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Do Any of You Invest in Stocks and Bonds
Over the last almost 10 years I have pretty consistently been beaten to death in the stock market. Making my own independent decisions. Pretty much I can give excellent advice by telling you what I am doing, then you should do the opposite with great success.
Some of the things I have used in the past were:
1) Value Line Investment Survey
2) Investors Business Daily
3) Vector Vest
4) Zacks Elite
5) Gut feel for businesses that I personally found interesting or liked eating at 
Which brokers do you like:
1)Schwab
2)Fidelity
3)Etrade
4)TD Ameritrade
5)Merrill Lynch and the other big boys
Do you follow a broker's advice or use an asset manager?
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Do Any of You Invest in Stocks and Bonds
Dennis, are you buying the individual stock or mutual funds?
I was licensed to and did sell Mutual Funds for a few years. Mostly I had that license to sell variable life more so but same license for Mutual Funds. Not licensed for the invidual stocks.
Buying invidual stocks is considered more risky than mutual funds but you probably know that. If you are buying mutual funds watch the annual fees and not just the sales fees. Morning Star has probably the longest track record or any body that rates Mutual Funds. They have a free web site for the investor. I think a search under their name will bring it up for you. If not and you want it I will be glad to post it next week but just shut down my computer with that data on it. They may rate invidual stock, do not remember. I am not that risky. Would only buy a single stock if I were where I could watch it very often or worked there. Buying a few shares of a company you work for if they have public traded stock is a great way to really know what the company is doing. The law says they must be honest to investors (which they don't still always do) but not to employees.
It is hard (my opinion) for a person to do well in individual stock as the price of it changes so quickly if you do not have someone watching it or you yourself are. Be careful of the big brokerage houses, yes they do have their agenda and they do have their products their reps are to push or pitch. kt
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Do Any of You Invest in Stocks and Bonds
I'm with KT, individual stocks are too risky unless you know a LOT about the company and the market they are in and track it regularly. That's too much work and anxiety for me, not enough Maalox in the world to fix it. We have a lot of retirement money in a range of no-load mutual funds from risky to very conservative. As a group this method has done pretty good in both up and down markets, probably averaging 5-7% in down periods and 8-12% when times are good. We only pick funds highly rated by Morningstar. We have used money managers in the past and they seemed to encourage a lot of "churn" which benefited them more than us.
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I think a lot of you on TP are like me and have always been self employed, so we had to take care of our own health insurance, retirement plans, etc. A broker I knew a long time ago always said the your split between high and low risk investments should match your age, ( 40 yr. old = 40% in low risk/60% high risk, 60 yrs. old = 60% low risk/40% high risk, etc. Health insurance for the self employed is almost out of reach cost wise for lots of the self employed anynmore. This is the main reason that almost all the younger generation farm wives hold a job off the farm anymore, not so much for the wages, but the health insurance benefits for the family. Guess I kinda wandered off the topic a bit. So Dennis if you want to put a bit of a thrill in your daily routine just buy a few soybean futures contracts, it don't take a lot of money to get in, and in the last few weeks you could have bought a new Lincoln every week off the gains, but you could also be paying for someone elses new Lincolns with what they call "Margin Calls", when the board goes against you. "Margin Calls" means you send them a check right now, not next week for whatever the market lost per bushel that day times however many bushels you were playing with. Not for the faint of heart. Frank.
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.... "Margin Calls" means you send them a check right now, not next week for whatever the market lost per bushel that day times however many bushels you were playing with. Not for the faint of heart.Frank.
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Frank,
You probably know something about soybeans, I don't and have always felt commodity futures trading and margin investing too much for me.
I have done better when I have bought companies like Cracker Barrel, Nike, PF Chang Bistro, Outback Steakhouse. Where I new something about them.
I should have bought some of Warren Buffets Berkshire Hathaway years ago and let Warren take care of business for me. I may do that yet!
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Yes Dennis I do know something about soybeans, they are round and they are yellow. When it comes to soybean or any other commodity futures trading, ANYBODY, including me that tells you they have it figured out how to cash in with futures contracts is either an idiot or just flat out lying. Money can be and is made trading futures, but for every dollar made a dollar is lost plus commission. Better stock up on double strength Maylox before you dive in. Frank.
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..... We only pick funds highly rated by Morningstar. We have used money managers in the past and they seemed to encourage a lot of "churn" which benefited them more than us.
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What funds are you using?
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Do Any of You Invest in Stocks and Bonds
I'm a little reluctant to mention specific funds, so if they tank don't blame me
We're in Dodge & Cox Balanced fund, Dodge & Cox Stock, Vangard Wellington and American Funds Stock Fund A.
The Dodge & Cox Balanced fund is more conservative and holds it's own in poor markets. It was closed to new investors for a long time but recently reopened to them, for how long I cannot say.
Dodge & Cox is also opening a new International fund that I'm gonna get into. With all the growth overseas it would seem to make sense to get into that.
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