Investment Thread - For all your money needs

[HuskyDeac]

AAPL's run has made my portfolio jump a laughable amount this year. I'm wondering if it's hit it's peak or if I should hold.

They just sold 3 million Ipads in 3 days. I don't think it will stop anytime soon. Analysts are saying the iphone 5 is supposed to be their biggest success yet. Though I don't think that is released until fall.

[Deac2010]

I bought at 6.61 back in september after the icahn deal fell through.. i heard that people are expecting hunger games to open at 100-110 million and anything below that will be bad. looking at the number of theaters it is opening in and the # of showtimes, jim cramer says its impossible it will open that high..

[SkyDivingDeacon]

I bought at 6.61 back in september after the icahn deal fell through.. i heard that people are expecting hunger games to open at 100-110 million and anything below that will be bad. looking at the number of theaters it is opening in and the # of showtimes, jim cramer says its impossible it will open that high..

Jim Cramer is an idiot. Not that I agree or disagree with any one thing that he has said recently or in the past, but his logic is non-existent.

Also, I would hold on to AAPL and actually buy more of it. Few stocks that I can say that about right now...

[Caturday]

I would avoid Jim Cramer's advice. Usually, by the time he says something everyone already knew it and those who didn't just found out. I care very little about equities, I own some but as Steven Cohen said, there's no money to be made in US equities. While obviously the run up in the past couple years shows that to be false. I agree with Cohen in the sense that in order to be a successful investor you have to have an eye for value, macro trends and an understanding of commodities. In other words, traders must be nimble and creative.

[Caturday]

What a strange neg rep I got for encouraging investors to look at alternatives to the US market given the thousands of relatively new investment vehicles there are out there. You'd think people would want to learn to hedge after the Credit Crisis.

[DEACisGO]

I would avoid Jim Cramer's advice. Usually, by the time he says something everyone already knew it and those who didn't just found out. I care very little about equities, I own some but as Steven Cohen said, there's no money to be made in US equities. While obviously the run up in the past couple years shows that to be false. I agree with Cohen in the sense that in order to be a successful investor you have to have an eye for value, macro trends and an understanding of commodities. In other words, traders must be nimble and creative.

If you don't mind me asking, for an individual investor like myself, what is the best way to trade commodities? Do you do it through the same service that offers Equity/Bond trading?

[Caturday]

I recommend buying barrels and barrels of oil and keeping it in your garage.

You can buy ETFs built to mirror fluctuations in commodities.

[DEACisGO]

I recommend buying barrels and barrels of oil and keeping it in your garage.

You can buy ETFs built to mirror fluctuations in commodities.

Fact: I can fit 36 barrels of oil in my garage.

[Caturday]

Ok good, 36 barrels is a good amount to start with, nice even number. Now you have to decide what type of oil it is and the only way to do so is to drink some.

There's a list to get ya started.

http://etf.stock-encyclopedia.com/ca...dity-etfs.html

[ABCDeac]

LGF selling off.

[HuskyDeac]

My watchlist stocks are getting hammered. Thankfully I had a massive hangover and didn't buy into any of them today. All down over 2%.

[Caturday]

I love you USD CAD, you're always there for me

[MACdeac]

If anyone is looking for a purely speculative stock:

Titan Medical (TITXF)

Small Canadian firm who is starting to make a name for itself in robotic surgical systems (Di Vinci is the most well know industry leader). It recently entered into an exclusive licensing deal for the new smallest surgical device with Columbia Med. Trading around 1.75, tremendous upside in an industry that is expected to increase in sales 5000% over the next five years. The intellectual property this company has been scooping up quietly is going to mean fast growth or an acquisition.. Worth a look.

[TravelingDeacon]

I was about to move my mutual funds into one or two stocks before my last long trip. I would have been buying AAPL at 170ish. Someone in finance told me to keep my money in mutual funds as it wasn't as volatile and a better investment. I wish I could remember who, so I could punch them.

Anyway, finally got around to moving stuff around recently. I'm sure there is some risk to AAPL right now and not diversifying, but not enough to keep me out of 50% earnings over the last 3 months and forecasters calling for at least another 100 pts this year. Anyone see this not outperforming most everythiong?

And for me, if you're under 30 and don't have a family, mutual funds seem like a terrible idea. The small amount you're likely investing isn't going to amount to much more with 5-8% annual earnings. By the time you're ready to sell, you won't think much of the amount you've earned. At least with some more aggressive stocks you have a chance of making some earnings which will help you with a car or down payment.

That's me (sort of)...Mid 20s with stable job and I can afford to put away about 600-800 bucks a month in stocks/mutual funds. But, I don't have signficant time to analyze and play the market. Thus, I've decided to pursue a pretty aggressive, but diverse selection of mutual funds. Right now, with the current market, I'm at an average of 16% gains over the past 2 years. Pretty good.

But, I wonder if I would be making 20-25% with a change in strategy to pure equities.

Thoughts?

[Baconwfu]

That's me (sort of)...Mid 20s with stable job and I can afford to put away about 600-800 bucks a month in stocks/mutual funds. But, I don't have signficant time to analyze and play the market. Thus, I've decided to pursue a pretty aggressive, but diverse selection of mutual funds. Right now, with the current market, I'm at an average of 16% gains over the past 2 years. Pretty good.

But, I wonder if I would be making 20-25% with a change in strategy to pure equities.

Thoughts?

You wouldn't....no one makes that on the regular regardless of what they say.
If you're making 5-8% with mutual funds then in the same market you'd could expect 3-13% in equities. That's not to say you couldn't hit a few home runs and make 20+%, but you could just as easily have a few whiffs.

[HuskyDeac]

That's me (sort of)...Mid 20s with stable job and I can afford to put away about 600-800 bucks a month in stocks/mutual funds. But, I don't have signficant time to analyze and play the market. Thus, I've decided to pursue a pretty aggressive, but diverse selection of mutual funds. Right now, with the current market, I'm at an average of 16% gains over the past 2 years. Pretty good.

But, I wonder if I would be making 20-25% with a change in strategy to pure equities.

Thoughts?

It's just riskier. Like Bacon said, you could end up with maybe double the earnings or half what you've made in mutuals, which for me is a risk I'm willing to take. I don't have steady mortgage/car payments or a family to think about.

[HuskyDeac]

I bought at 6.61 back in september after the icahn deal fell through.. i heard that people are expecting hunger games to open at 100-110 million and anything below that will be bad. looking at the number of theaters it is opening in and the # of showtimes, jim cramer says its impossible it will open that high..

Opening weekend of $155M in the US and $214M worldwide. Nice 7% bump this morning, though it's steadying at half that.

[Caturday]

I'm crushing it in the last couple weeks. Picked the bottom on EUR/USD. Liquidated my USD/CAD last night now there's a massive selloff.

[SkyDivingDeacon]

Mutual funds are not, I repeat, are not a terrible idea for someone who is young and willing to take on significant risk in their portfolio by virtue of not having any major expenditures or life changing events planned for the near future. I would actually argue that if you don't know what you're doing when it comes to analyzing a stock (not just the company) then mutual funds are the way to go for someone who doesn't have the formal training or time to learn it themselves.

The second part of the above is, use an open-platform like Schwab, Td Ameritrade, Fidelity, etc... and get whatever you want. Don't open an account at Vanguard or T. Rowe Price and limit your selections; just open a brokerage account and get it there instead.

Also, FWIW, we've been hedging for the past month and just bought another large block of put options on the S&P 500 ending in September. Don't expect this rally to continue for much longer...

[DrummerDeac]

I agree with SkyDiving... I hold index and mutual funds in my largest account (my Roth IRA). I am fairly aggressive as far as asset allocation because I'm 26 and I have a long investment horizon, but my thinking is that I am not going to pick stocks better than investment professionals who are researching companies and trends full time so funds with low expense ratios are the way to go for me. I have a smaller, taxable investment account where I trade stocks but it is much smaller than my retirement accounts so I feel like I get any stock picking out of my system there, with low risk because it's not a huge amount of money.

Here is a question for SkyDiving and others: I just saw a CFP yesterday for the first time ever to make sure I'm headed in the right direction and have a good plan. He said my Schwab (IRA) account is more aggressive than he'd recommend, even if I am (hopefully) not going to need the money for a long time. He usually manages much larger accounts than what I have, but he said he recommends a 70/30 equity/FI mix. I was surprised at that and I figured I should be more aggressive than that since I'm young...

My current mix is 77% equity, 10% FI, and 13% cash (cash balance is not on purpose, it's basically waiting to be used). I was probably going to use the cash for more equities before I spoke to this guy.

Here's a more detailed allocation:
Large Cap Equity 43.7%
Small Cap Equity 14.2%
International Equity 18.7%
Fixed Income 10.3%
Cash Investments 13.1%

I was going to increase the large cap and small cap portions by about 5% each. What do you guys think about that... does it seem overly risky? I have/am building a cash emergency fund outside of this retirement account, so I don't really think I need to keep much of this account in cash. Thanks for any input... I was pretty surprised at the CFP's reaction so I'm interested to hear what others think.