Articles filed under 'How to Invest'
I wanted to provide a counterpoint to some recent articles posted on Investorgeeks that have suggested commodities are not a good place to invest. More specifically, that the commodities boom is a high risk area of investing and potentially a giant bubble.
I have a different opinion. I personally feel that investing in commodities is the only way to ensure in the coming years that your portfolio is not decimated by hyper inflation.
The Present State of the US Economy
Before we discuss this further, we need to do a quick summary of the present state of the US (world) economy:
Do you buy or do you sell? Steve says the following:
Here’s the deal, if you felt Apple was a good buy at $130 and it drops to $120, why would you sell? Unless some really bad long term news came out, this is a buy trigger to me. Not only does it lower the cost basis of your original purchase, but it increases your holdings at a price better than you thought was good before.
That is a very dangerous game to play since if the stock drops again you now lost double the amount. And you cannot predict whether a stock will go up or down since it is a general crapshot. Easy come and easy go is quite common in the market.
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Thursday, Jul. 26, 2007
by Christian
Bill (CEO of WineLog) did a quick little post on Wine Investing over at the WineLog blog and introduced me to a site called WineInvestor.com.
A good site to learn about wine investing is wineinvestor.com. Wine Investor is collecting (in one place) all the types of information I would need to explore investing in wine. The guy that runs Wine Investor is from the financial services field, works with technology, and loves wine. What a killer resume.
Investing in wine could be a great way to diversify your portfolio. Especially if, like me, you already have a passion for wine. WineInvestor calls it an alternative investment, specifically a “collectible”, and suggests about 5% allocation in collectibles in this article on asset allocation and diversification. (Let’s see, that means I need to go shopping for about $1500 in wine. Nice!)
Here are some other great articles from WineInvestor. New posts are added about once a week or so.
Friday, Jul. 6, 2007
by Jason
Yes you read it right, I can show you how to make 1.5 million in less than four months. You think it is impossible, right? Think of what you could do with that money. You could pay off your mortgage, take a trip around the world, or buy a brand new Hummer because well you can!
Sounds like a scam right? You are reading the title and first paragraph and realize its April 1! Yet wait it is real!
Head over to Zacks 100K Challenge and a trader called Java J has managed to convert 100,000 into 1.6 million in under four months! The guy is a trading machine! (BTW this is no April Fools joke…)
Amazing!
Sunday, Apr. 1, 2007
by Christian
I was reading Jason’s posting and forum entry was thinking…
“Yeah, commissions stink. With the E*Trade account, my net loss was ($629). I paid $441 in commissions.
I have thought numerous times about moving to another broker for commissions, but I’m really happy with how E*Trade has treated me otherwise. As my account size grows, the commission cost will become a smaller part of my gains/losses.”
Why are people paying more than they should? I really don’t understand it. It’s as if people enjoy throwing money out the window. My mother is in the same boat. She traders with Ameritrade, and BlueMax, and these companies are ripping you off.
Let me give an example:
Last week I made a $13,000 mistake (a tax ruling, not in my favor due to most impressive stupidity on my part). In Warren Buffett terms, that mistake cost me $226,842 ($13,000 compounded at 10% for 30 years – see boys, I do know how to do math).
I won’t sugar coat it. It sucked. Big time.
But I can guarantee that it won’t be my last mistake, nor my biggest (yeah, much to look forward to). Making mistakes is part of investing (or any financial decision for that matter).
Kimber made a post about why Mutual Funds Aren’t for Losers, which was a good article and I see her point of view, however, in this case, I thought I would show the other side of Mutual Funds, which, in my opinion, suck to the point where vacuums should be named after them, or maybe they could rename the Chicago Cubs the Chicago Mutual Funds.
My recent “discussions” with fellow InvestorGeek, Steve, about “baseball cards” as a metaphor for stocks have prompted more thinking on my part. Isn’t that what you wanted, Steve? Actually, I’ve already known that trading stocks is very much like trading baseball cards. I’ve already blogged about the same metaphor many times.
Though Steve and I disagree on whether dividend paying stocks are more than just baseball cards, another point of mutual agreement is that fact that most investors cannot affect any changes with their meager number of voting shares. Whether you own 1,000 or 10,000, or 100,000 shares of a company (even penny stocks), your ownership is no more than a drop in the ocean. But there are investors who do affect positive change through shareholder activism. Notable names include Warren Buffett (Coca-Cola), Carl Icahn (Time Warner), Kirk Kerkorian (General Motors), Ed Lampert (Sears/K-Mart). What if you followed them instead?
On Saturday afternoon, a friend of mine called me and said “You don’t have to watch the Illinois game.” I said, “They lost right.” He said, “They were up 25-7 and the quarterback had 175 yards passing in the first half. He ended up with 190 yards passing for the game because they kept running the ball to milk the clock.” I said. “They were playing not to lose.”
I think all fans hate it when teams play not to lose. Every sports fan wants their team to continue pouring it on, go for the jugular, forget the prevent defense!
In case you doubt my membership in InvestorGeeks, I love movie trivia! What’s the highlight scene in James Dean’s 1950s cult movie, Rebel Without a Cause? You are right if your answer is the game called chicken, where Dean and his rival each drove a car towards a cliff. There are many variations of the chicken game, but in the movie, the game is won by jumping from the car later than the other player; but still in time to avert the cliff. For investors, it sometimes feels like your rival is Mr. Market daring you to jump out of your car first. The person who blinks first loses, but if you don’t blink, you might lose even more when you fly off the cliff! Sounds familiar?
I bet many investors out there have had the situation where you did all your homework before buying a stock and yet it still tanked 10%, 20% after you bought a position. It happens to the best of investors. What’s a person to do in this situation? Should you buy more? Should you get out early?
