Preserved Topic: Good Investments? Bad Investments? (Page 1 of 1)

well .. I'm currently invested in Laser Pacific Media Corp (LPAC) .. was involved with Informix and a few others .. but I am not just hoping for the best in LPAC

though something came by me this morning .. interesting article
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.07/Nvidia.html

anyone have any interesting investments? what have you heard of Nvidia?

cEll .::. 513

Well...don't know if you could call it interesting...but I invested in AT&T a loooong time ago...and have earned a richly sum since then...not only has the stock gone up, but the company also 'spawned' a few daughter companies..giving me extra stocks and options...yum, yum.

For future stocks? I would say keep an eye out in the gene research area...I'm pretty sure they are going to be making some huge breakthroughs soon...esp. the first company with a cure for AIDS, a workable gene therapy treatment, etc.

OK this is what I have in my portfolio

EDS - Electronic Data Systems - worked for them ;D
MSFT
Wcom - just bought it
QQQ


Closely watching:

CAL - Continental Airlines
ACAI - Atlantic Coast Airlines


Buying, Selling basically rolling Motorola all the time... quick small buck =)

Also, SNE (Sony) is looking strong despite their P/E ratio....


If you want to get serious into it, watch Bloomberg very early in the morning (3am EST) and you can see Japaneese market and British markets and how they do...(they are behind ) and then you can kind of "guess" what US market will look like...some of the overseas markets can tell you some stuff about US market ahead...


MAX

Nvidia is a 300lb gorilla now and just getting bigger. I wish I had some cash to invest in them about 3 years ago when their first TNT chipset based cards started coming out.

I'm looking at some interesting stocks in the Interactive TV space Seachange Systems, being one that may be a huge player in the next few years.



.:[ The Tao of Steve ]:.
Be Desireless
Be Excellent
Be Gone
...................................

all I can say .. for safe investments .. Rit's .. in the real estate sector .. commercial real estate .. [wink wink]

bitmag .. look into LPAC( http://www.laserpacific.com/ .. they are the leader in High Definition Post Production Facilities and HDTV development

cEll .::. 513

[This message has been edited by RammStein (edited 06-14-2002).]

In 2000, i made over 180 trades....that almost 1 per working day.
I finished up 80% that year (without a single investment in dot coms)

Today, my money is not invested in INTC or MSFT or CSCO and
thankfully not in Enron, Tyco...nor NT for that matter.

My money today is 100% CASH. I strongly recommend CASH.
It's safe even though it doesn't appreciate much. In other
words, i'm on the sidelines until i see momentum upwards
i could not care less if i miss the first days of rally...i will play
it safe...has worked for me in the past.

edit: we are talking markets on earth right? lol. i follow the market
every day and i haven't seen much to get excited about....when
a graph is heading south each and every day it is not a good sign to invest...while it
is impossible to time the market (consistently) and you can
never figure exactly where the bottom is, there is no sign today
that a bottom has been reached...

that's the bad news..the good news
is there will be huge opportunities for investment once we start going up again
k....yeah, i'm not trying to be negative...invest where you want when you want
but do your DD (due diligence) first


[This message has been edited by ShootingStar (edited 06-14-2002).]

As market is down right now, I am pouring my money in it like a mad man....

would you invest all you could back in 1982 ( I think) when market went down?????


The best time to invest is when the market is down! Look at the airlines on Sept 12th.

ACAI was trading at 8 bucks a share... you think I was sitting on my ass watching it past me by????

Look at it now... 19.76 a share... not bad profit if you bought 1000 shares huh?

MAX

Heh. I pick stocks like I pick politicians, having *me* validate your company is kind of like the "kiss of death"! I picked up a few shares of Sun Microsystems when they hit $6.00, and look! They're at $6.04 right now, woo-hoo, money in the bank, I think I'll go buy a cup of coffee! :-) Seriously though, I bought Sun mainly because I know a lot of people working there, they're smart and spending their money on R&D, always a good thing in a tech company. Mostly I try and just trust my broker, (I use Paine Webber), and they can usually deliver a steady 20% increase each year. For my personal investments, it seems that stuffing my money in a matress might not be a bad idea. The only really good investment I made in the last 3 years is in Real Estate, Malin and I bought a flat in Stockholm and the property values have *doubled*. That makes me happy.

Your pal, -doc-

quote:

---

The best time to invest is when the market is down!

---

if you mean, had you invested $1,000 in some Intel or Microsoft
10 years ago (or Dell or Yahoo or CSCO) etc...and you had sold
at the right time you would be a millionaire right? yes, that's right

but you forget all the companies that went down or bankrupt in
the same time period...look at giants like Enron........look at companies
like Xerox that are close to bankruptcy...well not far, anyway.

we talk about Nvidia...great company..remember 3dfx.....bye bye
couldn't happen to Nvidia? yeah right.

A few months ago my wife was pestering me
to buy Northern Telecom stock...this was trading at 100 $CDN not too long ago
so she figured it would be a real sweet deal at $10....i didn't buy it and i felt
a little bad when it reached $12.....recently it traded at just above $2 canadian
she would have been wiped out, at least on paper...now she can, if she wishes
pick up 5 times as many stocks than she could have at $10.

where am i going with this? what you do with your money should be your
business and your business alone....giving hot tips to people or telling
them this is the time to buy is pretty scary....you don't invest your money
on what someone posts in the asylum forum, agreed?

i don't want to give anyone advice on whether to buy or sell or hold at this time...
but i think both sides of the picture deserve equal attention. so Ducati
is mister upbeat bull...i'm not a bear...just a cautious bull.......mooooooo mooooo

yes, buy low and sell high....but watch out what you invest in. understand
the companies, understand the markets and market segments...under the fundamentals
like PE ratios and balance sheets.

...understand the technical analysis...

if you don't understand.... find a broker, but again they are all whores...useless know nothing whores..

hundreds of people always come forward and say "i just made a killing on this stock..look at me!)
thousands of people never come forward and say "my wife just left me because i blew all our money on pet.com"

GREED is a killer
happy investing




[This message has been edited by ShootingStar (edited 06-14-2002).]

LOL

(SS Nvidia bought 3dfx )



.:[ Be Bert. Be Ernie. Just be. ]:.

and ShootingStar .. [twisted grin] .. it helps if you have insider info .. not that I would know any insider info .. [wink wink] .. on what my wife and I are in .. personally I don't buy stock anymore .. I invest in RIT's .. it's risk .. but then again .. with what I know it's a sure thing .. and has been for over a year now

anyway .. that's enough of me babling .. and to repeat .. I'm not advicing to buy LPAC .. just check it out .. do your research .. I know I did .. I bought it at around $2 some 5 years or more ago .. got as high as 15 .. then during the crash .. before I could sell out .. it dropped back down to $2.5 now .. it sucks that I lost a potential 15k but that is the market .. that is the only stock I have at the moment .. and will be my last

cEll .::. 513

quote:

---

(SS Nvidia bought 3dfx )

---

no they didn't, not really. if they had, we could buy voodoo cards right?
what they bought were the "assets and intellectual property"
I've heard rumours that nividia might put the 3dfx code
on a chip in the future but that's all i know..don't follow them at all investment-wise

quote:

---

Graphics-chip maker Nvidia Corp. on Friday said it is buying most of the assets of
graphics rival 3dfx Interactive Inc., essentially eliminating 3dfx from the market.

"We're essentially picking up all the intellectual property related to the technology,"
said Michael Hara, a vice-president at Nvidia. "That means the patents, any patents
they have pending. Anything related to the development of graphics processors."

---

http://www.techweb.com/wire/finance/story/INV20001215S0008

insider information? i hope you don't mean information from the asylum's InSider
now that would be real scary.

insider information is fantastic...the closest thing to a "sure thing"
only problem is that it's 100% illegal...so next thing you know
you have this cell mate name Bubba who is going to make
you his loving prom queen.

Unless you have a few million to play with, investing in the stock market is just a waste of time. You can't really make money off of a normal average income so whats the point in risking it?

Let's say for instance you make a middle class income, $100,000.00. You don't make nearly enough money to invest the full $100,000 and live comfortably so you take a small portion, lets say $20,000. Now if anyone was to lose 20% of their income for the year, it would be a big lose, so naturally this loss would be felt. So you invest the portion and you have a good return of 20-25%. What have you made? 4,000-5,000$? Nothing to brag about. Let's say you lose it all though. You lose $20,000. So your risking $20,000 at the chance to make $5,000.

The myth about buying $15 in Microsoft stock in 1982 would make you rich. If you purchased $1,500,000 in '82 then yea, you'd be rich.



-Jestah
Cell 277

Jestah, you say stocks are too risky?
All investment / savings are risky!
There is a substantial amount of risk involved in simply putting your money in the bank.

That risk is called inflation.
Something to think about...
mobrul

Jestah:
You invest in what you feel comfortable in. it's your choice, but your
math leaves a bit to be desired...you need to look much longer term.

You say investing in MSFT x years ago and
making millions is a myth? I'm not the math
expert, Slime could you explain CAGR (compounded
annual growth or interest rates)?

sorry but this MS item was not
a myth. it's factual. same if you had invested in intel or cisco systems etc.

If you had put $10,000 into Dell in 1991 you would have had $1
million in stock a decade later (time to sell). Compare that
to the 3% or 4% you'll get from money markets.

Suffice it to say that if you invest in the market long term, there
are many studies which will prove that you will do better than most
other (if not all) forms of investment. these are facts, not conjecture,
you just need to do the math.

If you diversify and invest wisely you should do well. there are
risks to every investment. I never invested in Enron, but I certainly
considered it on many occasions - i never imagined how crooked the
company actually was. that's why diversification helps.

having said that, i'm 100% a short term trader, or swing trader (this doesn't
mean i short sell, i don't). so i'm a terrible example.

while very few of us will retire off the market (i certainly am not planning on it)
I would prefer to play the market even if it means making 1 or 2% more than
having the money in the bank (keep in mind that if you buy mutual funds there
is a good chance you are also investing in stocks without even knowing it)

so what are the alternatives? if you find something better than the stock market
please share your ideas? antiques? oil? bonds? trading cards? whatever


to each his own

edit: christ, i'm a real split personality. first i rebuke Ducati for his
"Irrational Exhuberance? (ripped from Alan Greenspan), for being much
too bullish and then I scorn Jestah for being such a bear....i need meds badly.


[This message has been edited by ShootingStar (edited 06-14-2002).]

Mobrul:
I hadn't seen your post. yes that's another excellent reason.

not to mention tax treatment of capital gains. it's advantageous
here in Canada but it's damn fantastic in the U.S.A.

SS - While it's a nice dream, your success stories from companies like Dell and Microsoft just aren't as frequent as you make them sound. If investing $10,000 in a company and walking away for a few years would result in a quick million, everyone would have money. In life theres no such thing as making a quick or easy buck. Look at companies like Enron. What goes up will ultimately come down.

-Jestah
Cell 277

I own stock in the Canadian Pacific Railroad because my dad works for them. Earned me some good money as the account sat and colleced intrest for 15 years. Maybe buy some stock in Apple?



'Me no here. Me go bye. Leave me message. Me reply.'

Wolfen's Sig Site

Jestah:
You've read my post very selectively.

You didn't even notice that i used Enron
twice as an example of how you can get burned?
even then, your analogy is wrong because Enron
went down due to crookedness, not due to a change
in its business. not because what goes up must come down.

You also take my dell and msft examples completely out of context.
i used those examples because you said MS was a myth.
i said it wasn't and gave another example in dell

all in all i found your post most amusing. you threw out
all the balanced arguments i made pro and con the market
and made it look like i was a dreamer looking for a sure thing
and a fast buck.

well yes, i am a dreamer but i don't ever follow "hot tips"
or "sure things" and i've invested/traded long enough
to know it involves lots of risk taking and sometimes gambling

you might have noticed i wrote that i did NOT expect to retire
from playing the market?

peace

SS - My point is simple enough. Investing in the stock market is generally more harm then it is good. Sure there are plenty of examples that prove me wrong which I acknowledge but for every person you can point your finger at that made money from the stock market, I can show you ten times that many people that lost money. Crooked deals, bad executive decisions, it doesn't make a difference. One way or another every stock that goes up comes down. Its the way the market works. No stuck continously growns and makes money, its a simple fact. Sure in hindsight the stock market is a sure thing, unfortunetly my super powers end with the ability to leep tall buildings yadda yadda yadda.

Generally speaking, you simply can't make worth while money unless you are investing mucho money in the first place. It's damn near impossible to make a living relying soley on the market alone. I didn't read your post selectively nor did I take anything IMO out of context. I believe it is a nice dream as well, it's just a dream though. A dream where lots of people go belly up. Don't forget, we've just entered out an age of exceptional economic growth. Things will go down hill before they come up. Its the cycle.

-Jestah
Cell 277

We should play a little game without any risk Jestah.

I'll pick 10 tech stocks and we'll see how they do,
say in 6 months? You pick the bank or some other
investment, something with measurable results and
in the public domain, and we compare results.
by picking 10 tech stocks i'm stacking the odds
against me as opposed to a more diversified portfolio
but you made a comment that seemed to indicate
this was sector going nowhere ... i disagree.

if you get 3% return and i get less than that, you win.
if you get 3% return and i get a tad more, you lose.

if you lose, you have to write in a post 100 times (like bart simpson)
[bold] i will never doubt the stock market again[/bold]
if you win, i have to write
[bold]jestah makes warren buffett look like dumb and dumber[/bold]
or something wittier.

are you game?
just for fun

BTW, Shooting Star, are you aware that you don't have to hit enter manually? Text will automatically break without you having to press enter at the end of every line. You only need to do it at the end of a paragraph.

Slime my man
I can't help it.
I do it by habit.
sorry
does it bother you?


edit: i only have a 15 inch monitor set at 640 horizontally
and I use NS 4 which this forum does not support..it truncates
ok, i was just kidding.
but what is easier to read?
50 words on one line
or 10 lines of 5 words
does that compute?
your the math genius.
so it's just a preference on my part .

btw, i also do it by habit in MS Word..which is NOT a good idea
but i'm totally retarded (as if you didn't notice)




[This message has been edited by ShootingStar (edited 06-15-2002).]

Yup, it bothers me a bit. Because if I wanted the lines cut shorter, I'd make my browser window smaller (I already have it much smaller than my screen size). I recommend you do the same when you're typing if you think the window is too long. Because when you type like you do, sometimes it comes out like

blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah

And that is most definitely *not* easy to read =)

I have to disagree

are you saying that
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

is easier to read than a string of
blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blahs?

i think not. why do newspapers use columns?
readability
think i'm blowing smoke up your ass?
i'm not....i do this for a living.

I'm not arguing which is easier to read. I'm saying that you should let the readers decide for themselves, rather than making the decision for them by including hard line breaks in your text.

Slime:
a) I'm going to bed
b) I don't want to argue with you
c) I don't do this on purpose, i do it by habit
d) I have never heard anyone complain before
e) I hope you have a great weekend
f) I'm different, i'm an individual, this is one of my flaws.
g) So don't get pissed off ok, there's more important things in life to get pissed off , agreed?
h) and don't get pissed off if i implied that your pissed off and you actually weren't ok?
i) wishing you a good evening

peace

I'm not angry =) just pointing out a bad habit that you should work towards fixing =) good night.

Well Jestah, I have to disagree with you...I made a killing on the AT&T thing...and earned enough money from it to put myself through college...only took me 8 years, and I only invested $4000.00...yeah, back then I had money to burn...and AT&T stocks were cheap...

I invested through a friend, so I didn't have to pay any fees...and the return was great...

But then, maybe I just got lucky...

Looking at the situation today...if I had kept my stocks...woooweee!

But I sold them, because I needed the money...

Slime:
If only you knew my other bad habits.
the really bad ones!

p.s. after re-reading your post i realize
my problem is not my carriage returns -
my problem is that my posts need to
be more concise, shorter, more to the point.
something we should all consider?

Jestah.. you say you can't make living trading stocks?????? uhhhmmm ok.. if you say soo...


ShootingStar.. I am not telling anyone what to buy and what to not buy.. it was simply my opinion. I am 26 years old right now.. my 401K is 80% stocks and 20% Mutual funds... risky huh? well yeah it is.. I pick them like that. 26 years old I want to play aggresive. something happens I have time to recover.

you can always look back and say:" OOHHHH if I only knew that this stock would go 200% up!" sure...but you need to take risks. Again, this is my opinion ONLY!

Stock market is risky, very risky..but if you don't play, you don't gain...you can loose but you can win also.. just like casinos..


so... to recap...

I am not telling anyone to buy this or that. Most of the stocks I own I bough because I have inside information (especially when it comes to Wcom). I know that you can't have total insider info just like in the Enron case..

so pick what you want, sell what and when you want...

Those were just my views and how I do it and think,

Let me ask you this... Did any of you bought any Airline stocks in September????

MAX

Max - I'm not suggesting it's impossible to make a decent living off of the stock market, I just think it's very naive to assume me wrong in saying so. At 26 your not too much older then I am, so I can safely assume you haven't been investing too long. I would assume all your investments came during the C*****n administration where we were in one of the largest economic booms ever experienced. Sure, lots of people made fortunes, of course lots of people lost them the following years. I invest my share as well, but I do it for fun. I have no dreams of waking up tomorrow morning realizing my 10,000 shares in Home Depot (graduation gift from my mom) is going to be up to $100 a share (again). I was much more naive last year. I had dreams of it going to $200 a share, even a $1,000 a share, it didn't happen.

WS & SS - My comments are virtually the same for both of you. Im not suggesting these types of returns don't happen, I just ask what was the time period you invested in? Was it the previous few years? Don't judge a market by one up time. During your life time your going to experience both ups and downs. To keep your money in the market is a gamble, which could be profitable of course it might not. Right now stocks are bottoming out. The same stocks which were the powerhouses a few years back are worth nothing now.

Theres nothing wrong with investing, just be weary of what your doing. You never want to put all of your eggs in one basket. Spread out your investments and keep something safe in the bank. For a student my age, I make more money then the average working person. I like to think I'm very smart with my money. I have my money in all different places.

-Jestah
Cell 277

[This message has been edited by Jestah (edited 06-15-2002).]

Damn!!! over quater million bucks for graduating high school??!!??! Nice gift!

I am available for adoption

MAX

Why does everyone always have to invest their money into stock? There's sooo many other options. Ok, if your playing with huge amounts of money then maybe the stock market would be a good idea but if ya just a small fry and you want to make say, $100 grow then what can you do?

[Warning!!! - Long post ahead]

Well, since we're all computer buffs I'll let ya know my secret for almost ~never~ paying for PC upgrades.

Turn back several years and I had 4 X P120 chips and M/Boards in my possession. Almost worthless now, next to worthless back then too. I also had my PC, a whole P II 233 and I had about $120 AU (About $60 US). I was thinking I could sell off my other stuff and maybe upgrade to a PII 400 or something but I wanted more. Each P120 & M/B was only worth about $30 to $40 AU each. But if I could get parts to make 4 whole P120 PC's then I could get about $180 each.

What to do.... I tried looking in the trading post. Nup, nothing there to help me. 2nd hand PC stores? Nup.... Auctions maybe?....

So, Off I go to a computer auction. Ever been to one of these before? I tell ya, a lot of crap passes through these for next to nothing. 98% of the people there are looking to re-sell the stuff for more money so the bidding never gets too high. I got 2 x 15" monitors & 2 x 14" for $60 AU, A box of ram chips, Network cards and old Video cards for $30 (I still has some over afterwards). Old cases with Power supplies when for about $5-10 each! and I approached some guy who got a pallet load of old Keyboards and Mice and asked if I could grab out 4 of each for $10. He had about 50 to 60 of each in there and only payed $80 fo it so he made a small profit from me. That and I told him what lengths I was going to just to upgrade, I think he was a little sympathetic, heh.

I lugged all the crap home, about $130 worth of old PC stuff. Yah, it's old and it looks old but you'd be amazed what a damp cloth and some elbow grease will do for appearance stakes! I also went into the auction really early to review what I wanted to bid on and marked out the ones that ~looked~ more expensive (Or overly dirty ones that might be overlooked by other bidders) on my item list. Spent the weekend piecing it all together and I had myself 5 computers to sell off (Including my P233). All in all I got around $210 each for the P120's and $520 for my P233. Which is about $1400 AU all up (About $ 700 US). Enough to by myself a completely new PC, Yay!

So, from my $130 I made about $600, taking into account the stuff I already had. (From about $65 US to $300 US). Oh, -$15 or so for the adds in the trading post to sell the stuff.

A 400% increase ain't nothin to laugh at. Yet I already knew how to build PC's. Been doing that since I was 12. It also took most of the weekend to get this done; one day at the auctions, another day putting it all together. I also had to researching the market a little so I knew what I could sell them for ect ect... but it was well worth it.

Now I?m a regular at the auctions, well during semester break that is. I always keep a little money aside for them. We have 2 regular PC auctions on every 3 months, and there's a roaming computer swap market in these parts that you can find some good bargains at as well. It sure beats working some crappy service or tele-marketing job over the semester breaks. I make more money, have more free time and playing with old computer crap is fun for me.

It also means I get a PC upgrade every 6 months and I don't really have to outlay that much for it.

Although, that's not to say you need to do this with computers. If you know a lot about some other little discrete market then you might be able to make money there too.

Dracusis... see there is a little problem..

You can't really build your 401K with buying and selling old computers... dig it???

You want to get into HOW TO MAKE MONEY yeah then there is shit load of solutions for that...

what we are talking about here are market investments....

MAX

Well the topic said, Good investments? Bad investment??

Basically investing you money into something and ~hopefull~ getting more back. I was just sharing something that I do. Ya'll have share portfolios, where as I have a little computer business on the side.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other if ya ask me.

Mostly I just wanted to add something for those who don't have the funds to realistically invest in shares. After all, we have a lot of 14 to 16 year-olds here who probably don't have a lot of money and aren't interested in playing the share market. To them it's much more useful sharing stories about quirky little ventures like mine.

A little initiative goes a long way. If you'd rather hand you money over to a company you have no control over then by all means, go right ahead. I'll keep doing my thing though.

I was also hoping someone would start talking about other forms of investments. Like investment properties and that kinda stuff. I've always been interested in it but don't know much about it.

Yet if ya'll just wanna go on about how much money ya shares are making then be my guest, I?ll save my comments for someone who might actually care.