Investing Thread

[ChiSox_Sonix]

I saw that today, 86% spike. Wowzers.

 

It was up nearly 200% during AH at one point too

[LittleHurt05]

I'll let you know when my dad stops making money on them.

 

Well my dad could beat up your dad!

[Y2HH]

A couple thousand here and there. And mostly pot stocks.

 

Excuse me for being snarky when you tell me my dad doesn't know what he's doing.

 

And I am a novice in the stock world, I just work with the small amounts of information I retain when my dad tries to educate me on the subject.

 

I'm not saying your father doesn't know how to invest, but that's not what he's teaching you. Day trading OTC/pink sheets is straight up gambling.

 

You'd be better off learning the basic fundamentals of investing first, so you can understand WHY you'd want to invest in a company, versus buying penny stocks for minimal gains (if any) considering the commissions alone in a mostly rigged game.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Really regretting not getting in to PHOT when my dad did. He bought in at 0.25, and its at 0.60 after like a month. Made a few grand so far. He's expecting it to reach $1.00 by June.

 

I bought in to OSLH today at 0.20.

[bigruss]

Really regretting not getting in to PHOT when my dad did. He bought in at 0.25, and its at 0.60 after like a month. Made a few grand so far. He's expecting it to reach $1.00 by June.

 

I bought in to OSLH today at 0.20.

Statements like this are why posters are skeptical of the strategy. Does he have data around that hike or is he just feeling it?

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Statements like this are why posters are skeptical of the strategy. Does he have data around that hike or is he just feeling it?

 

No idea. He does his research, but I don't know if he read that or is just projecting that, or if he was just kidding with me because of how fast it's gone up. I didn't ask him to elaborate, but if it reaches a dollar, we will be taking quite the family vacation, so fingers crossed.

[Y2HH]

Purchased T (AT&T) and VALE (VALE SA) today...both at very attractive prices considering their ~6% dividends.

 

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

PHOT is just soaring right now, while OSLH is just falling like a rock. I keep looking for a spot to jump in on PHOT, but it won't stop growing.

[Y2HH]

PHOT is just soaring right now, while OSLH is just falling like a rock. I keep looking for a spot to jump in on PHOT, but it won't stop growing.

 

PHOT has done this 5 other times in it's past -- going from a few pennies to ~60 to 80cents before crashing again. This is common for OTC stocks, they usually have very quick runups followed by very harsh corrections, so the idea is to get out BEFORE that happens. You won on this one, just don't hold all of it too long now, it just doesn't have the numbers to be where it is, and for an OTC stock, it's trading at massive volumes because speculators are piling into that industry.

 

These cannabis based stocks are all seeing these types of jumps right now, which is why I'd beware. When everyone wants in, you want out...when everyone wants out, you want in.

 

http://www.thestreet.com/story/12525417/1/...mp;cm_ven=YAHOO

Edited March 17, 2014 by Y2HH

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

PHOT has done this 5 other times in it's past -- going from a few pennies to ~60 to 80cents before crashing again. This is common for OTC stocks, they usually have very quick runups followed by very harsh corrections, so the idea is to get out BEFORE that happens. You won on this one, just don't hold all of it too long now, it just doesn't have the numbers to be where it is, and for an OTC stock, it's trading at massive volumes because speculators are piling into that industry.

 

These cannabis based stocks are all seeing these types of jumps right now, which is why I'd beware. When everyone wants in, you want out...when everyone wants out, you want in.

 

http://www.thestreet.com/story/12525417/1/...mp;cm_ven=YAHOO

 

I didn't win s***. My dad is the one who invested in PHOT, and he's made $6000 in the past 6 weeks or so on it.

[caulfield12]

I didn't win s***. My dad is the one who invested in PHOT, and he's made $6000 in the past 6 weeks or so on it.

 

I'd still love to see someone who could consistently do this on a yearly basis...getting at least a 10% rate of return before taxes/inflation/commissions are taken into consideration...and maintain this track record for a minimum of say, five years.

 

We always here about the winners and big percentage gains, but that's only part of the picture.

[Y2HH]

I'd still love to see someone who could consistently do this on a yearly basis...getting at least a 10% rate of return before taxes/inflation/commissions are taken into consideration...and maintain this track record for a minimum of say, five years.

 

We always here about the winners and big percentage gains, but that's only part of the picture.

 

That's why I tend to shy away from this sort of trading. I know quite a few people that have had some short term success in these OTC markets, even for a span of a few years, but it's never pretty in the end. All it takes is to get burned one time with these types of trades to wipe out everything you've gained to that point, as traders will tend to fool themselves into think they can't lose. I've been investing (not trading) for well over a decade, going through both crashes in the 2000-2010 span, and I've come out ahead both times.

 

When I'm going to invest a few thousand dollars into a company, I need to see numbers that support that investment. I want to see profits, or signs of real turnaround, I don't like heavy debt loads unless they have the cash to back them, etc. I also tend to stick with dividend paying stocks, so I'm being paid WHILE I'm holding it for long term growth.

 

The other thing people tend to gloss over when they "win" is the fact that if/when you sell it, you're going to lose a huge percentage of that profit to taxes, as short-term cap gains are taxed at ordinary income.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

That's why I tend to shy away from this sort of trading. I know quite a few people that have had some short term success in these OTC markets, even for a span of a few years, but it's never pretty in the end. All it takes is to get burned one time with these types of trades to wipe out everything you've gained to that point, as traders will tend to fool themselves into think they can't lose. I've been investing (not trading) for well over a decade, going through both crashes in the 2000-2010 span, and I've come out ahead both times.

 

When I'm going to invest a few thousand dollars into a company, I need to see numbers that support that investment. I want to see profits, or signs of real turnaround, I don't like heavy debt loads unless they have the cash to back them, etc. I also tend to stick with dividend paying stocks, so I'm being paid WHILE I'm holding it for long term growth.

 

The other thing people tend to gloss over when they "win" is the fact that if/when you sell it, you're going to lose a huge percentage of that profit to taxes, as short-term cap gains are taxed at ordinary income.

 

Well that's why you should be smart enough to diversify in long term stocks as well as the penny stocks. The only reason I am doing penny stocks is because I only have a couple hundred dollars to play with just to get my feet wet. I have stock in Exxon, McDonalds, Walgreens, Yahoo, Fifth Third Bank, and others that I've owned for 15 years now, I just do not have control over them because my dad deals with that. He's been doing this for over 20 years now, and I think this is the first time he has gotten in to penny stocks. In fact, he had an investment club meeting last night with this investment club he started, and he said they don't even pay attention to penny stocks, it's all the more technical and big money stocks they trade as a club. Maybe one day I'll have enough money to join his club, but I'll make my mistakes now with small dollars.

[Y2HH]

Well that's why you should be smart enough to diversify in long term stocks as well as the penny stocks. The only reason I am doing penny stocks is because I only have a couple hundred dollars to play with just to get my feet wet. I have stock in Exxon, McDonalds, Walgreens, Yahoo, Fifth Third Bank, and others that I've owned for 15 years now, I just do not have control over them because my dad deals with that. He's been doing this for over 20 years now, and I think this is the first time he has gotten in to penny stocks. In fact, he had an investment club meeting last night with this investment club he started, and he said they don't even pay attention to penny stocks, it's all the more technical and big money stocks they trade as a club. Maybe one day I'll have enough money to join his club, but I'll make my mistakes now with small dollars.

 

I speculate with a very small percentage of my money, just not with penny stocks. For example, I've bought TiVo, etrade, Siri, and a few others, but they still had fundamental numbers to back my decision to speculate on their futures. Despite being speculations, I still bought them as long term investments.

 

I don't deal with penny stocks because I don't trade actively, it costs too much in commissions and short term tax, not to mention it's a lot of work.

 

I have had a few losers I've speculated on over the years, and wrote them off in losses, but that's only happened twice. For the most part I stick with fundamentals and dividend investing and it's made me quite a bit of money over the years.

 

A few recent speculation trades I've made was grabbing 500 shares of amd and zynga.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Y2HH

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

I speculate with a very small percentage of my money, just not with penny stocks. For example, I've bought TiVo, etrade, Siri, and a few others, but they still had fundamental numbers to back my decision to speculate on their futures. Despite being speculations, I still bought them as long term investments.

 

I don't deal with penny stocks because I don't trade actively, it costs too much in commissions and short term tax, not to mention it's a lot of work.

 

I have had a few losers I've speculated on over the years, and wrote them off in losses, but that's only happened twice. For the most part I stick with fundamentals and dividend investing and it's made me quite a bit of money over the years.

 

A few recent speculation trades I've made was grabbing 500 shares of amd and zynga.

 

Siri has it's own stock??? Or are you referring to Sirius XM?

 

I tried getting my dad in to buying Tesla back in November when their stock was at a low of like $125. He declined and now they are double that. That's a company I wish I had money to buy stocks with 7-8 years ago when I was raving over their prototypes. I'd be a very rich man right now if I was born 20 years earlier.

[Y2HH]

Siri has it's own stock??? Or are you referring to Sirius XM?

 

I tried getting my dad in to buying Tesla back in November when their stock was at a low of like $125. He declined and now they are double that. That's a company I wish I had money to buy stocks with 7-8 years ago when I was raving over their prototypes. I'd be a very rich man right now if I was born 20 years earlier.

 

SiriusXM.

 

Tesla is something I agree with your father on, despite their stock price, they simply don't have the numbers to support it. That's 100% speculators, and wherever the speculators are, I don't want to be.

 

Hindsight is also 20/20, but despite that, Tesla is only where it's at because of hype.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

SiriusXM.

 

Tesla is something I agree with your father on, despite their stock price, they simply don't have the numbers to support it. That's 100% speculators, and wherever the speculators are, I don't want to be.

 

Hindsight is also 20/20, but despite that, Tesla is only where it's at because of hype.

 

It's probably just my fanboyism, because I absolutely adore Tesla (the car manufacturer, and the one of the greatest inventors of all time, Nikola Tesla), but I really think/hope that Tesla is going to be huge. It's already pretty much in a market of its own as a 100% electric luxury car (Mercedes may have a model?), but I just believe in Elon Musk and his vision. The day they get Teslas down to the $30K range (late 2015 according to Musk), and I have a real person job, I will be buying one for sure.

[Y2HH]

It's probably just my fanboyism, because I absolutely adore Tesla (the car manufacturer, and the one of the greatest inventors of all time, Nikola Tesla), but I really think/hope that Tesla is going to be huge. It's already pretty much in a market of its own as a 100% electric luxury car (Mercedes may have a model?), but I just believe in Elon Musk and his vision. The day they get Teslas down to the $30K range (late 2015 according to Musk), and I have a real person job, I will be buying one for sure.

 

The issue for Tesla is it's an infant market that lacks infrastructure -- and while they're taking steps to do something about that -- it's been a slow roll out. Tesla is 100% hype at the moment, they have a great company name, etc., but the bottom line is their cars are too expensive and the second the others decide to flip the switch, they'll be in a over saturated market and find themselves in a race to the bottom in pricing.

 

Tesla will be fine so long as they're one of the only games in town, and while a few of the others have dabbled in this area, none of them have dove into the deep end yet. That said, a day WILL come that Ford, GM, Fiat (Chrysler), Porsche, BMW, VW, Volvo, Nissan, Hyundai, Honda, etc., decide to do exactly that, and when that happens, Tesla is going to find itself between a rock and a hard place. They'll be priced way higher than the cheaper mass production models from Ford, Honda, etc, and find themselves too closely priced to someone like Porsche. Why would anyone spend 75k on a Tesla when they can spend 85k on a competing Porsche?

 

Now, aside from that, let's talk numbers:

 

https://www.google.com/finance?q=tsla&e...sU5CzCdHFqQGBEQ

 

Tesla (TSLA) is trading around $234

P/E: N/A (you cannot have a P/E ratio when you make no money)

EPS: -.70 (losing 70 cents a share)

Dividend: N/A

They have $845,000,000 in the bank (from their IPO and continued share issuance to raise more money) and owe $606,000,000

Their debt has doubled in the last two years, meaning it will probably double again

 

Keep in mind the only way this company has made any money so far is to issue additional shares year after year, as they don't make any money on their one and only product.

 

Now, these numbers aren't all bad, as they're showing growth -- but as I was talking about above, it's easy to grow in a market nobody else is bothering with at the moment. But when the competition arrives in mass, and it will, they're going to find growth much harder to come by, and if they continue building that debt as they've shown they probably will, they won't have the profits to cover it.

 

And by the way, Musk can crow about a 30k Tesla by 2015 all he wants -- that's never going to happen. The only way that happens is if they create a new, separate, non-luxury model, but that car you see now will NEVER be 30k.

 

All of this considered, that doesn't mean Tesla will fail, they very well may succeed -- but these are the types of things I personally consider before investing in a company. As an investment choice, there are better out there, in markets with less competition waiting patiently on the sidelines, with far less inflated stock prices.

Edited March 21, 2014 by Y2HH

[bigruss]

As an avid Tesla follower, the Gen III (commonly referred to as Model E) will be a brand new design, about 20% smaller than the model S and they are still aiming for starting at $35K without government tax credits, all by roughly 2016. The car is meant to be similar to the BMW 3 series, more affordable, smaller, yet sporty.

 

We'll see when they actually get the car out, theyve struggled enough with production for the X. Hopefully the new gigafactory helps out and they are able to reduce costs while increasing production rates.

 

It's still a very speculative company, but has a ton of potential. No one else has been able to match the Tesla in EV yet, there have been some cool concepts out by other companies but they aren't really interested yet.

[Jenksismyhero]

Didn't Cadillac just announce a luxury electric?

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Didn't Cadillac just announce a luxury electric?

 

It's either Cadillac or Mercedes, I couldn't remember when I made my post last night, but one of those companies either has one, or is about to release one. I haven't heard anything else about it though.

[Cknolls]

The issue for Tesla is it's an infant market that lacks infrastructure -- and while they're taking steps to do something about that -- it's been a slow roll out. Tesla is 100% hype at the moment, they have a great company name, etc., but the bottom line is their cars are too expensive and the second the others decide to flip the switch, they'll be in a over saturated market and find themselves in a race to the bottom in pricing.

 

Tesla will be fine so long as they're one of the only games in town, and while a few of the others have dabbled in this area, none of them have dove into the deep end yet. That said, a day WILL come that Ford, GM, Fiat (Chrysler), Porsche, BMW, VW, Volvo, Nissan, Hyundai, Honda, etc., decide to do exactly that, and when that happens, Tesla is going to find itself between a rock and a hard place. They'll be priced way higher than the cheaper mass production models from Ford, Honda, etc, and find themselves too closely priced to someone like Porsche. Why would anyone spend 75k on a Tesla when they can spend 85k on a competing Porsche?

 

Now, aside from that, let's talk numbers:

 

https://www.google.com/finance?q=tsla&e...sU5CzCdHFqQGBEQ

 

Tesla (TSLA) is trading around $234

P/E: N/A (you cannot have a P/E ratio when you make no money)

EPS: -.70 (losing 70 cents a share)

Dividend: N/A

They have $845,000,000 in the bank (from their IPO and continued share issuance to raise more money) and owe $606,000,000

Their debt has doubled in the last two years, meaning it will probably double again

 

Keep in mind the only way this company has made any money so far is to issue additional shares year after year, as they don't make any money on their one and only product.

 

Now, these numbers aren't all bad, as they're showing growth -- but as I was talking about above, it's easy to grow in a market nobody else is bothering with at the moment. But when the competition arrives in mass, and it will, they're going to find growth much harder to come by, and if they continue building that debt as they've shown they probably will, they won't have the profits to cover it.

 

And by the way, Musk can crow about a 30k Tesla by 2015 all he wants -- that's never going to happen. The only way that happens is if they create a new, separate, non-luxury model, but that car you see now will NEVER be 30k.

 

All of this considered, that doesn't mean Tesla will fail, they very well may succeed -- but these are the types of things I personally consider before investing in a company. As an investment choice, there are better out there, in markets with less competition waiting patiently on the sidelines, with far less inflated stock prices.

 

 

Don't forget the carbon credits it has sold to the big three.

[Jenksismyhero]

Pretty good story on Wall Street and how some insiders are rigging the system:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-the-us-stock-market-rigged/

[Y2HH]

Pretty good story on Wall Street and how some insiders are rigging the system:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-the-us-stock-market-rigged/

 

This is exactly what I was talking about (above) when it comes to day trading, and why I think it's a suckers game.

 

I never buy stock at "market"...I always put a limit price on purchases because of this.

[Balta1701]

This is exactly what I was talking about (above) when it comes to day trading, and why I think it's a suckers game.

 

I never buy stock at "market"...I always put a limit price on purchases because of this.

The sad thing is...it isn't just day traders who are being stolen from. It's "people who invest their retirement savings in the stock market".