UUUU

Buy when near $5, sell when nearer $7.
Repeat

Copper coated lead, brass, and Silver

For speculative, I'd buy OMER. Been watching them for years and they have some major catalysts over the next year.

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
UUUU

Buy when near $5, sell when nearer $7.
Repeat

I agree, I own a bit of this.

Dollar-cost averaging into the S&P 500 index would be my recommendation for a solo $1000. My 'sole stock' to suggest is SPY, ticker symbol for an S&P 500 Index Exchange Traded Fund. Trades like a single stock, and gives diversification at low cost tracking the US large company equity market.

Details=====

If this is your only investment (i.e. you don't already have a bunch invested elsewhere) then $1K isn't enough to consider buying individual stocks. Reason being, buying one company only sticks you with the risk of something particular happening to that individual stock.

For example ... Anheuser-Busch... Six months ago, who would have thought they'd trash themselves? If that were your only stock, you'd have been hosed when they went uber-woke and flailed.

Tactical implementation: buy $333 worth of SPY right off, at the market. Put a date on the calendar one month off and another two months off. Take half the remainder and buy $333 at the market on the first date, then use the rest on the second date.

At the end of two months, you're fully invested and diversified.

joel9507's route is a great option for a basic introductory investment, especially if you're going to be sitting on it for a while (but it doesn't sound like the OP will, though).

You can do similar with just about any broad market index fund; it doesn't necessarily have to be that specific SPY fund, or specifically an S&P 500 index fund. There are widely diversified index funds out there that track a wide variety of different indexes, up to and including the entire stock market as a whole.

It's still a bit of a gamble, as instead of betting that a specific stock will do well you're betting that the entire index or market will do well, and the index or the market can still drop due to overall economic conditions, world events, etc. But it's less volatile, and less exposure to one single company or even one single industry shitting the bed. And historically, while the market has its ups and downs, it trends upwards over the long run... However, it just might not trend upwards for specifically the next 1-5 years. (Hence why this strategy is a near-guaranteed winner in the long run, but still a gamble for a short term investment.)

Make sure you understand your tax liability too. Some types of funds will open you up to more tax liability than others. An index ETF (like SPY) is generally a bit safer overall in this regard than an index mutual fund, though most index mutual funds also strive to be tax efficient as well.

^^^ S&P500 holds a lot of it's value in just 10 stocks. Something like between 1/3 and half the value are in just a small handful of stocks.

27% of the SP500 is high tech. Not much diversification there.

Look at this area map and you will see what I mean: https://www.marketbeat.com/mar.../sector-performance/

My preference for the long term would be small value ETF's like Vanguard's VBO although I admit it's not perfect diversification either

Exxon, solid earner and decent dividends.

General Mills, not a great earner but a good
hedge against inflation and decent dividends.

I’m also into the Mondelez for the same reason as General Mills.

Amazon is a good speculation for the next 10 years… currently not doing well IMO and does not pay dividends. I bought prior to the split and awaiting value to reach a certain point, then I’m out.
I want dividends as well as appreciation.

Those are just a few I’m invested in.
In all regards except Amazon, they have been great at keeping value with inflation.

so this is SUPER info, some info on me. I have all of the necessary SHTF requirements, (including ammo) pre stocked in good numbers. I have plenty of SHTF "currency" and I am comfortable with that. I was blessed this year and have paid off all my cards/mortgage and cars . I am , finally, debt free. I am not looking for a long term deal (IE IRA s or Savings accounts, I have savings and am comfortable with what I have put back). This will be a learning experience as well as short term (@ 1 year) investment and would like to see a decent return. If it loose it it will not be a big loss.

I can't help but think with AI and the Ukraine deal that there is not money tobe made off of those

Define "decent return". I suspect you might need to manage your expectations here.

Picking one stock typically will not result in double-digit percentage returns in just 1 year, except through sheer dumb luck, or extremely savvy investing based on lots of personal knowledge and research into specific companies.

With stock investments, in a diversified portfolio, you're generally looking at averaging mid-to-high single digits (say 6%-9%) year to year, at best. Some years will do better; some years will do worse.

And currently, you can get guaranteed mid-single-digits (5ish percent) through a 1 year CD or simply sticking it in a high yield savings account for 1 year, rather than gambling on maybe getting 6% or 8%, or maybe not. Or perhaps getting 10% or 15%, but probably not. And possibly getting -2% or -5% too.

CDs or high yield savings accounts don't have to be long term holdings, and that $1k with a guaranteed 5% return for a year gets you $50, for sure. Whereas putting that $1k in a stock might get you $60 or $80 or $100, or it might get you $0 or less than $0.

A diversified stock portfolio that's invested over the long term (decades) can recover in subsequent years after a bad year, and will hold enough broadly different investments that even if some companies or industries do poorly in a year the others that do better can counterbalance it. But your plan of one/a few stock investments that you're only going to hold for just one year is right about as likely to lose you money as it is to gain you a little bit of money.

You're not going to get rich off a $1k investment for 1 year.

thanks Rogue, I was hoping (maybe foolishly) to invest 1k and see a 1-200$ return. After research that seems unlikely and no different than me hitting the lotto lol.

I am leaning towards gas or oil as I think the Ukarine war will drive up prices?
Edit to add i do have about 50K I can put in a CD and I wont need it for a year at least

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:
I was blessed this year and have paid off all my cards/mortgage and cars . I am , finally, debt free.

That in itself is awesome.

bro, you have no idea. i can wake up, walk out on my land and know it is mine! freedom !

I'll add another great ETF - QQQ. It's the NASDAQ 100 index tracking fund.

While it is tech heavy, but I have graphed it out and over the years, it actually beat the S&P 500 (SPY or VOO). VOO is actually better than the more popular SPY as it has slightly lower fees.

Since you have your financial house in order, you might learn about doing covered calls. It is a great way to get returns while reducing your downside risk. The catch is you give away the big upside, so if a stock gains say 20% overnight you will not see that, but depending on how you play the game you might see 5% of it.

Basically, a call option is the right to buy a stock at a certain predetermined price (the strike price). You want to sell the call option, not buy it. Option buying is very high risk. Selling is not.

So you buy 100 shares of something, call it SIGF, at say $8 per share. You have $800 into the deal. Then you sell the call option, either the $7.50 or the $10.00 strike price. The buyer pays you maybe $1.50 per share (it varies a lot), which is $150. You get to keep that $150 no matter what.

When the option date arrives (usually within the next 1 to 3 months), if the stock is below the strike price you'll keep it. So you want to do this with a stock you generally are happy with keeping. You also keep that $150 you were paid. Nice. Your SIGF stock now only cost you $650.

If the stock is above the strike price it will get purchased from you at that strike price. If you sold the $7.50 strike price you will get $750, so you lost $50 on the stock itself but you made $150 on selling the call option, so you are up a net of $100. A 16% profit in a couple of months. If you sold the $10 strike price you will get $1000 for your shares, so you made $200 on the stock and got something for the options you sold, too, so your net profit is $350 in our example.

But if SIGF stock goes up to $500/share, sorry you will still only get the strike price for it. Either the $7.50 or $10 per share. You do give away that upside if the stock goes nuts, but rarely is that an actual thing.

You always have to do this in increments of 100 shares of the stock which is 1 contract of the call option.

Generally you need to be in about the $2k to $3k arena to make a worthwhile return for your time, but you can certainly do several in your $1k range over the next few months to learn.

Pick good stocks, sell strike prices at or very near to the price you paid for the stock.

NVDA has been an excellent stock this year. They have put a lot of money into the in R&D of AI, and look most likely to be the leader in that developing sector.

so much good info and I obviously have a LOT to learn , Chuck (or whoever can answer) where does on just "go buy stock"?
On the net ?
I have no clue ?

sorry for the slow replies, have been out of ofx more than in it last two days.

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:
so much good info and I obviously have a LOT to learn , Chuck (or whoever can answer) where does on just "go buy stock"?
On the net ?
I have no clue ?

Go to schwab dot com or one of the other major brokerages. It is super easy to open an account. Then you transfer money in electronically from your bank, or send them a check, or go into a local office and give them a check.

Once the money is credited to your account you can use it to buy stocks, etf, mutual funds, bonds, etc.

There are good research tools all over the internet. Finance.yahoo is one I use. Just do a search on any stock and you'll see plenty of free sites with charts, financials, and news for that company.