CNP, SBUX, BAC

:eek: TXN =1.93% $.53+

Rick, I'm in the market...I just don't play the game of trying to pick individual stocks. I hold a mix of equities and bonds, I go for diversity in the equities though broadly based no load index funds. 15% would be a pretty good year..on average, over the last 40 years, the total market has returned less than 15%. But there have been VERY GOOD years...'99 was one of them. But yeah, I do consider chasing hot tips in penny stocks, start-up companies, and other "flyers" as pretty much the same as going to Vegas...For the equity side of our portfolio, we're into mostly USA market funds, with a smattering of foreign markets and what is known as "emerging markets"...pretty boring stuff, really...but it works for us.

What's the name of the company? I can't get them as a Yahoo quote. Do they trade on a U.S. exhange?

Here is the updated list:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cq?s=ESRX+BRK-a+txn+athr+intc+%20alvr+GSIC+CTRN+PSEPF.pk+AMLN+GN BT+DHI+BUD+F+PLKC.ob+hlsh.pk+dphiq.pk+BR+XOM+CVX+I AU+MSFT+AAPL+NSC+SIFY+cnp+sbux+bac&d=v1

PLKC is up about 19% right now. SmileWavy

Don't buy it with money you can't afford to lose; it's a crazy penny stock.

Any opinions on stocks that pay big dividends? A while back I bought BBD for the Latin American financial exposure and was shocked to see the dividend yield was like 17%! Hello? That seemed unlikely so I checked it again and sure enough it was correct. So for fun I fired up an MSN stock screener search looking for high dividend payers and saw a fair number above 10%. Granted, some were extremely new companies but not all.

I wonder if we get so wrapped up in the speculative frenzy that we forget dividend yields. I am a bit embarrassed to admit I didn't even check the yield on BBD before I bought it.

Want crazy dividends? Find a closely held small company that's run like a cash cow for it's (few) owners. I own shares in an asian retailer than paid about 8% last year. The tradeoff is that the liquidity sucks.

The list is getting kinda long. If anyone is interested, maybe we should create three lists. One for "hot" stocks -- these would be speculative or "trading" plays. One for "investment/growth" stocks -- these would be longer term, buy and hold suggestions. And one for "yield."

One problem I can think of right now regarding "yield" stocks, is that sometimes there are anomalies with the dividend yield. A company can be reducing or eliminating its dividend, and the stock price will be down because of it, but information on the stock won't be updated, subsequently you'll get a high yield that really isn't an accurate picture of the future yield.

As an example, firearms manufacturer, Sturm Ruger and Co. (RGR) has a pretty good-looking dividend yield: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=RGR but they have just recently canceled their dividend for the 4th quarter. You have to be aware of company news when considering the information at some sources on stocks.

Nice percentage winners among the list. A lot are out-performing the general market. You guys are looking to be pretty good stock pickers (at least for the very short-term).

In comparison, SPY (S&P 500 ETF) rose 5.6% from 10/28 to 12/05.

Anyone have dividend stock picks?
jurgen

I bought Ford, Microsoft (huge qty for 401k), & just picked up a bit of Loudeye -

If you guys ever want to set up a stock picking contest just for fun, here is a website that the guys on FerrariChat use...

http://game.marketwatch.com/Home/default.asp

Everybody gets a preset amount of virtual cash and then trades as if it were real. I use the site to test various investing strategies. But it is clear that the intended purpose is to have contests.

Here is a link to the FerrariChat investment contest...

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79493

They've been playing for about two months. It seems some unscrupulous guys are taking advantage of the bugs in the system but I'm sure (since Pelican is such a small online community) that we can trust each other to play fair.

BTW - I promised myself I would not buy any stocks that were recommended by Jim Cramer. I find his show very entertaining and I watch it every night. But I really wanted to have more rigorous discipline than to take stock picks off the TV. But anyway, after listening to his show, I caved in and bought three of his picks...and since I did that two moths ago, I've made money hand over fist...his picks were

BBD +28.98%
UNH +7.33%
XTO +11.10%

That's how much I've made off of those stocks....Cramer may be an assclown on TV...but success is hard to argue with...

EDIT: I should not imply that I bought all of those stocks two months ago...it wasn't all at once. I think I bought XTO back in October, then some BBD...then more BBD and eventually some UNH...so those numbers are the average gain for all of my buy lots...

Almost forgot about this thread.

It's nice to look at things over a set period of time, but I don't think all the suggestions were "buy and hold" picks. This for example was what I said about PLKC:

PLKC ran up to about 1.2 cents -- which represents roughly a 40% gain from the point I suggested it -- (I had about half of my position sell on limit orders I had placed), but has since pulled back to under 1/2 a penny. I'm still holding the rest of my position and might buy more with designated "gambling" money at this point. PLKC is a trading stock, not a "buy and hold" pick.

My other pick, HLSH is down, they may have to renegotiate with the bondholders which could dilute the shareholder's position, but HealthSouth is still a "buy and hold for a couple of years" pick; it will be a money-maker after they're re-listed sometime in 2006.

Here is my speculative 'play money' list:


F FORD MTR CO Margin 700 8.11 5,677.00 35.00(0.62%)

LOUD LOUDEYE CORP Margin 300 0.48 144.00 -6.00(-4%)

MSFT MICROSOFT CORP Margin 20 27.76 555.20 -1.80(-0.32%)

PLKC PLANETLINK COMMUNICATIONS IN Margin 15000 0.0043 64.50 -4.50(-6.52%)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total Market Value: $6,440.70 $22.70(0.3537%)

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I think we're in a golden age regarding the tools available to the individual equity investor. Information available on the financial websites, much of it free, allows quick access to financial statements, news, screeners, links to company conference calls, etc. Just like it's important to do a PPI before a car purchase, a true investor needs to put the time and effort into researching a stock, anything less is speculation.

Somebody mentioned a possible China play. Several of China's bigger companies are traded on the NYSE via American Depository Receipts/Shares. One that I like is PTR, Petrochina $81.27. The financial fundamentals look strong and the price seems reasonable in relation. Warren Buffett has a big holding, as of his most recent filing. Speaking of Buffet, I also like his class B shares, BRKB $2990.00. They are equal to roughly 1/30th of a class A share.

If you want diversification for cheap, look into Exchange Traded Funds (ETF's). They're better for occasional purchases since you have to pay a brokerage fee. Otherwise, for dollar cost averaging I like no-load mutual funds from Vanguard.

Regards,

Markus
'80 SC Targa

SIFY

Talk about missing the boat! SIFY is up almost 14% today. Start watching for that pull-back boys, this one may be a winner

I hope everybody followed my advice and loaded up on AAPL last Summer like I told you to.

;-)

Haha, good one. Didn't you dump at $50/share?

Far as I'm concerned, if you don't buy what you preach, it carries little weight. After all, 40% profit on 0 shares is...let me get out my calculator. :D

:-)

Yeah, I bought at $36 and sold at $54. Coulda had another $20/share. Oh well. Good time for puts, I'm thinkin.'