stock market: what else is there?

About three years ago, I bought and sold some stocks for $32 each, neither lost nor made any cash. I just checked and it was $27 and the downward slope of the graph looked scarey.

Stock markets, mutual funds, RSP are getting really risky. So what else is out there, something online and of course descent and legal?

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gojericho0

I think now is a great time to invest in the stock market. If you go long a lot of stocks are on sale. To help loss you can always dollar cost average.

LarryDaMan

binarysoul wrote:

About three years ago, I bought and sold some stocks for $32 each, neither lost nor made any cash. I just checked and it was $27 and the downward slope of the graph looked scarey.

Stock markets, mutual funds, RSP are getting really risky. So what else is out there, something online and of course descent and legal?

Money market accounts and high yield savings accounts are back in vouge again. However, unless you are over 55, a day-trader, or unless you really believe that the end of the Mayan calendar signals an end to civilization... stay in the stock market!

Over any 10 year period in its history, the stock market has never gone down. People panic, but if you are in it for the long haul... just buy low and wait.

JDMurray

I'm not a financial guy, but I've been hearing lately how index funds have proven over the past few years to be a good investment.

I don't know any more than that. It's just something I picked up listening to the Saturday morning CNN and Fox financial shows.

eMeS

I'm almost 100% in exchange traded funds these days, and write covered calls on those which protects some of the downside risk. A covered call is a type of option...it sounds complex but it's really not.

Another thing that I do is called Prosper. Think of it as a Person2Person lending network. You can directly lend money at varying interest rates and payback terms to different people.

http://www.prosper.com

If you're looking for an investment that is risk free with a high return, I think you might be out of luck. Please let us know if you find it.

I agree with Larry...invest for the long-haul....In 10 years whatever is happening now will look like a small blip on the long-term chart.

MS

Stotic

Investing in stocks is difficult to do unless you're doing it full time or you're paying someone to do it full time. For the regular Joe, a long term investment is best. I would look into a diversified (the key word in the market) mutual fund. While we are in a sort-of down turn the market it bound to recover making it an excellent time to buy buy buy! The market is cyclical. People make their money in it by buying it when it sucks waiting out the good times, then jumping ship at the right moment before it goes downhill.

coffeeking

Thanks for starting this thread, this is something I am very interested in and would love to invest in stocks as an international investor. The only thing is I don't know how to get in as an international investor.

Also, how do you go about it? If there is this one kind of stock that I am interested in, how do I buy it, go through a broker or through a company who would buy it for me?

Any comments are appreciated.

Darthn3ss

i'm waiting on walmart's stock to go back down. when i started there 2 years ago it was in the mid $40s and now its almost $60.... dammit, ic ould of been putting $50 a week up and would of been able to sell for some profit.

gojericho0

coffeeking wrote:

Thanks for starting this thread, this is something I am very interested in and would love to invest in stocks as an international investor. The only thing is I don't know how to get in as an international investor.

Also, how do you go about it? If there is this one kind of stock that I am interested in, how do I buy it, go through a broker or through a company who would buy it for me?

Any comments are appreciated.

If you are looking to get started I would get yourself a good beginning investors book. Finance has whole language of its own and its very important to learn the fundamentals to get started. The majority of my portfolio consists of the following types of mutual funds (all are no-load funds with an expense ratio below 1.2%)

Large Cap Value
Large Cap Growth
Small Cap Value
Small Cap Growth
International Emerging Market

coffeeking

gojericho0 wrote:

coffeeking wrote:

Thanks for starting this thread, this is something I am very interested in and would love to invest in stocks as an international investor. The only thing is I don't know how to get in as an international investor.

Also, how do you go about it? If there is this one kind of stock that I am interested in, how do I buy it, go through a broker or through a company who would buy it for me?

Any comments are appreciated.

If you are looking to get started I would get yourself a good beginning investors book. Finance has whole language of its own and its very important to learn the fundamentals to get started. The majority of my portfolio consists of the following types of mutual funds (all are no-load funds with an expense ratio below 1.2%)

Large Cap Value
Large Cap Growth
Small Cap Value
Small Cap Growth
International Emerging Market

Thanks for your advise mate. I plan on doing it actually. I did start reading a book for beginner investors a little while ago but then the cert work took it over. Plus I don't have enough fund on me to get in the market yet. This is something I would like to do in near future, but sooner than later. I did figure out that you have do a lot of research before you get in there, like you said it is whole different language that you should know how to speak.

I am just looking to see someone who is an international investor, because that is the status I would have when I get in this. I am trying to figure out what the least amount of money is that an international investor should put in to get into the market. I know it is less when you are permanent resident or citizen, but don't exactly know how it is for international investors.

hypnotoad

coffeeking wrote:

I am trying to figure out what the least amount of money is that an international investor should put in to get into the market.

Most mutual funds, even international, can be purchased as IRAs for $1000-2500 minimum, which in some cases is a lot lower than the regular minimum.

coffeeking wrote:

Also, how do you go about it? If there is this one kind of stock that I am interested in, how do I buy it, go through a broker or through a company who would buy it for me?

Most people don't have access to a full-service in-person broker, since they don't have that kind of money/don't want to pay for the service. You can make an E-Trade or Ameritrade account and buy stocks for yourself on the open market -- depending on your account type, you'll pay about $10 per transaction.

Or, just give me your money, I'll take it to the casino and possibly double it in a couple hours!