://www.fool.com/dbc/dbc.htm

As they say, you need to diversify your portfolio. Do not buy shares of just one company and expect it to go up. Also do this: go to amazon.com or your local barnes and noble pasal and get a copy of Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor". Benjamin Graham's book suggests that you buy stocks of 10-30 different companies. I learned it the hard way, trust me. Last year, my portfolio had stocks of only two companies: one was pfizer, and the other...well let me not mention the other one. Let me just say that it filed for bankruptcy and it got delisted and it's trading at 20 cents a share. I got out of it right on time. Had I not done that, I would have lost plenty more.

Second, what sort of a person are you? Are you able to handle the volatility of the stock market? If not, try an index fund. Your return is just dependent upon the performance of the market. Go to this site:
http://www.ishares.com

You may want to build a portfolio of just these index funds. The average market return has been 10%. Also, here is a fact: most mutual funds don't seem to be able to beat the market. I myself am trying to beat the market, and I have not been that successful. But I'll keep trying till I get it right. I'm gonna subscribe to the Wall Street Journal soon; you may wanna do the same.

Hukka,
I had bought Sirius shares at almost 7.10. What happened was that it kept going down and down and I quickly traded it away. Now it's hovering around the 4.70 area, and it seems like it's not going anymore down. Looks like there is some sort of support in this area. I personally think that if you wanna invest in Sirius, you really need some cojones. This is one helluva volatile stock. Hukka, I have 10 different stocks. I don't want my protfolio to be any more volatile than it already is.

Thank you, thugged out. I definitely will follow your directions i.e. reading the book suggested by you and visit the websites recommended. I'm sure they will be helpful for someone like me starting from scratch.
Have a great day !

If you are starting right now, then I would suggest you to at least wait 5-6 months to get the feel of what stock market is before you throw in your hard-earned money. In the mean time, select few companies and put them in your portfolio (in yahoo, msn, or wsj) for free and watch them closely. Follow news items of those companies and see how that affects the stock prices.

Knowing a lot does not gurantee a great return, but not knowing what you should know can lead to a disaster.

Dear Thugged out,
About myself: I am in mid forties, in USA( NYC) since last 2 yrs, H4 visa, married, 2 kids.
Present job laborous and stressful. Hence want to be self employed no matter how little I earn- or not at all.
And thanks Guest 4 for your suggestion. I will devote some time before venturing into it !

Yes, Guest4 is actually correct. You may want to use one of those "simulation" programs before actually buying stocks. Secondly, you may want to use the "defensive investment" strategy, as discussed by Graham in that book I mentioned above. Also, it's never late to invest, not is it early. I am 26 years of age myself. Also, it is good to do your own research. Do not trust anybody with your money.