Just wondering if there are any active investors who are playing the stock market among us here in sajha. I am a rookie investor myself, so it would be nice to share a few thoughts, ideas, and tips with those involved in it.

From what I have seen in America, owning your own business or being an wise investor is the only way to build wealth. Well you can always hit the jackpot lottery but what are the odds? Investment, Stock Market, and all the financial jargons related to them can be overwhelming and intimidating for first time investors, even more so if you are an immigrant. So, I hope we can make this a knowledge sharing platform to help those who are interested in learning more about investment and stock market in general. And for those of you who have no interest in stocks or investment at all, here is why may be you should reconsider.

We all know about Dell computer and chances are at one point or another we have all used it. If you had spent $5,000 on Dell stocks in 1998 your return as of today would be over $133,000. Or how about ebay? I know I use it for buying and selling time to time. If you had spent $5,000 on ebay in 2003, guess how much would be the value of your stock today? In less than 3 years your $5,000 investment today would be worth over $47,000 today.

Now I am not saying it's a sure thing because you can lose money in the stock market as well and that is why you need to be wise and do your research. So, if we have interested folks, we can make this a way to help each other in a small way.

Thanks.

I burned all of my fingers playing Stock market in 2000/2001 (20K). I will stay away from it for a while. The crooks in Wall Street manipulate your money in such a way that it is almost like playing cards.

Morningstar Commentaryon AVNX

03-15-06 Volume more than twice 30-day average (M*)
03-15-06 Price move on heavy volume (M*)
03-15-06 New 52-week high (M*)
03-15-06 More than 10% price movement (M*)
03-13-06 Change in this year's EPS estimate (M*)

Looks like the stock is being bought heavily by institutional traders.

I STILL LOVE OIL. WHO CARS IF THEY manipulate the BS? It BS(bullshit) that runs the market. irrational exhuberance anyone?

bought AVNX :)

Hukka,
I go something more on AVNX.

Ameritrade Online Investor Index for 3/16/06

Top 10 (Daily Buys) (%Buyers)
AVNX AVANEX CORP 15.75%
INTC INTEL CORP 8.82%
GOOG GOOGLE INC 8.38%
JDSU JDS UNIPHASE CORP 6.73%
AAPL APPLE COMPUTER INC 5.76%
YHOO YAHOO! INC 2.46%
NYX NYSE GROUP INC 1.90%
BRCM BROADCOM CORP 1.70%
FNSR FINISAR CORPORATION 1.33%
SIRI SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO INC 1.17%

Notice AVNX on the list followed by INTC. You gotta be really intel inside to buy a stock like AVNX:p

Dudes whats happening?

Remember when I mentioned about being in the "construction and distruction era" ? Well if you look at the market lately, it won't be very surprising. Everything from X, MT, STLD, ASK, NUE, TIE, RTI, ATI....everyone of these have gone up over 20% in just last couple week. I think this ride will continue for a while!

Hey man I forgot your SN but NUAN is kicking some major butt in my portfolio.....up over 30% in just last 3 months :-)

Anyways, folk if you are thinking of stocks consider metal and energy stocks...they are rocking lately.

Oil price up, stock down. whatta crappy day:|

invest in mutual funds...

Which are the best sites to do research on individual stocks so that you know things about companies before the crooks at wall street or other big firms know? Any idea?

I gained $25 today, lol. Mutual funds are a ripoff if you ask me, they charge too much. There are some mutual funds with little to no-load, better check those out. One is by dodd and cox. Check that one out. Of course most good mutual funds are closed to new investors, like the sequoia fund which has a 15% return rate(includes dividend of course).
Best site to do research on individual stocks? Well, I just use finance.yahoo.com. Another one is morningstar. MSN also has a good one. MSN's deluxe screener is pretty good as well, IMHO. But the best of the pack is wall street journal. You need to subscribe though.
BTW, check out NEU, it has gone up almost 50% since I bought some shares about a few months ago. Sort of dangerous to dive in now.

mutual funds are rip off re.....coz they charge too much..well then get a class B or CLass C funds..which have no charge or less charge.....its up to you..either u can get the one with the front load or back load, more than that..look at the return for last 10-15 years, you wont go wrong. historically mutual funds have always returned more than 8%. as far as the charge is concerned..remember u get what you paid for....

Actually, there are no-load funds out there as well. 8% is not really a good return, because the market average is approximately 10%. Over the last 15 years or so, S&P has in fact returned approximately 12%. So wouldn't an index fund be a better idea. There is a big difference between a mutual fund and an index fund. It turns out that most mutual funds don't beat the market. Plus index funds also charge much less than mutual funds. Check out some ishares ETF's. South Africa is rolling, and Brazil too. Didn't Japan's market return 40% last year?
I am myself trying to beat the market. I handpick my stocks. Doing okay...

What about Fidelity's Contrafund:

FCNTX

One can open a Fidelity Roth/Traditional IRA on $200 monthly
http://personal.fidelity.com/products/retirement/retirementintro.shtml.cvsr?refhp=pr&ut=A4

Fees
Cost: Nothing form Fidelity
Expense ratio of the fund: 0.91 % which is below Industry Mutual Fund Average

Fidelity is closing both the popular Contrafund and its Fidelity Advisor New Insights fund to new investors on April 28 because of overwhelming inflows over the past 12 months. New purchases in the funds will be limited to existing shareholders after that date.

Good Luck.

I thought they already closed the contrafund mutual fund.
Check out dodfx, expense ratio is 0.70. It's basically focused on foreign stocks. Dodgx closed a while ago. Morningstar rating of 5. It's relatively new.

Fidelity is closing the fund because it has reached it's maximum growth potential. I am not saying that the fund will not grow anymore but the growth rate might be less. So, don't jump in without knowing where you are diving.

Nice to see this thread back to life again today....wasn't the greatest day for the market...but sorry to say guys, it was an awesome day for me. TIE, RTI, MT, and FPP making some serious noise for me lately. Had a real bad free fall in AVNX but overall was still one of my great days!!

thugged out...i've been following NEU for awhile too and it along with most others in the sector have seen major gains in the last 6 months. wish i had bought NEU last year but i can't complain much for buying TIE either :-)

still looking for some good mid size energy stocks...any suggestions??

p.s. mansion, i feel like you should invest in mutual funds after you've made your money in the stocks market. since, it is much safer investment compare to socks. but if u hit the right stocks you can make just as much money in just 1 year where as it might take you 10-15 years with mutual funds. so let me make my first million from stocks first and will look into mutual funds lol also, i haven't done a whole lot of research on mutual funds but they do charge me pretty decent sum in my 401k account. if you have any good mutual funds you know of and wouldn't mind sharing.....that'd be cool.

good lucks everyone...hope tomorrow will be a better day!

WOW another amazing day for metal stocks!! Wonder how long will this run last...hope foreverrrrr :p

I am an Idiot for STOCKS.

Could anyone suggest me the simplest book to understand it?

Har har har, what a good day! I gained a whopping 5% today, and I own 10 different stocks.

No kidding...i own 9 stocks and all in green today...its gotta be the first day i can ever remember not having to lose a penny in any stock! if everday were like this i'd be a millionaire in a few months :p

AP98, read "The Intelligent Investor" -- By Benjamin Graham. Simple read yet very informative!