Stocks, Investments, Blood Pressure, Blue Barrels, and You

[Sami123]

@ Sami123: As this is my first time considering investing it would definitely not be a good idea to put it all into any one thing. You are completely right that it's not about performance of the company, but how much people trust it (to perform). Where did you learn what you do know about investing and is it something you could link me to by chance? Also, is your portfolio earning money right now? Is anyone's portfolio earning anything in this economy? Some people claim they are doing alright but I'm not sure how they are going about it.

First you really need to decide what kind of investor you want to be. Big profit with big risk, or small risk small profit. I am somewhere in the middle.

If you are planing to go into the stock market to make big profits in a short period of time I can't really help you because I don't have the time or to trade all the time and follow my investments in a manner you need to and I don't have that much experience in short term selling and buying. I am in the business for the long run, investing more to stocks and funds to preserve my money for the future trying to make some profit a long the way. I have a 55-45 ratio in funds and stocks, so I'm not a huge risk investor, because funds don't usually have huge profit margins.
My portfolio took a major setback in 2007-2008, like everyone else, when things went south, but because my portfolio was already at that time quite widely spread I didn't take such a huge hit as some of the people I know who had made risky investments. I mean I had invested more in strong stocks than smaller riskier investments, but I still lost money during that time. I fortunately listened to some wise people in late 2006 early 2007, who were talking about investing to gold and silver and I took their advise and put quite a large sum of money into both so I have roughly tripled my investment there.

As PP said, investing to real estate and land is without a doubt the best way to invest if you have enough money, because even if everything goes bad in the world you still have that piece of property or land. But a lot of people don't have that luxury, like me. And as PP pointed out never invest more you can afford to lose. I did that with gold, but because it was somewhat safe bet I took risk there, but it paid of.

Now I have stocks in my portfolio that I have lost money in the long run, but I bought stocks a few years back when everything went south and those stocks have made me profit.
Where I have learned to invest, is by listening to people who know more than me about the stock market and reading a lot of books and online about it and then making my own assumptions. I also have a group a friends that invest also and fortunately a smarter than me, so we usually discuss quite often about our investments. I mainly invest into European and Asian market with couple investments in the US market.

Stocks are really never safe and everyone will lose money at some point. Even the experts go with a hunch and no expert or adviser can give you bulletproof advise, but it's really fun to see your own investment to pay off in way your everyday becomes little better from a click of a mouse

[Premium Parrots]

well...........about 30 years ago I invested $400 into a breeding pair of African Grey Congos. They had 3 babies 8 weeks later. I sold each baby for $800. Then they did it again before the year was up. Been investing in birds right up till I was diagnosed and the Doc said to get my affairs in order. The last 2 years I've been selling out all my breeder birds. Got way more for them that I paid originally. Plus they had produced and I made alot on the babies. Actually I had at most 35 pair just of the Greys. I produced 996 babies @ aprox $1100 each over the 30 years. Thats just the cheaper birds I've raised. I'm currently looking for a place to put 25K from the sale of just 2 of the rarer birds that I recently sold. Although breeding the birds has been some work I did make an additional 2 million total that I normally wouldn't have if I didn't put in the extra effort. I was building a bird business for something to do when I retire. Little did I know my health would prevent me from doing any kind of work in my retirement and the few years I'm told I have left. I still have a few pair of these rarer birds left and I'm going to try and keep them as long as I can. Babies are like 12K each. So my investment is still paying off. Anyway, I'm thinking GoldCorp stocks for proceeds of this most recent bird sale. Seems pretty safe.

in a nutshell.....think of starting some sort of side business that will be your own. Someday you can retire to doing just that. I retired from my regular job at 48 and just bred the birds.

or


move out of that crazy state to where you can afford to buy a house. My county has the second highest real estate tax in the country...I'm out of here asap.


ok I'm done. I'm off to collect my gob'ment cheeze so we can eat tonight

[sgreger1]

Smart investors of snuson: If you had some money to invest in something, and/or start a business with (like say $20-50k), what would you choose to invest it in? Starting a business in Cali is nearly impossible without a fortune in capitol to start with thanks to the democrats, so that's why the wife and I have been floating the day care idea for about a year now. PP says that may not be a reality.

Can anyone else think of a small business that could be opened with between 20-50k? Commercial real estate is getting real cheap out here too, pretty soon it will be more cost effective to live in a storefront than a house


And thanks for all of the input so far guys, you all are my go-to folk anytime I need to hear it from an "expert" lol.

@ Sami123: As this is my first time considering investing it would definitely not be a good idea to put it all into any one thing. You are completely right that it's not about performance of the company, but how much people trust it (to perform). Where did you learn what you do know about investing and is it something you could link me to by chance? Also, is your portfolio earning money right now? Is anyone's portfolio earning anything in this economy? Some people claim they are doing alright but i'm not sure how they are going about it.

[sgreger1]

In a nutshell....if you are renting for yourself then its probably time for you to buy a house for yourself. You have the downpayment and prices are down. Do it while you can.

Now the day care thing. There are several ways to provide day care. With a simple home day care there really isn't too much you have to do to make if comply with local DCFS regulation. A Group home day care requirements are a little tougher but still not much to pay out to qualify. A regular commercial day care will kill you as far as start up costs and requirements are concerned. With any of the home day care situations either you or your wife has to be on the license AND on the premises at any time during your open hours. Forget about hireing someone unless your state is different from Illinois. The person on the license has to have so many classes, know cpr and such, and jump thru all the hoops you can imagine. ALL residents must undergo an FBI investigation with fingerprints. If you have a felony it better be minor. Everyone that lives in the home also needs a medical physical. You need written evacuation plans for tornados, fire and such. You can get state funding assistance for meals for the children but all the crap they put you thru is almost not work the bookwork.....but its a little xtra $ in your pocket.

I don't advise jumping into a regular day care facility or even a Group home day care. Its a lot of work to comply and if you do a regular home day care you can make as much $ as you would the large facilities.....without all the headaches. The max number of children allowed in a home day care is 8 in Illinois. One person can do the job so there would be no salary to worry about. You do a good job and get a reputation and you will earn twice as much per child. If you think you are going to hire someone to provide the care for the children forgetaboutit. That just doesn't work, besides who ever is on the license has to be on premises. Its good for both of you to be on the license in case your wife has a medical appointemnt so something she needs to do then you can stay with the kids for a short while. We do have a girl that works for us [both for the day care and the birds] so she is only "part time" with the day care and not a "real" employee so she doesn't need the background check and all.

No guns on premises [or don't tell em] You need to stay away from porn and have a respectable image. And as the man of the house be carefull what you say and do. Parents can be over protetive and have tunnel vision in this regard. Remember that your home is open to DCFS and the parents so hide your pot, meth, OCs, or whatever. Its best not to let them know about your snus use either.


Anyway, there is a ton of stuff to know before deciding and I only mentioned a few. If your wife isn't planning on staying home and doing this then forgetaboutit now. Besides, parents don't really want day care providers that don't actually own there own home. The regulations in cali are probably a tad different but I'm sure there are still plenty to confuse you....or piss you off.

I know when we decided to do this it was the best thing we could have done. My wife has made a ton of $. But there are many other rewards also. Its a good decent job for someone that loves kids.

that reminds me..........I need to get a few more blue barrels.

Thanks PP!

1. The downpayment on a very small house (much smaller than i'm renting) is $120,000. Don't quite have that much money yet. Can't buy a house in the worst ghetto here for only $20k down unfortunately.

2. I was thinking home day care. The people we go to now make a grip of cash and they can barely even speak english. Here the requirements to become licensed are extremely easy (like 12 college credits, a CPR class and a few other things) and if I did $1,000 per kid it would be cheap considering the going rate at most places. Plus I save $1,000 a month by not having to send my kid anywhere.

Anyways, I didn't know that hiring someone like a family friend to do the actual babysitting would be a problem. I know we would have to be licensed too but didn't know that we had to be on the premises during business hours. That pretty much puts a wrench in that plan because I would gladly stay home to be on-premisis but parents don't like leaving there kids with men, even if i'm not the one actually taking care of the kids. Day care industry is a woman's world and my wife would have to stay home (which she can not).

[EricHill78]

Buy low.... Sell high....

/thread

[Premium Parrots]

First i'd like to say that you've done it once again Re: picking the creepiest signature gif possible. Hats of too you good sir.


Anyways, I would LOVE to be able to afford real estate because that pays the highest dividend right now, especially with a record amount of people renting. The problem is that a) I don't even own a house for myself (I rent one) and B) housing out here is very expensive where I live and in the surrounding counties.

I have $20,000 to invest in something and am not very financially literate in terms of investments. I'm only 25 so I am still in the process of learning. It's $20,000 that I could afford to lose without taking any big hit, but as always I would prefer to not lose such a large sum of money so i'm not looking for anything too risky.

My other option is that we have been floating around the idea of opening up a day care business at our house and I think now may be a good time in my specific area. I think 20k could get it started but am not 100% on everything yet. I know your wife has experience in this field PP, may I ask roughly what your total startup costs were? The thing is it would involve hiring one employee, which would eat up most of that $20k right off the bat just funding it for 6 months. I have to check into how expensive it would be to get a qualified childcare employee around here. Last I checked they make only about $15 an hour since the requirements are so low, but have to find out for sure because the market has changed a lot since I last looked into this.

In a nutshell....if you are renting for yourself then its probably time for you to buy a house for yourself. You have the downpayment and prices are down. Do it while you can.

Now the day care thing. There are several ways to provide day care. With a simple home day care there really isn't too much you have to do to make if comply with local DCFS regulation. A Group home day care requirements are a little tougher but still not much to pay out to qualify. A regular commercial day care will kill you as far as start up costs and requirements are concerned. With any of the home day care situations either you or your wife has to be on the license AND on the premises at any time during your open hours. Forget about hireing someone unless your state is different from Illinois. The person on the license has to have so many classes, know cpr and such, and jump thru all the hoops you can imagine. ALL residents must undergo an FBI investigation with fingerprints. If you have a felony it better be minor. Everyone that lives in the home also needs a medical physical. You need written evacuation plans for tornados, fire and such. You can get state funding assistance for meals for the children but all the crap they put you thru is almost not work the bookwork.....but its a little xtra $ in your pocket.

I don't advise jumping into a regular day care facility or even a Group home day care. Its a lot of work to comply and if you do a regular home day care you can make as much $ as you would the large facilities.....without all the headaches. The max number of children allowed in a home day care is 8 in Illinois. One person can do the job so there would be no salary to worry about. You do a good job and get a reputation and you will earn twice as much per child. If you think you are going to hire someone to provide the care for the children forgetaboutit. That just doesn't work, besides who ever is on the license has to be on premises. Its good for both of you to be on the license in case your wife has a medical appointemnt so something she needs to do then you can stay with the kids for a short while. We do have a girl that works for us [both for the day care and the birds] so she is only "part time" with the day care and not a "real" employee so she doesn't need the background check and all.

No guns on premises [or don't tell em] You need to stay away from porn and have a respectable image. And as the man of the house be carefull what you say and do. Parents can be over protetive and have tunnel vision in this regard. Remember that your home is open to DCFS and the parents so hide your pot, meth, OCs, or whatever. Its best not to let them know about your snus use either.


Anyway, there is a ton of stuff to know before deciding and I only mentioned a few. If your wife isn't planning on staying home and doing this then forgetaboutit now. Besides, parents don't really want day care providers that don't actually own there own home. The regulations in cali are probably a tad different but I'm sure there are still plenty to confuse you....or piss you off.

I know when we decided to do this it was the best thing we could have done. My wife has made a ton of $. But there are many other rewards also. Its a good decent job for someone that loves kids.

that reminds me..........I need to get a few more blue barrels.

[Sami123]

Hi,

I have been investing in stocks for the past 6 years and my stock portfolio is quite large and widely invested.

From an Economics student and a layman investor's point of view, I would say that never ever invest all your 20K into one stock. No one can forecast the stock market because it is based on trust and Europe can f*ck everybody's business in a year or two if we don't get our s*it together soon. If your first investment will be so huge spread it widely. If you want make quick money in the stock market you must really know what you are doing and trade your stocks all the time to make some profit.

Looking too much in the future of company is also quite frightening because remember stock markets are based on trust and only trust.
There is no common reason or formula that makes stocks fall or rise.

One good thing is to look at companies who's CEO's and executives buys their own company's stock. That indicates a trust in the company's future really well.

[sgreger1]

All good advice.

I have my share of stocks, gold and such but I make a more immediate dividend every single month collecting rent on my real estate. The houseing market may be a tad volitale right now but even when the shit hits the fan you still have the property, tho it might not be worth as much. That said....prices are way down and now is the time to buy.

The only problem you might have is that you are in Cali and I don't think there is any cheap real estate there. In Gerogia where we are moving I can buy a nice 3 br 2 bath for $60k and reap an aprox. $700 to $800 dividend every month. Being a landlord has its problems but if you find the right renters its a piece of cake.

I'm looking to invest some more now and I was just on the phone with a friend discussing this. We both went round and round but both of us decided that real estate is the better choice. My problem is that I have money earmarked for property but I'm not ready to buy right now. That will have to wait till I actually move. However, I do have to find a place to invest these other funds that are now available. Time to diversify....again.

Good luck whatever you decide to do. Its tough to make you money work for you these days. As always......remember do not invest any more money than you can afford to lose.

First i'd like to say that you've done it once again Re: picking the creepiest signature gif possible. Hats of too you good sir.


Anyways, I would LOVE to be able to afford real estate because that pays the highest dividend right now, especially with a record amount of people renting. The problem is that a) I don't even own a house for myself (I rent one) and B) housing out here is very expensive where I live and in the surrounding counties.

I have $20,000 to invest in something and am not very financially literate in terms of investments. I'm only 25 so I am still in the process of learning. It's $20,000 that I could afford to lose without taking any big hit, but as always I would prefer to not lose such a large sum of money so i'm not looking for anything too risky.

My other option is that we have been floating around the idea of opening up a day care business at our house and I think now may be a good time in my specific area. I think 20k could get it started but am not 100% on everything yet. I know your wife has experience in this field PP, may I ask roughly what your total startup costs were? The thing is it would involve hiring one employee, which would eat up most of that $20k right off the bat just funding it for 6 months. I have to check into how expensive it would be to get a qualified childcare employee around here. Last I checked they make only about $15 an hour since the requirements are so low, but have to find out for sure because the market has changed a lot since I last looked into this.

[sgreger1]

Regardless of how you buy it......you might want to wait to see if it corrects. Let it swing down and then buy....

Do a little research. What are the long term contracts your company has.............what contracts are ending or up for renewal..............In other words, how bright does the future look.............is the majority of your business generated making something congress just decided to scrap...............or have you just been granted the leading contract to build a small planet just outside the Moon's orbit

Uh, long story short they secured some very big contracts going out through the next 5 years with Boing and Lockheed Martin that is going to see huge growth. For example they will be literally doubling the number of employees etc and from what I gather the next 5 years are going to be extremely good in terms of growth for them. I imagine it is not against the rules to buy stock in your own company when you work there right? Is that against some insider trading law or something? I think they regulate how much you can buy at any given time anyways to avoid insider trading on a large scale.

Pretty much we are under the impression that the next 5 years are going to be very profitable and would like to cash in on that in some way (legally of course). Was wondering if buying their stock was a good way to go about that, but wasn't sure how dividends work etc. It does seem a bit overvalued at the moment because Boeing just announced that the contracts will be going to this company, so considering the size of the contract investors are buying a lot right now.

[Mdisch]

PP is speaking the truth! If you already have the money, buy real estate!

[Premium Parrots]

All good advice.

I have my share of stocks, gold and such but I make a more immediate dividend every single month collecting rent on my real estate. The houseing market may be a tad volitale right now but even when the shit hits the fan you still have the property, tho it might not be worth as much. That said....prices are way down and now is the time to buy.

The only problem you might have is that you are in Cali and I don't think there is any cheap real estate there. In Gerogia where we are moving I can buy a nice 3 br 2 bath for $60k and reap an aprox. $700 to $800 dividend every month. Being a landlord has its problems but if you find the right renters its a piece of cake.

I'm looking to invest some more now and I was just on the phone with a friend discussing this. We both went round and round but both of us decided that real estate is the better choice. My problem is that I have money earmarked for property but I'm not ready to buy right now. That will have to wait till I actually move. However, I do have to find a place to invest these other funds that are now available. Time to diversify....again.

Good luck whatever you decide to do. Its tough to make you money work for you these days. As always......remember do not invest any more money than you can afford to lose.

[Mdisch]

Also - remember to have no personal ties to anyone within the company! That crap will land you in jail doing some serious hard time!

Also dividends is in completely basic terms : Payments made by the company to it's stockholders based on their share, sort of a way to keep them.
And to be frank, I'm not a master in terms of stockbroking but these stocks seem a bit unstable... But of course I don't know what kind of knowledge you have regarding the future of the company.

[Snusdog]

Regardless of how you buy it......you might want to wait to see if it corrects. Let it swing down and then buy....

Do a little research. What are the long term contracts your company has.............what contracts are ending or up for renewal..............In other words, how bright does the future look.............is the majority of your business generated making something congress just decided to scrap...............or have you just been granted the leading contract to build a small planet just outside the Moon's orbit

[LincolnSnuff]

0% Dividend Yield and the blank space for Annual Dividends/share means the stock (the company's Board of Directors) is not currently paying dividends. You would have to read the company's Annual and Quarterly Reports to understand why the company is not paying dividends and what the chances are of future dividends to shareholders. I don't know much about the aerospace and defense industry stocks from a average P/E standpoint, but a 23.82 Price to Earnings ratio seems a bit high in this market, so the stock may be overpriced; especially if you look at the YTD, Year, and 5 year returns. The stock has been ripping, but you don't want to buy when it is at the top. It may be due for a correction. The stock is 200% as volatile as the S&P500, so I hope you can stomach big swings in the stock price.

I have about 10% of my 401k in my company's stock. The ratio has been as high as 40% when it was doing well back in 2009. Typically, company stock purchase plans are meant for long term investment/retirement. If you are interested in the stock for short-term investment, just set up a brokerage account with your bank and buy the stock on your own.

[sgreger1]

I know someone here must be at least partially literate when it comes to how stock works.

My wife's company has a stock plan, and we believe that buying it would be a good idea for reasons I won't go into. My question however is, how the hell do "dividends" etc work? If I were to put for example $20,000 into this companies stock, and bought $20k worth of shares at $25 a piece. How do I figure out what kind of return I would potentially get if they see growth?


Furthermore, does anyone here own stock in their company, is this generally recommended (assuming your company is doing well)? Is there any significant amount of profit to be made over say a 5 year period?

We have some savings that is kind of just sitting and doing nothing right now and we are interested in putting it to work, but would also like the money to be available in say 5 years time (so not putting it in 401k etc). Can someone who knows something about stocks look at her company's stock info here and tell me how I would go about calculating the return I would potentially get for investing?

Even a link to something that may show me how to calculate this would be really appreciated. I know one of you on here knows something about this stuff.




Example: It says here the dividend yield is 0%, does that mean it's essentially not making any money?

market cap | $2.447 billion
revenue | $1.291 billion
employees | 4043
revenue / employee | $319300
net income | $102.3 million
shares outstanding | 98.35 million
annual earnings / share | $1.04
P/E ratio | 23.82
annual dividends / share |
dividend yield | 0%
(based on trailing 12-month totals, last close price and annual employees)

Recent Returns:
day | month | YTD | year | 5 year
+4.89% | +13.04% | +37.53% | +34.41% | +67.88%



| average daily return | daily volatility | annual return | annual volatility
HXL | +0.113% | 2.59% | +32.9% | 40.98%
HON | +0.048% | 1.88% | +12.72% | 29.73%
BA | -0.029% | 1.78% | -6.98% | 28.13%
SP500 | +0.027% | 1.31% | +7.12% | 20.74%
bonds | +0.001% | 0.27% | +0.27% | 4.34%
T-bills | +0.0003% | 0% | +0.07% | 0%