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Playing the market, advice for a newbie.

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Decided to sell the bike today and liquidate my cache of spare and extra parts. Trying to put some funds together and get into day trading. Is eTrade a good place to get started? Any and all advice is appreciated!
 

bballbaby

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I say get into silver! It's gonna go through the roof here shortly. It's sitting around $43/oz last I checked and is expected to rocket to $75/oz. in the next couple months. If that prediction holds true, that's a helluva profit.
 

Skitalets

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I say get into silver! It's gonna go through the roof here shortly. It's sitting around $43/oz last I checked and is expected to rocket to $75/oz. in the next couple months. If that prediction holds true, that's a helluva profit.
Who expects that?

Metals have had a good run because of fear over the last several years, but historically they underperform the market by a significant margin. At the end of the day, gold and silver don't do anything. Their prices are a function of how many other people (irrationally) want to own them.

By contrast, stocks derive their value from real value those companies provide to consumers, and how much of that value they capture as profits. Historically, they are a good bet, and with all the volatility in recent weeks there are plenty of bargains out there if you do your research. Look for companies with sound fundamentals, buy, and hold. Speculating on commodities and day trading stocks is no better than gambling.

Okay, now that I'm done ranting, here's a previous thread on this: http://www.botl.org/community/forums/showthread.php?t=54070
 
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Buy low, sell high.

You wouldn't think it needs saying, but it seems everyone likes to buy into things when they're rallying and dump 'em in a panic when they drop.

-Charles
 

CigarSaint

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Unless you have tons of money to play with day trading is very risky... stick with a Roth IRA or something.... unless of course you want to gamble.
 
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I have a 401k with employer match. I also have a Roth I started recently. I just read the 13 step investment primer on Fool.com. I dunno that day trading is necessarily what I want to delve into, but I would like to start investing in some stocks.
 

Herfin' Harg

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I just bought a bunch of Electronic Arts (ERTS) when it dipped below $18 a couple weeks back. They have a title developed here locally that's due to ship for a holiday release that has been racking up some huge presale numbers, and I'm expecting it to spike once the Q3 numbers are released November 1. Just something to watch.

I don't day trade, and I don't have any desire to risk the kind of money you need to be able to throw around to be able to make a reasonable return doing it. The tables are stacked pretty heavily against an individual when you consider the systems the big companies have in place to make huge trades in milliseconds, and I'd wager that this is especially true when you're riding the sort of volatility we've seen lately.
 
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Awesome. Yeah I'm not totally ruling out the trade aspect, but def plan on buying into some long term investments. But I also kinda want to do some short term stuff as well if I see potential for profit.
 
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I have a 401k with employer match. I also have a Roth I started recently. I just read the 13 step investment primer on Fool.com. I dunno that day trading is necessarily what I want to delve into, but I would like to start investing in some stocks.
Buy into a family of mutual funds that invests in the sector that you are interested in. I personally have money with Vanguard. JMHO :stickbeat
http://www.vanguard.com
 
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Invest in long term stocks and then take a small portion and do some short term stuff if you choose. I did that for the last couple years and turned a hefty profit. Plus if you lose a lot of the small portion you play with you won't cry about it, but the upsides are farely high. I usually wait until a solid stock plummets due to market scares and buy up and sell when it returns to its previous selling price (works 85% of the time). I have done this with the oil spill scare last year where I purchased BP and Halliuburton right after the spill and made a good deal of money. There was no reason those companies should have dipped they way they did- it was ll because of market fright!
 

cartisdm

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Skitalets posted the link to the thread I started a while back about short term trading. I am currently still demo trading but I really enjoy. I wouldn't call it gambling, but LOTS of people use that approach in their trading strategies so maybe it is kind of gambling. I have been dipping my feet into Forex (check out www.babypips.com). They have an EXCELLENT school program to go through.

I've been "swing trading" instead of day trading because it works better for my availability. There are ways to minimize risk and grow your account gradually if you have patience. I've been able to see a 4% growth per week in my fake money and I'm not even an expert.
 

The EVP

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Diversify!!!! Invest in some blue chips to hold over the long term that shows growth, pays dividends and is stable. Someone mentioned silver. If I had the extra money, that's where I'd put it as a short-term growth option. I can see it appreciating since gold is a getting very expensive and more people might be looking for an alternative to gold who don't have that type of money to invest. Most importantly, do not invest more money than you are willing to lose.
 
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really appreciate all the feedback gents! for those of you actively trading... are you using online brokerages? Fool.com has a comparrison page with some of the more popular sites like E*Trade, TD Ameritrade, etc. Any pro's or con's or insight to any of the online brokerage sites?
 

Herfin' Harg

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I just bought a bunch of Electronic Arts (ERTS) when it dipped below $18 a couple weeks back. They have a title developed here locally that's due to ship for a holiday release that has been racking up some huge presale numbers, and I'm expecting it to spike once the Q3 numbers are released November 1. Just something to watch.
*pats self on back...
 
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