Do you own stock? Which companies have you invested in the past or currently? Has it been favorable for you? Did you learn any particular tricks or is it all just a big risk factor?
I'm just barely getting into some stock investing. I've invested in Krispy Kreme, Sony, Yahoo, and Time Warner.
I've heard that what works for some other people is to invest in companies that you are interested in personally. So that's what I'm trying, I guess I'll have to see how it goes.
I have stock options for my company, that I received a little over a year ago. They fully mature after 4 years and I have 10 years to use them. Right now our stock price is not that great, but stock options are really meant to be held on too for as long as possible. It is pretty tempting though to use them, especially when youre tight for cash!
International Level: Envoy / Political Participation: 241 24.1%
It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. There's reason to believe that profit and risk is a trade off-- so if you're saving for a retirement that's say, 30 years away, then you can afford more risk knowing you'll profit over the long term. Another factor is how much time you want to spend caring for you investment-- you want to check/change it daily, weekly, or annually?
There's so much info available these days that you can "know" all listed stocks as much as you want. My situation is I go to free websites where I can scan through the 10,000 publicly listed stocks, pull out the 50 that are increasing earnings and steadily going up in price, then I target a buy price and put in a bid. Each Sunday I get new data and the ones I got that fail my scan get sold-- so I target a sale price put an order.
This is now. Ten years ago I just put my savings in a couple mutual funds and checked them every few weeks. It wasn't stellar returns but it was a lot less work.
There has been one rule I have lived by for my investments. Only invest money which you are willing to lose. There are a million different investment vehicles to help you make OR lose money. Just make sure that you are willing to lose it. I have seen too many people get into the market with some money that they were hoping to instantly double or triple. They dont have the patience to ride out the different market fluctuations and end up moving their money all around - going from bad selling point to bad buying point. They nearly become day traders.
Just a thought,
Vincenzo
International Level: International Guru / Political Participation: 863 86.3%