I am throwing some $ into the market (not much) but just curious on what you guys are buying right now.
I am only throwing $500 in an AmeriTrade account - just wanting to know suggestions.
I thought about going off the cart and buying GM, Winnebago and maybe some Harley. But a firend that does this for a living is saying Verizon, Exxon-Mobile.
Thoughts
Interesting to look at old post, looks like verizon (vzw) and conoco phillips would of be a good buy ! :)
500 gets you little playing time in vegas(if your not playing the penny slots that is), it will give you even less time, certainly less interest/excitement in the market. If your cash position to invest is 500 or 5,000, the best advise is to continue to hoard and educate yourself through this site with seasoned pros in this industry and experienced pros in other asset classes els where. stock tips are worthless unless your friends dad works for an airline that gets a favorable decision on a plane crash case(wallstreet, circa 1987;). p.s. invest in what you know, if you know little invest in your education, books, seminars, etc.
everyone is telling this guy that $500 is too little to start with and would just like to say 'not true" and shame on you for trying to discourage someone. I started with less than that , kept adding to it, and within a few short years I was buying my first rental property with the earning from it. Granted , today is a little different environment , but the fundamentals are still the same.
I typically watch for great companies and then wait for them to have a major PR nightmare , light McDonald getting sued, the feds going after MS, BP oil spill, PGE gping BK and selling at .10 / share ( now at $46 / share) .. all of these are opportunities to put your money to work. Great companies with solid earnings simply have small stock price setbacks because of the hive mind mentality of investors who freak out over the smallest bad new. usually bad news for big companies is good news for me. Thats when the good stuff goes on sale!
that being said - yes $500 is not a lot to start with , but if you put it in the right places, it can grow, and THAT can be leveraged for another investment.
I dont believe in buying individual stocks in an attempt to beat the market. Something like 70-80% of mutual fund managers cant beat the market(S&P500) rate of return over a long period. I'm significantly less educated when it comes to picking stocks compared to them so I take the easy(and more likely more profitable) route and simply buy the market itself. Any time I have excess cash I want to put into the stock market I simply buy Vanguard S&P 500 index fund. Its cheap and diversified and I'm guaranteed to get the market return.
I believe that spending lots of time trying to beat the market is futile. The stock market is too efficient.
I prefer to spend more time on less efficient markets like RE where my extra knowledge and research will likely allow me to earn above average returns.
I don't know that this classifies as a "hot" stock pick....but REIT's may be a part of the equity market that appeals to the RE investor here on BP.
In specific, I really like (and own) SNH.
SNH is an REIT focused solely on assisted living, nursing homes, and senior housing. It has 200+ total facilities in 35 or so states. It owns the real estate and leases to health care and nursing facilities management companies.
It has a 6-7% dividend yield right now. Enroll in the DRIP program with your broker and have the dividends reinvested automatically to acheive compound interest at no transaction cost.
Good place for LT invesmtent and/or a good place to accumulate a liquid capital position for potential RE acquisitions.
Jayme Jayme Jayme,
your going to tell me that some one who is has a max of 500 dollars of investabale assets is best suited in the stock market, and in individual stocks no less. I would assume that since Fertilelegal is on this site he is not satisfied with moderate returns. I would also assume that this person has some of the Entrepreneurial spirit. Here is the deal. The average mutual fund averages around 8-9% over the last 30 years but the average fund investor averages about 3-5% over that same time period. Guess why... because these statistics never factor in the human element buying at wrong times and selling at wrong times. Panicking when everything is on sale. The canned speach is invest in equities and over a long period of time(used to be 10 yrs) you will be fine averaging 9-10% returns. This could never be further from the truth than it is today. If you are satisfied earning 8% compomuded over the next 30 years(hopefully you have that much time to leave your money alone) then invest in equities and hopefully when it comes time that you need to pull some of your gains to supplement your income you dont hit a 2008 becuase then your 8% turns into about 5-6%(great advice). stick with what I'm saying and you will be fine Fertile. invest in yourself, educate yourself in what you are interested in. and hopefully what your interested in, you can control such as real estate, your own business,selling shares of your own company or your own offering, etc. you are an outsider looking in if you throw your 500 bucks into a fortune 500 company and by no means do you have any control whatsoever. Rarely does a fund manager who studies every facet of the market beat the bell weather indexes so why would any one beleive that you will. eduacation, control and balls to take calculated risks is how you become wealthy. nuff said. good luck
your going to tell me that some one who is has a max of 500 dollars of investabale assets is best suited in the stock market
I never said that. My only point was ( since he was asking about the stock market) was that $500 is not too little to start with. We all have to start somewhere. As a financial planner , I helped many people get on the road to investing by starting with amounts that small and sometimes even less.
There's no such thing as 'too little $ for the stock market.' Making money is making money. TDAmeritrade will give you 100 free trades upon signing.
Commodities will continue to rise in price. The world population is growing at an ever-increasing rate and supply is not keeping up.
A good way to gain leverage is to seek out and invest in those companies that source the material. Think about it: PoG rises one dollar, what does that do for a miner that produces millions of ounces? Quite a bit.
It is a roller coaster, but the fundamentals are there for significant gains for the foreseeable future. With QE3 all but guaranteed, investors will continue to run to gold as they have been.
The demand for the metal will not go down in the manufacturing sector as China is cranking up to full capacity again and India will always buy; the 'safe haven' status will only get strengthened by the further debasement of currency.
SLW, SVM, GG, GORO are especially strong right now due to the consolidation in January.
XOM is also looking good.