just figured it was time for a new thread...

here's the guidance i provided some people that asked me about it:

Quote :

"Mang et al: if you're still wanting some picks, here you go: {and if you pick up, let me know, so i can tell you when to sell} [disclosures: * = i own ** = i previously owned *** = seriously considering for future ownage] Long term, relatively low risk, buy and hold: PG, QQQQ * Medium Risk, relatively high return: DNA *, CELG *, AMGN ***, CTSH * Medium-High Risk, uncertain return (possibly very high): GOOG *, AU **, GG **, BIIB * Very High Risk, uncertain return (possibly very very high): SIFY ***, EXEL ***, SIRI, IDIX *** Very High Risk, uncertain return (only if looking to gamble and have patience) RNAI **, CDE, ASTM *, STEM *"

1/9/2006 7:40:29 PM

i see you have hedged yourself well, one thing to consider is maybe some of sort of nc tax free fund (Franklin mutual has one and there are others) as opposed to proctor and gamble

[Edited on January 9, 2006 at 7:59 PM. Reason : (now isnt a good time to buy PG)]

1/9/2006 7:51:07 PM

KO*

1/9/2006 8:07:20 PM

the PG recco i took from Cramer

1/9/2006 8:38:41 PM

cramer is good but a lot of the stocks he recommends become overvalued

now is not the time to buy PG, 3 months ago was.

1/9/2006 8:56:27 PM

Current Holdings:

WTM
SPHRY
NNVC
USU
TLT
MVIS
GNBT
PYTO
NSOL
INSM
ABLDF
CSCO
SYMC
TTM

1/9/2006 9:26:34 PM

When did qqq become qqqq? Just noticed it the other day.

1/9/2006 10:16:42 PM

u sold au and gg? i was thinking about buying some time this week

1/10/2006 1:14:57 AM

^^ nearly a year ago

^ i traded those in the past. i used to trade GG back when it was called GSRSF

1/10/2006 11:22:28 AM

although, AU and GG may still be decent buys.

also used to trade the hell out of CDE (should have 2 asterisks beside it)

[Edited on January 10, 2006 at 11:37 AM. Reason : **]

1/10/2006 11:37:12 AM

Holdings:
XOM
QQQQ
COP
BAC
FLSH
OMM
GE
YHOO

1/10/2006 11:38:01 AM

get out of DNA within the next 10 mintues if you can...

1/10/2006 3:49:21 PM

GOOG is going down in 2006.

1/10/2006 3:50:03 PM

anyone have any good literature on stock purchases? i currently deal only in mutual funds, stock groupings, and the like through fidelity. can't complain - all my investments did quite well. little unsure/fearful of individual company purchases however.

1/10/2006 3:54:54 PM

http://www.fool.com

read it like the Bible.

Serious.

1/10/2006 3:55:32 PM

^^^ it might very well, but not until i double

1/10/2006 4:29:26 PM

by simply meeting analyst estimates, DNA lost $2 and change after hours...pre market will be interesting. i sold half of what i owned. might put part of it back when it gets to the mid $80's

1/10/2006 7:37:29 PM

^^^^
"The Unemotional Investor"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684853752/qid=1136939704/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-9947060-5271965?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

It's a Motley Fool book. I understand that you can find a lot of the same stuff on their website for free, but I haven't looked for it. Look for "Unemotional Growth."

In general, I'd stay away from mutual funds. You could buy spiders and beat the majority of them.

PFE VZ GE MRK JOYG MRVL MOT AAPL CHS

**ADD**

Quote :

"Here's how we run the numbers for the three screens that are easiest and cheapest to run on your own. It won't cost you anything but a trip to the library and a legal pad. Note: This is the low-tech version. You start with the latest issue of Value Line. Your library will have a long row of very thick black binders. That's Value Line. Find the most recent edition of the "Summary and Index" and turn to page 27 where Value Line lists "Timely Stocks, Stocks Ranked 1 (Highest) For Relative Performance (Next 12 Months)." That's your starting universe. Before you start with this universe, though, you might want to review Value Line's credentials and the credentials of their Timeliness rankings. Now, grab the most recent issue of Investor's Business Daily. This part is something of a pain, but it gets easier after you do it a few times. You need to look up each of Value Line's 100 Timely stocks in the IBD stock tables. Then you write down IBD's RS (Relative Strength) and EPS (earnings per share) rating for each one. The RS-IBD strategy buys the five or 10 stocks with the highest RS rating. Since the RS rating is a percentile score (an RS of 97 tells you that the stock had a higher Relative Strength than 97% of the stocks ranked), and since Value Line picks stocks with good Relative Strength to begin with, you will have a lot of stocks ranked 99 or 98. That's where the EPS rating comes in. To determine the exact order, break the ties in favor of the higher EPS ranking. (You will still have a few ties most weeks.) That's how you run the numbers. When you finish, what do you have? You have a list of five or 10 stocks that Value Line's proprietary Timeliness formula predicts will do well over the next six to 12 months, and that have been rising rapidly over the last year. (See Workshop Criteria for more details on Relative Strength and EPS ratings.)"

http://www.fool.com/ddow/2000/ddow001012.htm

The Unemotional Growth book has you rank the 100 timliest stocks by EPS then RS. Apparently this (^) is a little less volatile. Wake County Public Library has an online subscription to Value Line. IBD is $1.25 at B&N.

[Edited on January 10, 2006 at 8:02 PM. Reason : add]

1/10/2006 7:52:57 PM

current holdings:

(TRBCX)
(RPMGX)
(FEQIX)
(NYVTX)
(NBGEX)
(FDIVX)
(FCNTX)
(FDGRX)
(FMAGX)
(FFFEX)
(PRHSX)
(AVPAX)
(PRSGX)
(PRSCX)
(FBIDX)
(FRTXX)
(FDGFX)
(FBGRX)

1/10/2006 8:54:51 PM

some of you have been watching cramer.....


cramer has spoken about 80% of the stocks that i have had or have in my holdings and they are all stocks that should have been bought a while ago and now the mass will buy in and the major holders will reap the benefits.... cramer is great.....long live mad $$...i think i contradicted myself somewehre....

1/11/2006 3:02:27 AM

Here's a couple that I'll be watching closely and probably picking up.

Seagate (STX)
All the new music and video downloading has to be stored somewhere - and
that means more hard drive demand

Akamai (AKAM) - The video media downloading business is finally here. From
what I can see, you can download via Google or Akamai (Yahoo/Apple). And
they have a ridiculously low P/E of ~11. meanwhile, Apple has hit almost 1
billion music downloads.

1/11/2006 9:19:01 AM

My boss and I both picked up CRM this week. They are expected to go up considerably, resulting in some great options premiums.

1/11/2006 12:37:27 PM

thinking about SNMX

ever heard of it?

they were on NASDAQ's most active list today, and have an "Analyst day" or something like it where they talk about what they have in their pipeline.

1/12/2006 12:58:53 PM

Quote :

"some of you have been watching cramer....."

Anyone who follows Cramer based on his CNBC Mad Monday recommendations for short term investing is not going to make much money over the long haul.... The fix is already in before he hypes a stock on his show (i.e. all his buddies and paid service subscribers previously purchased the stock being hyped).... it's basically a pump & dump scheme.

[Edited on January 12, 2006 at 2:06 PM. Reason : fa]

1/12/2006 2:06:43 PM

^ not really, Dan Dorfman was "pump and dump". Cramer talks about that whole paradigm in "Confessions of a Street Addict". the big bank analysts are the ones that regularly pump and dump--its their day job and they're damn good at it.

Cramer tells you when to sell. the catch is, you have to watch his show regularly or subscribe to street.com to know when to sell.

however, if you mistake his "buy" reccos for "buy and hold", you will get burned.

here's someone that tracks Cramer's picks

http://www.positionplays.com/madmoney.html

1/12/2006 2:17:53 PM

I just did some puts on Yahoo. Its a solid stock even though it receives much less attention than Google. They're supposed to have a solid earnings report come out next Tuesday.

1/12/2006 2:37:52 PM

^ isn't that kind of expensive? what srtike?

i would've done calls at strike 45 or 42.50 if i thought it was going up

1/12/2006 2:55:02 PM

unless they expire next week?

1/12/2006 2:56:38 PM

Sold Jan 40 puts at $0.80 each.

I'm optimistic that it won't drop that low over the next 6 days.

[Edited on January 12, 2006 at 3:03 PM. Reason : .]

1/12/2006 3:03:01 PM

Quote :

"Cramer talks about that whole paradigm in "Confessions of a Street Addict". the big bank analysts are the ones that regularly pump and dump--its their day job and they're damn good at it. Cramer tells you when to sell. the catch is, you have to watch his show regularly or subscribe to street.com to know when to sell. "

I'd say it's more of the latter and less of the former. IMO, you are nuts to buy
any recos given on this show within 30 days of when he pumps it on the
air. In fact, you're are better off going short the day or two after
the recos made are made on the show and covering for a profit within 30
days. (ie LAUR reco'd 12/2/05 as one example.) He might actually pick
and pump a stock on his show on ok fundamentals and a story, but the
person trading on the TV recos has these things working against him:

1) Cramer and his paid TheStreet.com subscribers are already in the
trade. (ie Thanks for the pump Jim! Sign me up for another year of service!)
2) These paid subscribers that are short term traders know the pump is
coming and will sell for a profit at your expense the day of TV airing.
3) You'll always get burned running mindlessly with the CNBC watching
herd IMO. The smart money is unloading at that point.

Something else I don't like about this guy is his double-talk. He
changed his tune about Cisco late last summer telling viewers to finally buy.
Then in late fall, he bad mouthed it and pretty much denied he ever reco'd it.
Can't wait to hear what he's saying this week now that CSCO is up $2.
And before you say it, that has nothing to do with feeling personally insulted
b/c he dissed the CSCO stock, so much as I'm better able to remember the
specific example b/c it's CSCO. I don't even own any CSCO stock.

I'm not saying his TV recos are garbage, but you'd be better to check
them out yourself then wait a month or more for the pullback until you
decide to get in. He's after TV ratings not helping people make $
anyway.

(and I mean "you" in the general sense, because generally people are dumb.)

1/12/2006 3:19:35 PM

Quote :

"You'll always get burned running mindlessly with the CNBC watching herd "

agreed

1/12/2006 3:24:41 PM

i would recommend the book "a random walk down wall street" for anyone who doesnt know much about stocks or only uses someone like cramer as guidance.

1/12/2006 6:43:39 PM

its not hard to agree that blindly following CNBC, WSJ, or any one source can lead you to be a day late and dollar short.

however, its important to note that disciplined strategies generally work best. my strategy is timing and sector rotation. a friend of mine uses the Valueline approach and annually earns in the teens, percentage-wise.

Valueline is a thorough survey of analysts, and it rates stocks from 1 to 4 (maybe 5). 1 is the best ranking. whenever a stock moves from 2 to 1, he buys, and when that same stock moves back down to 2, he sells. its worked well for him.

the thing is, Valueline is expensive for the public--but thanks to what some people call "socialism", you have access to it for free at DH Hill library. i believe all you need to do is go to the reference section and let them hold your student ID while you peruse the publication.




[Edited on January 12, 2006 at 10:43 PM. Reason : dfgsdfgsdfg]

1/12/2006 10:42:26 PM

^ i think wake county public libraries also has a subscription... maybe even online?

1/12/2006 11:01:35 PM

ok so erring on the side of being dense, what's the difference between the fool ratio and the peg ratio?

1/12/2006 11:57:28 PM

Quote :

"^ i think wake county public libraries also has a subscription... maybe even online?"

Yes. Yes, they do.

1/13/2006 9:27:16 AM

^^ plz explain the fool ratio

1/13/2006 10:01:27 AM

takes PE and divides by annualized growth over two years... i think...

also, i posted in the other thread, but looks like everyone moved to this one... how hard is it to get an option account? and what brokerages do you guys use? any thoughts on scottrade?

[Edited on January 13, 2006 at 1:25 PM. Reason : more stuff]

1/13/2006 1:23:55 PM

^

the fool and peg ratios may be the same then.

i drove over to the Scottrade office in Durham yesterday and filled out one of these options agreements. they asked for personal income & net worth info. they said i should hear back within days about it.

1/13/2006 1:47:18 PM

another question... man i still have a lot to learn about investing... why is it that morningstar only gives the vanguard s&p index fund 2 or 3 stars?

1/13/2006 2:04:03 PM

if its this one you're refering to, it gets 4 stars:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=VFINX

1/13/2006 2:08:16 PM

here's the other Vanguard funds:

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/fam/vanguard.html





also, earlier i said i used to trade GSRSF, which is now called GG.

actually, i think GSRSF is now called GSS.

1/13/2006 2:10:29 PM

^^ yeah just realized that they got 4 stars....

1/16/2006 11:38:48 AM

in other thread:

Quote :

"what do u guys think of GLD, is it going to go ne higher?"

yes

1/16/2006 5:39:20 PM

Quote :

"I just did some puts on Yahoo. Its a solid stock even though it receives much less attention than Google. They're supposed to have a solid earnings report come out next Tuesday."

Quote :

"Sold Jan 40 puts at $0.80 each. I'm optimistic that it won't drop that low over the next 6 days."

AHAHAHAHAHAHA

At least I can laugh at myself.

1/18/2006 1:49:40 PM

all i can do is laugh

1/18/2006 2:58:21 PM

this is the selloff to correct some of the runup at the beginning of the year

1/18/2006 4:32:21 PM

too much riding based on only expectations, ie. ebay aapl yhoo

[Edited on January 18, 2006 at 4:59 PM. Reason : ...]

1/18/2006 4:57:49 PM

Apple shares tumble after numbers fall short
http://us.ft.com/ftsuperpage/superpage.php?news_id=fto011820061748473885&referrer_id=yahoofinance

they are no longer able to show triple figure growth. They are slowing down.
The numbers do not hol dup

1/18/2006 10:17:40 PM

like i said, its all based on guidance expectations nowadays...they killed actual rev, income and everything else for the last quarter

1/18/2006 10:22:29 PM