I have been reading the other thread (bumper yield on wall street) and it makes for some good read, but it is also not really helping a lot of nepalese that have little or no experience/knowledge about the market. I am reading up on all these proclamations by the threaders (and maybe they are telling the truth), but I can easily see the ramifications -- ever seen those auto commercials where they say 'do not try this at home"? This is one of those things.
Forget options, futures and currency swaps unless you know what you are doing. Heck, even stay away from individual securities if you can help it. for beginners, go after mutual funds. try cheap mutual fund houses such as Vanguard, Trowe and Fidelity. go to morningstar.com and look for the 4 and 5 stars; and then most important, create a well diversified mix--have proper controls in place so you dont have everything correlated to the market; go after index funds to minimize costs, and place your equity exposure in accordance to your age (for example, if you are 30 go after 30% in bonds and cash and the rest in stock exposure)
by the same token within the stk exposure break it down 50/50 between domestic and international-- choose an index fund copied around the wilshire 5000, and an international index fund chasing the msci (international index)---with fixed income (bonds) have 1/3rds in mmkt, an bond index fund, and a high yield.
there, that should do it. Dont forget to rebalance it every year though.

stx109ditto,

do you trade from Aussie Land, or what?



-B

That's exactly my point. If you don't know what you are talking about, you are better off listening..

There is a HUGE difference between Trading Vs. Investment. Kinda like soccer and football, sure it's played on a 100 yard filed with 11 players on each side but the rules / process is totally different from one another. Not saying there aren't any similarities between the two but for a novice watching, it's 2 totally different sprots.

Trading which stx109ditto & eminitrader have talked in depth about but I'm sure what jhyalincha is trying to do is to raise awareness about financial independence for our people by being a smart investors. Not trying to stx109ditto & eminitrader's tips and tricks on trading isn't helpful but what you brothas need to realize is first we need to each our people how to walk and then you guys can train them on running (speed). At least that's how I see it, investment is walking (even if you don't run, slowly but surely you will reach your destination), where as trading is running (sure you will get to where you need to get much faster but at the same time there are risks involved in running compare to walking).

So anyways, to keep up with the theme of this thread "simple investment ideas", what I say is educate yourself (internet is the greatest tool for it), always read business section of the newspaper, when you feel like you are ready to invest wait 6 more months (this one I wish someone would have told me because it took me over a year to recover what i lost in my 1st 6 months), and last but not the least and the most important in my opinion is don't get started without a trusted investment advisor (either your family, friends, or paid reliable financial advisor).

Few months ago we used to have really good discussions on simple investment ideas. If anyone is interested, here's the link:
http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openforum.cfm?forum=273

Everyone have a nice day!

Trading is just a part of Investment Process. It's your investment strategy that drives how frequently you will trade..

Oooooh ... quite a charged discussion here, eh? It is clear people bring different perspectives to this and their minds work at different levels based on their experiences. I agree with the comments (which quite a few people have brought up) about getting your basics straight - regardless of what investment vehicles you want to chose - the rest can/will fall into place once you do this.

Also it's a whole different ball game between being an individual investor (like me) and managing someone elses money (possibly like some of the other folks). I will defer to the technical experts on the technical analysis of each type of investment but I personally do not think it makes sense minimize any one type - what's suitable for you may not be for the next person. This again goes back to the basics, so without repetition, I'll leave it at that.

Have a good week everyone!

Don't mean to hijack the thread but this is my opinion.

Trading is not for everyone as much as being a doctor is not for everyone. I was just trying to show that there is money to be made trading stocks. It is like any other business, majority of thiose fail-- same in trading.

I would not suggest people to quit their job and start trading. It is up to the people to decide based on the amount of risk they are willing to take and other personal preferences. If you are a doctor and have a good practice, just be a doctor and get a professional to manage your money. If you are single, have a decent job and say have saved $50000, then it might be worth it to use $10-15000 of that money to see if you can make some extra money trading. There is a good chance that you will lose that $10-15000 and even if that happens it will not affect your lifestyle.

People should be very careful when trading on margin, when you are making money everthing seems good and when the market turns, you lose your shirt.

Investing is speculation too. Say if you had bought Microsoft in 2001 and held it till today, you would still not have recovered your money. Lots of investors lose money too. It is necessary to understand the business cycles and identify where we are currently in the cycle. It is necessary to buy low and sell high. If we are towards the end of the up-cycle, it is prudent to not buy at all and sell everything.

I see trading as a big puzzle. I'm trying to figure out what will happen before the world figures it out.

i will just point out the fact for eveyone about investment:

Please, read the strategy of PETER LYNCH the one time behemoth, fund manager of FIDELITY MAGELLAN. still now it is the best performing mutual fund in history. with Average of 18.39%. and if you look @ the return in last 10 years (since he left) it has been only 7.17 and has been lagging behind all the indexes. but still is the best performing MUTUAL FUNDS.

so you need not have to take any risk except follow common sense while investing it will all fall in place

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as always
what do i know

back in 1997 when I started out as a trader, i was fresh off business school--had a lot of different ideas, and maybe was a little bit gullible. I had all the knowledge, or so I thought. I also had all the resources, since I worked for a big investment firm. I was doing calls (both covered and naked), straddles,futures, forwards, currency trading--and even spread profits on some bonds (if this sounds too exotic, then simply read as follows: I was not very smart). I was sure my strategies were fool proof, because I had done my homework. I also did pretty good the first couple of years- it was the dot com boom era, remember?
I was well on my way to becoming a multi millionaire by 2002, when tragedy struck early 2000---it took only 3 months to wipe away all my gains. I was smart enough (thank god) to pull out before it was too late, but it taught me a valuable lesson. there is no such thing as a sure thing in the market, unless you are extremely lucky.
I am still in the investment industry, and I have tracked quite a bit of securities over the past 5 years-- yet I only purchase a very small amount of those securities myself, even though I may come out with a 'buy' rating on them. Why you ask? simply because my life is so hectic during market hours, I have little to no time of adjusting my portfolio on the fly. I also travel so often, this is too huge a risk.
Does this sound like a lot of you? not having enough time to keep an eye on your investments?
so keep it simple. set aside a small portion to play with, and implement all sorts of strategies there--god knows there are tons of resources available if you know where to look. But maintain the rest in a well diversified portfolio- kinda like the one I proposed above. In today's bull market, everyone brags about having the midas touch--but thats fools gold. wait till this thing corrects itself and see how those midases start turning things to stone.
And we will see where we are in 10 years :)

I like what eminitrader said above- nicely done!

jhyalincha: If you are refering to me, actually I like bear markets, i love to short. In the first post you were refering to my P&L in another thread, if you take a good look at that I made more shorting than going long even i this bull market. If you can only make money in the bull markets and get in cash during bear market you'll do better than 90% of the population. I just don't recommend shorting to newbies.

EMT,shorting in a bull market is also profitable in most instances because of the 'knee jerk' reactions most inflated securities bring time and time again (a slight drop triggers a selloff, pushing prices down momentarily before it corrects itself). not that I find any fault with taking advantage of that- I do it myself with small parts of my portfolio. but the trick is correctly anticipating the drop and cashing out in time- if you are doing this succesfully more often than not, more power to you.
I just dont think it is wise for beginners to get into that type of investing. Thats why I liked your comment above where you mentioned trading is not for everyone.
whew, I have never spent so much time writing in sajha--must be the holidays! thats all for today folks! more tomorrow.

I like the below stocks for near and far future investments:

microsoft (msft): With upcoming of new OS Vista, the stock price might roll.

I robot (irbt): Like the movie i-robot, this could very well be our future.

Physicians adult daycare (phya or phya.pk): With baby boomers about to look for retirements, the need for this kind of day care will sure to help it's stock price.

By the way, great suggestions in this thread -- please keep it going.

Cheers!
haami

Hey there,

anyone into growth stocks. Like young companies within the burgeoning industry. I know Nanotech is there, but is there something within SW/HW side that you mite recommend.

even within Nano, any picks you may have?

Thanks a bunch!

-B

hey haami, except for the pink stock not bad thinking at all about MSFT (been flat for years) and i really like IRBT as well. Adult daycare concept sounds good too but pink stocks are too volatile.

also, as you go into 2007 don't forget china! with trillions of US $$ left there from trade surplus, chinese stocks are looking really bullish. couple china stocks i own and have done really well for me are CTRP & LFC and i just bought ACH. currently looking into gaming / casion stocks in and around china. been doing some research on MPEL but i wish i had got into LVS.
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FYI: some tit bits

before we get too carried away with being a trader, here's a small fact about the world most successful investor (and no he is not a trader):

Warren Buffett purchased Washington Post stocks in 1973 and still owns them to this date. Same with Coco Cola stocks purchased in 1988.

Hi Bricolage,

i've also been doing a lot of research on the whole nano technology sector. check out NVEC, been keeping an eye on it for the past few months but seems a bit too volatile for me to find an entry point in this one. but among few others nano tech companies i looked at it, this one is more directly invloved in the technology and probably is the prime acquisition candidate.

good luck

It is not easy for an average investor to do like Buffett and get the same return. He owned many insurance companies that provided a regular cash flow. He needed to put the money somewhere so he bought value stocks and sat on it. It turned out pretty good. Do you know that he regularly trade currencies too? They were short billion of dollars of USD about 12 months ago. These days it is not easy to find such bargains, so he is sitting on a pile of cash.

One thing that people do not know is that he is a long term investor that manages risk like a trader. If his picks do not turn out well (and few of them do not), he will cut his losses and sell it.

It all depends on a person's time horizon and risk tolerance. I take my winnings and put it in bond funds and real estate. Trading wins are getting like a salary to me except that there is no guarantee that you are going to get it every month.

Agree with e- mini. That's just irrelevant to trading; hukkas thread.

you guys are giving complicated ideas to starters with your title of simple investedment ideas. give ideas, not scare them out of their panties!!

and all starters should know that they should never invest more money than they can afford to lose. I have not done stocks, but i keep my eyes on it. Forex is what i do mostly, not for a firm or anything. Seems like 99.99% of you are in stocks or futures.

You guys have talked about most of the important blocks of leveraging and capital and gains and losses. so, keep it going, i have nothing for now.

I'm backkk with a vengeance.

Hey Million turkish liras, goddamn cocks*cker if you read my previous post in another thread, you saw me say "Note that I am NOT promoting the FX markets in any way as this vehicle is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY risky due to the major volatility present every day...If you do decide to go with it anyway, do so with only the capital that even if you lose all of it, will not affect your financial well-being in any manner"
If you have traded FX as a beginner into this mkt, you would know that there is no margin call trading with clearing houses such as FXCM, Gain, Oanda, etc. The only way this would happen is if the market crashes ala Sept 11(200-300 pips in minutes) and you were unable to get out of your positions. I'm pretty sure you've been talking through your ass all along when you've never even traded anything beside your azz in the street corners.
A novice like you needs to get his butt face outta this discussion as it does not apply to you in any manner...And did I say I trade with that kind of leverage?? No, stupid dumbfu(k. All I'm suggesting is that for people with LESS capital who want to trade, there is such a thing as a 200:1 or a 400:1 leverage (but read with caution what I've said in the beginning of this post)...Go do your homework and then talk about trading

To all the others,my apologies for the post above but I really had to reply as this dude shouldn't have brought in his comments into this thread without even knowing what the others were talking about. He should've stuck to his savings account investment strategy and kept the profound knowledge to himself.


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As hukka said about Buffet, same thing with Geico (back in 1976). Thats done wonders for him as a float, enabling Bershire to acquire other businesses.