Who on here invest in stocks and bonds

[Fatal Jay]

Been doing research on bonds, and seen that there is no point in having a bank account if you invest in bonds.

Not sure about stocks, heard you can take losses investing in them.

Do you guys invest in stock, how was your experience with it, and does it take big money to buy certain stock?

 

[Bible_Belt]

It is a misconception that bonds are safer than stocks. You can lose your ass with either.

 

[Fatal Jay]

have you had any experience with both?

 

[Bible_Belt]

there is no point in having a bank account if you invest in bonds.

A bank account has FDIC insurance. The best guarantee on a bond you can get is from the US government. Then comes state and local governments, foreign countries, and private corporations. As you work your way down the order that the issuer's promise is valued, the interest rate promised will go up. I'm sure that the governments of Syria or Mali would offer some very attractive rates right now, because they are on the brink of collapse.

But what people fail to understand is that although a bond has a guarantee of principal and interest from the issuer, there is never a guarantee that the value of your bond will not fall drastically should you try to sell it before it matures. And that's what happens when rates go up - new buyers don't want your old bond paying a lower rate. Buying a bond that you plan to resell at a profit is like buying a put option on interest rates. It is just as speculative as buying a stock that you also plan to resell. There is no free reward in any investment without taking on risk.

 

[goundra]

there are MANY better paying, safer ideas, actually. Bonds pay very little, normally. read HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN STOCKS, and start reading the INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY newspaper. most libraries have it, so save your money. they have the book, too, or can get it from interlibrary book loan.

 

[Fatal Jay]

there are MANY better paying, safer ideas, actually. Bonds pay very little, normally. read HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN STOCKS, and start reading the INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY newspaper. most libraries have it, so save your money. they have the book, too, or can get it from interlibrary book loan.

yeah bonds I know take time, so stocks over bonds though?

 

[twentee]

IF it;s an "up", (called a "bull") market, yes. If it's a "normal' market, MAYBE, and if it's a down/, "bear market", no. I greatly prefer income producing, low dollar, many rooms old house, carefully located in the "homeless-drunks-old/*****/daylabor part of a good sized city, with LOTS more (year round) homeless people than room at the missions, If you go at it right, you can clear 50k a year, after tax now, on less than 100k total investment, and sometimes, it can be done with just 50k of your own money, and some from the bank.

 

[switch]

read this book

Been doing research on bonds, and seen that there is no point in having a bank account if you invest in bonds.

Not sure about stocks, heard you can take losses investing in them.

Do you guys invest in stock, how was your experience with it, and does it take big money to buy certain stock?

there is a book called "beating the street" by peter lynch it's a very good read ......if you have time to read it that is....

 

[Poonani Maker]

what I've done to success in stocks? I'd Study, study, study EVERY night for 3-4 hours after working my real job for 10-11 hours. I'm not married with kids so I can just eat, study, sleep, eat, study, sleep.

You have to invest to make money, and that means, sometimes Buying Tools to help you make money. I've tried monthly subscriptions, then cancelled after no more than 3 months. I treated them like online classes. Really...in university it'd be $3-400 a class, so why not throw $50-100 at a guru's course to get some kinda traction, but a lot of these are semi-scams, but you'll learn even while getting scammed. You must Dive in and Take action in life to Gain experience.

I currently Only subscribe to StockCharts.com and have set up about 8 custom scans to weed out only the stocks that move quick (i.e. small caps but hardly ever pennies, extremely risky still). I have several parameters that return 10 in one scan, 100 or so in another, and 200 in another, but never more than 250 show up for me to go over. That's a lot of work but you have to hone in on your niche. If you have the time on your hands and love it, then you can rack up consecutive kills. If I get stuck in one that I know should not have gone down that there was some kind of short parade to knock it down for some reason or other I'll stay in cause I'll believe in my studies that it'll come back. I'll just stop trading for several months if I have to to wait for its return. I believe in myself when I see value and/or chart patterns to back it up. It's a very dangerous hobby though, and you have to be able to lose it ALL that you wager cause it can happen in the blink of an eye.

I'm actually Short long-term bonds, have been short for almost a year now cause I figured this sh!t can go any lower at 1.4% then, and it really didn't faiap.

 

[twentee]

THE BOOK says to sell out of the price drops more than 8% below the price at which you bought in. you can set up a "stop loss" program, wherein your acount is sold out if ever your stock drops in value by that much. then you hve to decide what to do with the cash from sellng out. lynch said to being into at most 5-6 stocks at any one time but also have 5-6 more good ones lilned up to take over if the first 5 didd poorely. none of the 12 stocks is to be related to any of the others, protectijg you from a downslide on one part of the industry

 

[twentee]

in cases where stock's the price goes up more than 15% over your buy in price, set your stoploss (sell off) point at 5% above your purchase price. and follow the stock up maintaing that relationship of selling off on any dips in the price of 10% or more. that way some profit is assured, Follow the tips in INVESTORS BUSINES DAILY

 

[Bible_Belt]

you can set up a "stop loss" program

I was a professional stock trader for several years, as well as being the broker for hundreds of trading accounts. "Stop loss" is the difference between the guy who is going to continue trading and the guy who isn't. Human psychology wants to have a high "batting average" of trades, with more winners than losers. In running computer analysis of traders, we found that batting average and profit were inversely related. The traders who lost the most money overall made a profit on almost all their trades. But the few giant losing trades destroyed them.

Stop losses, both on individual trades and on daily trading losses overall, is why I was always able to keep my job. Trading like a pro is to post a small loss, another small loss, and then a big win that puts you into the green overall. That's the opposite of what most people do, which is why they lose money.

 

[twentee]

Peter lynch said, before the advent of home computers and discount brokers, that if you can't average making 20%, it's cause you are stupid or not trying. Today, the same thing is true of not making 40%, but some years you are in gold, not the market. some years you make 80%, some years 40%, so the average is 40%, for the little guy, investing 100k to 1/2 million, sticking to 1/2 a dozen stocks in which you are invested, and as many more which you are watching CLOSELY. None of your dozen stocks can be in related parts of the economy. so if one slides, it does not effect your others.

 

[twentee]

u have to know to invest as a corporation, so you need not pay 15% SS. SS IS a tax, face it. if all you make is 20%, and you lose 40% to ss and other taxes, that leaves 12%, and the US has averaged 5% inflation for 50 years now. So you really only make 7%, if you are not careful. If you invest as a FOREIGN corporation, you not only pay no SS, you can also pay as little as 3% income tax and a similar amount of corporate tax.