quote:

Originally posted by doublesharp:
Dogs of the Dow beats the indexes and it is individual stocks. I've been investing that way since before the Gardner Brothers gave blue chip dividend investing a name. I'm 72 now and retired at 46 thanks to the stock market. Several ways to skin a cat

That's good to hear that something works. How long have you been using the dogs of the dow?

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
I don't know what studies you've read and am not disputing them, but I think there are far more successful individual investors than you are aware of. And the beauty of being an individual investor is that you can buy shares of some companies that mutual funds don't have the ability to buy.

I can attest that my investments have far exceeded the S&P averages over various time frames. And I've had some doozy bad picks too. I'll own up to every one of them. But I don't regret my overall success investing....not gambling in the stock market.

I like how you think. The turtle makes no progress until he sticks his neck out.

I was lucky and learned technical analysis under Gene Morgan while working in CA in the mid 70's.

Exponential moving averages were developed by Robert Brown and Charles Holt:

https://www.mcoscillator.com/l...ith_moving_averages/

I used EMA's to track the market advancing/declining issues, advancing/declining volume, and new highs/new lows. I used the Fidelity Select Funds for investment and switched to the money markets during a correction.

The people I’ve met who did individual picks, did not work for mutual funds.

They were all in teams investing corporate money, or for very large private accounts.

41, technical analysis has intrigued me, but I never took steps to understand it. If I'm reading an article about a company and it's mentioned in a positive way, I certainly consider it a plus in my research.

Steve Bigalow has seminar's on Thursday nights.
Here is a link to last Thursdays presentation:

https://stephenbigalow.s3.amaz.../stock-chat-3923.mp4

Picking individual stocks or other investments is risky simply due to lack of diversification. The old "don't put all your eggs into one basket" warning.

I've lost money on individual stocks that were solid by all measures. But then accounting irregularities were revealed, aka fraudulent accounting, and the stocks went worthless overnight.

I've lost money on a sure thing when a corporate buyout was approved at a higher price per share. A bit of a story, but there was even a front page WSJ snippet wondering why the price wasn't going up when the deal was approved. My guess is market manipulation by big players.

For me, individual investments are only when I believe I understand the company and industry well enough to make a good guess. It is still a gamble but not a blind one.

Individual investments are only with limited % of my total $.

I've taken a few real flyers, where the payback could have been 100 or 1000 times. I considered those Las Vegas bets.

Even the pros don't have good track records picking individual stocks over a long period.

On both individual stocks and broad market indices, the accepted truisms are somewhat contradictory.

There's the truism that the price of any one stock or index reflects all that is to be known about the security at any given moment. Even apart from illegal insider trading, there has to be something that was "missed" by either buyer or seller which results in one side missing a gain or avoiding a loss.

Should a security's price be based on valuation or growth potential? Either viewpoint leads to two divergent views for either method. The growth potential branch further bifurcates into whether the growth is accelerating or decelerating.

You have chartists who swear they can predict the future of a security based on its historical data and assumes certain ceilings, floors, and inflection points. On the other hand, there's the truism that says past performance is not a valid indication of future potential.

Then there's the view that instead of measuring particular attributes of a given security, one can take a measure of the people doing the measuring of the security's attributes and base buy/sell decisions on the measurements of the analysts, buyers, and sellers of that security.

To some extent, it's a hit or miss as to which strategy to employ. The people who are actually good at investing or stock picking won't share their secret as that just drives up their costs or minimizes their profits. They would tout their stock picks only after they secured their positions and they're touting it to increase their profits hoping they entice more and greater fools.

JR, good luck on the CS trade. Not sure that one is going to pan out quite as well as the AAPL. Although few could have possibly kept up with it.

Seems Swiss authorities are scrambling to broker a deal for UBS to acquire CS today; typically in those types of transactions the equity value of the acquired is wiped out. WSJ link

You should've sold it at $2.16. Take the fast 10% gain and move elsewhere, the chart is on a straight decline........

“In the Short-Run, the Market Is a Voting Machine, But in the Long-Run, the Market Is a Weighing Machine”, attributed to Warren Buffet, but using the terminology of Graham.

If you pick a stock on a hunch or a tip, a short term move results in a “win” or a “loss”, akin to a sporting wager. If you pick a stock based on analysis of the fundamentals of the company, and hold it long enough, you will gain or lose based on the accuracy of your analysis and the fundamentals of the company. That is “investing”, not “wagering”.

As for the risk of picking individual stocks versus a mutual fund or market ETF, if I remember correctly you only have to hold about 10 stocks to virtually eliminate individual company risk. Of course you are still subject to market risk, but that is true for mutual funds and ETFs as well.

Switzerland Considers Nationalization Of Credit Suisse As Proposed UBS Takeunder Falters
Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Sunday, Mar 19, 2023 - 09:28 AM

Update (10:30am ET): So much for Credit Suisse thinking it has leverage by balking at the proposed CHF0.25 offer from UBS. Just hours after it was floated that UBS could buy Credit Suisse for $1BN, a proposal which the bank's shareholders balked at, Bloomberg reported that authorities are now considering a full or partial nationalization of Credit Suisse - an outcome which would wipe out the equity and bail-in bondholders - as the only other viable option outside a UBS Group AG takeover. And yes, 0.25 is still more than 0.0.

According to BBG, "the country is considering either taking over the bank in full or holding a significant equity stake if a takeover by UBS Group AG falls apart because of the complexities in arranging the deal and the short time frame involved."

Needless to say, the situation remains "very fluid" and is changing by the hour as authorities seek to finalize a solution for the bank by the time Asian markets open, which is late evening in Europe, the people said.

https://www.zerohedge.com/mark...under-cs-balks-offer

Going once... Going twice... SOLD to UBS for 3 Billion Swiss Francs!

The deal that was just struck values CS stock at 0.76 Swiss Francs per share, or roughly $0.81 per share. Less than half of what CS was trading at on Friday.

Each CS stockholder will receive 1 share of UBS stock for every 22.48 shares of CS.

So for his initial $980 investment in 500 shares of CS purchased on Thursday, JR78 will receive 22 shares of UBS, currently valued at a total of $400.04.

Oof... 59.1% loss in 3 days.

Good money can be made in individual securities through dollar cost averaging. Most companies have dividend reinvestment programs that make it easy.

Bigger oof: The Saudi National Bank confirmed today that they lost over $1 Billion on Credit Suisse. (But don't feel too sorry for them... That's merely ~0.4% of their total assets.)

They became CS's largest shareholder at 9.9% in November 2022 when they invested 1.4 billion Swiss francs, around $1.5 billion, at 3.82 francs per share.

Now UBS is giving them just 0.76 francs per share. That's around an 80% loss in a little over 3 months.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Bigger oof: The Saudi National Bank confirmed today that they lost over $1 Billion on Credit Suisse. (But don't feel too sorry for them... That's merely ~0.4% of their total assets.)

They became CS's largest shareholder at 9.9% in November 2022 when they invested 1.4 billion Swiss francs, around $1.5 billion, at 3.82 francs per share.

Now UBS is giving them just 0.76 francs per share. That's around an 80% loss in a little over 3 months.

The head of CS better not accept any invites to visit the Saudi embassy.

quote:

Originally posted by JR78:
Taking advantage of the recent banking crisis, I bought 500 shares of Credit Suisse for $1.96 a share... One financial “expert” recently said it’s valuation will increase by 140%. I have sell order in when it hits $5.00.

Sorry for your loss, but I would take this as a learning moment and recommend NEVER taking advice from your "expert" ever again.

I do not consider myself anything close to an expert, and have been casually keeping an eye on Credit Suisse and it was clear as day that investing into them right now was a bad move. Before dropping coin on a single-company stock purchases, I'd recommend doing a good bit of due diligence and research.

ah fuck it - win some, lose some

quote:

Originally posted by WingedMedic:
Sorry for your loss, but I would take this as a learning moment and recommend NEVER taking advice from your "expert" ever again.

I do not consider myself anything close to an expert, and have been casually keeping an eye on Credit Suisse and it was clear as day that investing into them right now was a bad move. Before dropping coin on a single-company stock purchases, I'd recommend doing a good bit of due diligence and research.

Now you know why I said buying single stocks is more like the gambling mentality even though many disagreed. Oh well it hurts but at least it wasn’t his life savings. Just kind of an expensive lesson

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:
Now you know why I said buying single stocks is more like the gambling mentality even though many disagreed. Oh well it hurts but at least it wasn’t his life savings. Just kind of an expensive lesson

I am one who respectfully disagrees with you.

It is not buying individual stocks that makes you a gambler, but rather which individual stocks you buy that makes you a gambler. If you follow the framework of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet and John Bogle, you are not a gambler.

In my opinion, if you give your money to a "professional" money manager, then you are a gambler.

I am more concerned with the return of my money than the return on my money. The "professional" money manager has to beat the market, or his investors will run away. If he needs to take additional risk, he doesn't care, he is gambling with your money.

I have a (small) portfolio of about 40 stocks. I have owned or followed these businesses for forty years, trading in and out of them in order to buy low and sell high. I buy when the stock is near a 52 week low and consider selling when the stock is at a 52 week high. Some might say you can't time the market, but I say you must.

Sometimes you lose. That is how it works.

quote:

Originally posted by WingedMedic:
Sorry for your loss

What loss? $1,000 is pocket change—pennies—of this guy's portfolio. Guessing he couldn't care less. He said, "Win some, lose some," after all.