Finances - which stocks to buy?

[waynehartwig]

If you have any consumer debt I would agree that is a better use of your tax return. Many companies match your 401k contribution, up to a specific amount. So contributing to your 401k is the same as earning 100% interest on your investment instantly. That's hard to beat. For example my company matches 100% of my contribution up to 6%, plus I get another 3% contribution every year. There are few investments that can compare to that.

My wife has two retirement accounts with the USPIS. One is a 401k that she contributes 6% a year to. The other is for employer contributions, which I believe is 5% of your gross pay that year. Not sure why they are seperate, but they are. My guess is some people don't invest in their future, so this is there way of gauranteeing it happens. But since she is investing in our future, I'm not sure why there are still two accounts.

Since I'm technically 'unemployed' I don't have a 401 or etc I invest in regularly with employer matching. So instead of that, I put it in stocks. I also keep my operating capital in a mutual fund that I am not bound to time restraints or windows to move money back and forth. I also keep money in my Paypal account which is also a mutual fund. I try to never touch it, so every Paypal payment I accept is still sitting there. However, I do spend it occasionaly, because I earn 3% on all of my purchases. 3% really adds up when I'm paying a ~$5k bill to a creditor. I can also put money in either fund with no penalties. So I think I'm pretty diverse in my investment strategies.

My wife also has 3 life insurance policies and then we have one blanket for both of us. She also has insurance in case she's shot and can no longer work. Which would pay her current full gross annual salary for life. Accidental Death and Dismemberment I think it's called?

My wife has 18? more years with the USPIS before she can collect a full GIS retirement. At that time, she'll be roughly 50 and I'll be 55 - still young enough to do whatever we want. She could transfer to the FDA, work for another 10 years and collect a second full GIS retirement if needed/wanted.

Guess my point is we don't need a low risk strategy at this point. With stocks we can get a much higher return; granted at a much higher risk as well. If I could find a couple more high return stocks like Gamestop, we'd be set!

This is good stuff though, so keep it flowing!

 

[RockMonkey]

Currently I own:

200 shares - CERAGON NETWORKS LTD REG SHS (CRNT) -27%
200 shares - GAMESTOP CORP NEW CL A (GME) +460%
400 shares - MERITAGE HOMES CORP (MTH) -27%
200 shares - SHUFFLE MASTER (SHFL) -56%
400 shares - SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO INC (SIRI) -11%

IMO Ceragon is a good one, and I'm tempted to buy more while it's down. I'm down about 27%.

IMO Gamestop is a killer, and VERY tempted to buy more while it's 'down' - I'm still over 460% (purchased 10/04) on this one

IMO Meritage is a good one, and I'm again tempted to buy while it's down. They are leaders in home builders, have a fantastic board and have a lot of personal investment back into the company. Housing market right now sucks, so they are trading low - $10-15 a share. 1.5 year ago before the crash, they were up in the higher $80-100's. I'm only down right now about 27%.

IMO Shuffle Master is a lost cause and I'm only holding it because I'm already down 56% and I dont' see it getting any worse. The CFO quit a few months back and that should have been my cue to cut my losses, but I didn't and it really hasn't changed since. They were really up there about a year ago, but then they bought out a competitor that was in bankruptcy and have never recovered. Then the CFO quit.....

IMO Sirius is a keeper, but not sure if I want more of it. I bought another 200 shares when the Sirius/XM merger began a while back, but now it's appearing that the merger may not happen. XM's stock is trading about 10x higher than Sirius. Sirius has a lot of revenue, not so much debt, good board, but the merger dragging out is killing them - both them and XM. Either the merger will have to happen soon, or both companies will have to stop the merger before they both go bankrupt.

I'm thinking about some more GameStop and maybe some Dolby Labs, Activision, Marvel or Vasco Data Security.

Vasco IMO is goign to go up here pretty soon... THey had some deals slip out of 4Q last year and should happen 1 or 2Q this year and I think when they do, they're goign to go up. Right now they are the lowest they have been the past year.

The others are just good buys....

THoughts?

I happened upon this thread tonight, and was curious about how the stocks you mentioned had performed from 2/22/2008 to 9/22/2010

CRNT +8.33%
GME -59.1%
MTH +50.08%
SHFL -8.57%
SIRI -64.09


Just to compare, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is -12.85% over the same period. You picked one stock that's blown away the market, a couple that outperformed the Dow by a bit, and two that have been absolutely crushed. So are you still holding these stocks? Have the last couple years changed your views on individual stocks VS mutual funds?

 

[skippy]

I dont mean to threadjack wayne and i apologize ahead of time.... Being that me and the wife are only 22 years old this whole stock thing is very new to us but since both of us have finished school and are working good jobs we can finally start putting money away and afford to play in the market a little bit. My question is for someone that doesnt know a whole lot about it whats the best way to get started???

 

[Shawn]

I kink my self for not buying into Ford when it was at $1.00 a share when the economy tanked.

 

[OREGON85]

If anyone wants to start investing shoot me a PM. I'll send you an invite to sign up for a free TDAmeritrade account. You'll get a month of free trading ($9.99 per trade after 30 days) and I'll get $50 and give you half. They have a really user friendly website and good support.

 

[waynehartwig]

I haven't really followed them much since the economy took a crap. Keep in mind, you don't loose money until you sell!

I added 100 shares of Ford the end of 11/09 for $8.70 a share and now it's worth ~$12.38 a share. I believe it will also keep increasing, so buy it if you want. Ford CEO is in a good place. Very profitable and running a lean ship. Ford is also the only one of the big three that hasn't taken any federal money, nor do they need to repay it. They are also operating in the black and moving lots of inventory.

I keep a very small percentage of my portfolio in funds - we're talking less than 2%.

The down economy is the best time to put money into stocks. They are cheap right now and when the economy goes up, so will the stocks - or you hope they do and not fold. But it's also hard to invest money you 'dont have'. but if you can swing it....

IMO the best way to do it is through Bank of America. If you have over $10k (if I remember correctly - it's who I use) in combined accounts, they let you trade for free and there is no monthly service charge either.

EDIT: And just to be clear, there was a time there that Shuffle Master was a clear winner. I bought low and it ran high. Company was very profitable and etc. Then they bought a competitor in bankruptcy, and their stock tanked and hasn't ever really recovered because of it. Same people are still in control. Same business model. It used to be over $35 a share.

 

[JL Rockies]

I don't invest in the market... betting Giants to win the Superbowl at the beginning of the 2007 season has proven to be the most sound investment I've made.

 

[RockMonkey]

To be fair, here are how my mutual funds have performed over the same time period. These are all the funds I can get historical data for. Unfortunately, none of the funds in my 401k have tickers I can plug in. I guess that's what I get for working at mega-corp.

PREMX +1.44%
INIVX +34.57%
SSGRX -49.4%
MDLTX +8.15%

All outperforming the Dow, with the exception of SSGRX. This is an energy fund. It hasn't recovered from the oil crash, and the oil spill didn't help. Still, I'm addidng to this fund every month because I believe the energy sector is at a bottom, and it's going to rise quickly while the economy recovers (or even if it doesn't).

In my 401k is a mix of emerging markets, international, domestic equities, and real-estate. It's been consistently outperforming the Dow, but I can't get date-to-date data, so it's pointless for this discussion.

 

[Cody]

I sold out all of my stock when the bottom fell out of my personal finances about a year or so ago. The only thing I still hold is FMX which I bought at $31.02 on the advice of the Motley Fool about three years ago. It's at 50.90 now, but I only have 25 piddly little shares of it so it's not like I've made any real money.

 

[sixb]

I invested 15k in the stock market for the first time a year ago and just recently closed it out for a bit over 600.00 in profit to invest in some rental property instead. It always made me nervous having that money in there, mainly from my own ignorance and zero motivation to learn more about it, plus i didn't feel good depending on someone else to invest it for me.

 

[waynehartwig]

I don't invest in the market... betting Giants to win the Superbowl at the beginning of the 2007 season has proven to be the most sound investment I've made.

It's easy. Buy stocks to companies that you use and believe in. Chances are you aren't alone in the feeling and they will do well in the long run.

To be fair, here are how my mutual funds have performed over the same time period. These are all the funds I can get historical data for. Unfortunately, none of the funds in my 401k have tickers I can plug in. I guess that's what I get for working at mega-corp.

PREMX +1.44%
INIVX +34.57%
SSGRX -49.4%
MDLTX +8.15%

All outperforming the Dow, with the exception of SSGRX. This is an energy fund. It hasn't recovered from the oil crash, and the oil spill didn't help. Still, I'm addidng to this fund every month because I believe the energy sector is at a bottom, and it's going to rise quickly while the economy recovers (or even if it doesn't).

In my 401k is a mix of emerging markets, international, domestic equities, and real-estate. It's been consistently outperforming the Dow, but I can't get date-to-date data, so it's pointless for this discussion.

I can't handle someone else holding my money and making the decisions for me. Sounds like you found some of the rare ones that know what they are doing.

I invested 15k in the stock market for the first time a year ago and just recently closed it out for a bit over 600.00 in profit to invest in some rental property instead. It always made me nervous having that money in there, mainly from my own ignorance and zero motivation to learn more about it, plus i didn't feel good depending on someone else to invest it for me.

There are two types of investors - sit and wait; or watch and hope. If you are the first, then you are buying them for the long term and a short stint in the economy wont' bother you much - I'm down a LOT from where I was just a few years ago. Like I said before, you don't loose money until you sell.

But if you are the watch and hope type, then it will be nerve racking as hell. Everyday that your picks are below what you bought them for, you will be worried about it and get ulcers and shit.

The first is a retirement strategy. The second is a day trader or someone that buys and sells several positions daily. The two are completely different. And if you are the second one and aren't day trading, get out and put it in real estate And I mean no offense by this... Just saying. It can be very nerve racking. You will never (?) fail with real estate.

 

[Unimog]

You will never (?) fail with real estate.

Not necessarily disagreeing with the validity of real estate investing, but never say never. I have some California friends who thought this was true a few years ago! Not today!

 

[waynehartwig]

Not necessarily disagreeing with the validity of real estate investing, but never say never. I have some California friends who thought this was true a few years ago! Not today!

That's why I put the ? mark after it

Right now we're about $20k in the red on our house - ie if we sold it for market value, we'd lose about $20k with broker fees and etc. Market value is what we owe. In all fairness, it's increased about $15k in the 4 years we've had it. In this economy, and still being worth more than it was when we bought it, is a good thing.

We talked to a realtor about selling a few months ago. We want to move to ID and into a smaller house with a smaller payment as well. I'm tired of paying ~$800 a month for 'storage'. I figure that's about the portion of the house we don't use....