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by **LucasPukus** » Oct 26 2007 03:37:20 pm

Yeah, they hit their new high today, before going back down.

by **Nate** » Oct 26 2007 03:59:22 pm

I didn't mean that in a good way, captain obvious.

by **Talenos** » Oct 26 2007 05:17:11 pm

I thought you said you bought calls?

by **LucasPukus** » Oct 26 2007 05:30:42 pm

Are you sad because it didn't stay at 359?

by **LucasPukus** » Oct 30 2007 07:39:51 pm

MarkK wrote:sweet, my retirement account broke 14k today...

But you have a 2 for 1 match? not so impressive, unless that's just your contribution.

by **Nate** » Oct 30 2007 07:55:05 pm

Talenos wrote:I thought you said you bought calls?

I did, but after earnings where no longer a mystery, the implied volatility dropped and so did the price of the calls. For a while today the stock was up about 18 and I was close to being back to break even, so if by some miracle they keep inflating that bubble, I may be able to get out without too much pain. The stock only closed up 2 though.

Tomorrow is the end of the year for a lot of funds and its suggested that there may be a lot of window dressing buying tomorrow. As well as the federal reserve meeting. I wonder if Ben will save the markets again or just let it slide.

by **LucasPukus** » Oct 30 2007 08:14:04 pm

I predict .25 drop or zero. but really, I don't think the fed should keep pouring money in like that. If it does drop, I'm dashing to the bank for the second mortgage.

by **Talenos** » Oct 30 2007 08:41:38 pm

I wouldn't be so quick to do that, when we got the .5 rate drop rates for mortgages actually went up.

by **Talenos** » Oct 31 2007 12:03:51 pm

Man, I started buying a little bit of CNE, and today they got taken over, which is good of course, but I only have like 200 bucks in it before they made the deal.

by **MarkK** » Oct 31 2007 01:24:14 pm

wow, grmn dove today

by **LucasPukus** » Oct 31 2007 03:15:08 pm

Yeah, down 13.8%. Good time for me to buy.
But their earnings were strong and if they get into a bidding war, once the aquisition goes through--2008?--we'll hope for continued rising.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 01 2007 03:49:47 pm

Well, it's down again today and am going to buy in. This will be my first individual stock purchase.

Does anyone get into preferred stocks or trade/buy on margin? My margin rate is really nice, so it's tempting, but stupid to engage in.

by **Reagraham Lincool** » Nov 01 2007 03:56:04 pm

I wouldn't trade on margin except to short, but that's just me.

by **Talenos** » Nov 01 2007 05:21:49 pm

LucasPukus wrote:Well, it's down again today and am going to buy in. This will be my first individual stock purchase.

What are you buying? Remember you want to have at least 5 different ones for diversity.

by **Little Bobby Tables** » Nov 01 2007 05:52:07 pm

just grmn for now... we're invested in a couple funds for diversity purposes. it'll come back up once the tele atlas stuff shakes out and the holiday season earnings start coming in

by **Nate** » Nov 01 2007 09:33:28 pm

I hate how wells fargo gets taken down with these other shitty banks even though they passed all their sub-prime mortgages off onto other people.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 02 2007 07:49:51 am

They were all in it together.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 02 2007 01:17:15 pm

So, I've realized that I'm borderline addicted now. Perhaps my first sign should have been when I was cuddling and talking about Merril Lynch and their CEO issues and Dan had to tell me that he was too tired to hear about ML.

Anyway, this is another question, and it could go in the retirements thread as well, but I was listening/reading about a group of friends who were caught up in impressing each other and going out to huge, expensive dinners, spending a lot on vacations, etc. They all decided to share their complete financial profiles--assets, debts, salaries and monthly bills to each other in order to become more financially accountable to each other. In the end, they created an investment club and also began to save a lot more money and live a more adequate lifestyle.
Is anyone brave enough to do it? Honestly, I'm afraid of telling other people what my debt is, but I thought that there might be other people willing to do it.

by **daoist** » Nov 02 2007 01:20:35 pm

Psh, screw you guys. In a couple years I'll sell my magic cards and transformers and retire on the money.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 02 2007 01:43:04 pm

daoist wrote:Psh, screw you guys. In a couple years I'll sell my magic cards and transformers and retire on the money.

It would be nice if I had a very valuable collection. In my life,I've only collected a few things, and I didn't enjoy it much.

How much are your magic cards worth? If you sell them, what will you do in your retirement? Play gin rummy?

by **daoist** » Nov 02 2007 01:56:57 pm

I'm going to liquidate all that money and put it right into lotto tickets.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 02 2007 03:15:18 pm

I think you should buy a metal detector and run it over the ground, searching for pirate treasure, buried in the plains for safe keeping.

by **MarkK** » Nov 02 2007 03:21:34 pm

LucasPukus wrote:So, I've realized that I'm borderline addicted now. Perhaps my first sign should have been when I was cuddling and talking about Merril Lynch and their CEO issues and Dan had to tell me that he was too tired to hear about ML.

Anyway, this is another question, and it could go in the retirements thread as well, but I was listening/reading about a group of friends who were caught up in impressing each other and going out to huge, expensive dinners, spending a lot on vacations, etc. They all decided to share their complete financial profiles--assets, debts, salaries and monthly bills to each other in order to become more financially accountable to each other. In the end, they created an investment club and also began to save a lot more money and live a more adequate lifestyle.
Is anyone brave enough to do it? Honestly, I'm afraid of telling other people what my debt is, but I thought that there might be other people willing to do it.

I don't really have much to hide when it comes to finances. We frequently discuss our debts and financial plans on IRC.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 02 2007 05:15:28 pm

I'll post my debt if you post yours.

by **Talenos** » Nov 02 2007 06:31:28 pm

I don't mind discussing finance, in fact I rather enjoy it. I've been thinking it might be fun to join/start an investment club. I've hear they actually do quite well a lot of the time. I do agree that this country has made money almost as taboo as sex. You can't say how much you make, how much you owe, bla bla bla.

by **Nate** » Nov 02 2007 08:22:13 pm

I don't make shit.

Anyway, I almost got paid in BIDU today. It was up at lunch and I was going to be gone the rest of the day so I put a rather high limit order on my calls, (which at one point I almost sold at a loss because I didn't think they would amount to anything) and the ask got that high, but not the bid. I don't really know what to do with them now as they'll lose some value over the weekend and the stock is due for at least a one day pullback any day now. Maybe I'll get lucky Monday.

by **MarkK** » Nov 03 2007 01:54:01 am

Talenos wrote:I don't mind discussing finance, in fact I rather enjoy it. I've been thinking it might be fun to join/start an investment club. I've hear they actually do quite well a lot of the time. I do agree that this country has made money almost as taboo as sex. You can't say how much you make, how much you owe, bla bla bla.

as a public employee, my salary is listed online in an easy to query database, perhaps that's why I could care less about it...

edit: however, I just checked and it's out of date

by **MarkK** » Nov 03 2007 02:01:39 am

LucasPukus wrote:I'll post my debt if you post yours.

51k student loans, 19.5k automobile, 5k CC.

Really the only reason I really have that high of CC balance right now is that it's 0% til july 08. The plan is to pay it off closer to that date barring any emergency.. I have funds set aside to pay it down, it just is earning me more this way.

by **Nate** » Nov 05 2007 05:11:20 pm

I sold out of my BIDU calls today at a 103% profit over 9 trading days.

by **Talenos** » Nov 05 2007 06:02:56 pm

Nice dude. One of the rare China stocks to not drop like a rock today.

I owned Wellcare for a while, and sold it about a year ago. A week or two ago they got raided by the feds and their stop dropped a ton. I bought a bunch on my paper portfolio and I'm already up 44%. I'd probably never have the balls to do that with real money though.

I'm readying Your Money & Your Brain How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich:

Pretty interesting read about how we react to loss and winning in stocks and gambling. Sort of a Freakonomics for the investor.

by **Nate** » Nov 05 2007 09:35:17 pm

Cool, I've been wanting to get a good book on the psychology of investing, like why its easier to sell at a profit than to cut a loss and such.

Should I put money in NYX for the potential growth story thats been coming for over a year now, or WFC for the high yield, while its probably going to get pounded for being a financial even though they don't seem to have invested in all the crap the other banks did?

by **Talenos** » Nov 06 2007 12:15:46 am

Hard to say, I still have NYX that I got earlier this year at 84, it's finally back up, but I don't know if I would get more after it's had such a big run, but if you are patient it will probably pay off.

I've been looking at banks as well and WFC seems the most fail safe, but I think there are still a few points down for the bank stocks in general.

I'm looking for a medical stock too, so I'm open to ideas on that.

by **Nate** » Nov 06 2007 10:39:55 am

Huzza, BIDU is getting smoked this morning. I may have to buy back in.

by **Talenos** » Nov 06 2007 04:43:30 pm

Go FSLR, and your 1 billion dollar order! I'm sure it won't stay up this high for long but I don't care too much since I'm long term.

by **Talenos** » Nov 07 2007 01:26:55 pm

Derek Smalls wrote:just grmn for now... we're invested in a couple funds for diversity purposes. it'll come back up once the tele atlas stuff shakes out and the holiday season earnings start coming in

Hope you are buying more today. This bidding war is going to make someone overpay.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 02:05:37 pm

I'd like to buy more...but I think we'll have to wait. I pay 30 dollars a trade, which is ridiculous. But I have no other choice.

by **MarkK** » Nov 07 2007 02:32:46 pm

ouch, you should find a cheaper broker!

scottrade is only $7... I can refer you and you get 3 free!

by **Talenos** » Nov 07 2007 03:00:39 pm

Zecco has free trades, up to 10 a day and 40 a month. If you prefer a lot of service and research tools than I hear E*Trade is the way to go, plus they let you buy stocks on foreign exchanges as well.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 04:04:13 pm

Newsflash! I can't switch brokers.

by **MarkK** » Nov 07 2007 04:19:23 pm

I find that hard to believe.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 04:39:19 pm

Call the compliance department of my company then. Each brokerage firm can make it's own rules. The NASD states I'm required to send copies of all statements and confirmations to my brokerage firm if I have an outside acct. My company says to eliminate the headache, I must keep my account with them. Also, the NASD says that before I place orders on outside accts, I may have to get approval from my firm before it takes place. My company says to eliminate the hassle of doing so, I must keep my account with them.
Regardless, every quarter, I have to list all of the trades that I made.

Dan could keep an acct elsewhere, but I would not be able to have trading authority or discretion on it. We might pursue that option. I can also petition my compliance department and see if they can do anything, but so far, only one person I know has been successful, and he keeps his accounts on his brother's independent trading platform at no charge, since his brother has a hedge fund.

The hedge fund only buys with IPOs and there's about 16 people running it. They have 1.6 billion is assets and about 20 different LLCs created so that they receive higher allotments at the IPO. He was talking about how the SEC started cracking down on these guys in 2003 and his brother had to spend about 2-3 million dollars keeping himself out of jail.

Now he just has to have the Series 7 and 66 and list all of his investors and be sure that he's not acting as an investment advisor, as defined by the SEC and the "merril rule."

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 04:40:59 pm

Plus, I'd have to acat shares out, which is expensive.

Anyway, hold on to your seats, kids. This market might be/is going down, down, down. RECESSION LOOMS. But my mutual funds closed up today.

by **MarkK** » Nov 07 2007 04:53:54 pm

so you actually can switch brokers, you just don't want to go through the trouble...

by **Talenos** » Nov 07 2007 05:06:28 pm

LucasPukus wrote:But my mutual funds closed up today.

Mine were all up today too, that is because the market went up yesterday and the prices are all delayed a day. See how they are doing tomorrow though.

P.S. Go FSLR, you are one crazy stock.

by **MarkK** » Nov 07 2007 05:13:47 pm

jfc... yeah, I wish I would have got in on fslr...

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 05:28:53 pm

MarkK wrote:so you actually can switch brokers, you just don't want to go through the trouble...

ACATS transfers cost 100 dollars, minimum
B) I can ask to see if I'll get approval, but it will be denied. The only reason the other person was able to switch is that he has an open platform that holds the accounts, which provides a back door link to my brokerage system, so they can look at his accounts whenever requested. Most other brokerage platforms do not offer this service and since I don't know anyone that has access to a platform that they'll let me use for free, it's not very likely at all that our compliance department will approve me.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 05:35:19 pm

I was thinking that my quote functions were able to give me today's prices of funds, but they don't. Sad. So I am sure they will be down tomorrow. Disregard the up day.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 06:56:00 pm

Ok, FFALX down .18 cents
TESIX, down .40 cents

by **Little Bobby Tables** » Nov 07 2007 07:42:53 pm

Talenos wrote:
Derek Smalls wrote:just grmn for now... we're invested in a couple funds for diversity purposes. it'll come back up once the tele atlas stuff shakes out and the holiday season earnings start coming in

Hope you are buying more today. This bidding war is going to make someone overpay.

I wish I had the cashey money to buy more, but fixing my car's struts was more important. I have a feeling Garmin will let TomTom have TA, they are just driving up the price so it crushes TomTom to acquire it. TA would obviously rather sell to TT anyway since insiders sold them 28% of the company's stock already.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 07 2007 07:49:24 pm

Yeah, 30 euros a share is pretty high.

by **Little Bobby Tables** » Nov 07 2007 07:55:03 pm

Yeah, a company with a $6B market cap paying $4.XB for a company is a lot

by **Nate** » Nov 07 2007 08:44:04 pm

frick, I knew I should have bought dow puts this morning , but I was going to be gone all day and unable to babysit them.

I bought some more MVIS and WFC yesterday. I suppose I should be worried since WFC has been buying back shares like crazy and they still missed earnings. The yield gets better every day though.

CSCO missed too, so probably more downside tomorrow. The dow has about 100 points down before it should hit resistance, we'll see if that holds or not.

by **Talenos** » Nov 07 2007 09:22:06 pm

Yeah, I have CSCO, but I'm still up over 50% on it. Looking at the financials WFC definitely looks like the best positioned, but I'm debating whether or not to go with a riskier C or BAC, or dare I saw WM for the long term.

by **Nate** » Nov 07 2007 11:06:32 pm

I wouldn't touch C, but thats just me.

by **Talenos** » Nov 08 2007 01:05:27 pm

Sold half my FSLR today. Up 50% over 3 days. I'll hope for a pull back so I can buy back in again later.

by **drmiles** » Nov 08 2007 03:02:05 pm

Talenos wrote:Sold half my FSLR today. Up 50% over 3 days. I'll hope for a pull back so I can buy back in again later.

Nice job. 160 is a bit high for a P/E, so I think there has to be a pull back at some point. I'm kicking myself for not buying a few days ago when I wanted to.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 08 2007 04:41:08 pm

Did you sell right when they were at 230?

by **Talenos** » Nov 08 2007 07:00:04 pm

No, it was closer to 220 when I sold it, but my cost basis was less than 100, so I'm still playing with the houses money.

by **daoist** » Nov 08 2007 07:45:31 pm

From my understanding the general order to invest for retirement is:

1. 401(k) up to company match
2. Roth IRA up to legal max
3. 401(k) remainder up to legal max

Is this what you guys think?

If so, now this:

Suppose my company doesn't match 401(k) at all, what should I do? Do I not bother until I've maxed out Roth for the year? Or do I still want to do some along with Roth?

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 08 2007 07:51:12 pm

Are you in the 25% tax bracket? The 401(k) can still save you some money in the long run. It depends on if you pay taxes at the end of the year. If your student loan interest credits/deductions keep you from paying taxes, then you might be better off going for the Roth all the way, since you'll never be taxed on that money. If you do pay taxes, you'll decrease your taxable income by investing in a 401 (K)

by **DJSteve** » Nov 08 2007 08:36:19 pm

daoist wrote:Suppose my company doesn't match 401(k) at all, what should I do? Do I not bother until I've maxed out Roth for the year? Or do I still want to do some along with Roth?

Unless you're really tight on money (paying down debt or whatever) and want the tax break of the 401(k), max out the Roth. The tax-free returns compounded over 30-40 years far, far, outweigh what you'll pay in taxes now.

Also, since you were taxed on the money before it went in, with a Roth you can pull your initial investment back out at any time with no penalty (i.e. in an emergency).

by **Talenos** » Nov 08 2007 08:37:03 pm

daoist wrote:From my understanding the general order to invest for retirement is:

1. 401(k) up to company match
2. Roth IRA up to legal max
3. 401(k) remainder up to legal max

Is this what you guys think?

If so, now this:

Suppose my company doesn't match 401(k) at all, what should I do? Do I not bother until I've maxed out Roth for the year? Or do I still want to do some along with Roth?

For most people yes, the Roth is what you should start with. I put this in one of the other threads, but there are a few things that tip the scales in favor of the Roth.

1. I'm going to guess that you make decent money probably in the 25% tax bracket. When you retire you will probably be making enough to be in a higher tax bracket, so buy paying the taxes now you end up winning on that concept alone.

2. Income tax rates are at historic lows, you can thank Bush for this, but if rates go up, then you'll have paid the tax at its lowest.

3. Considering equal tax rates, the math still works out in favor of the Roth IRA. Since the money you'd save in taxes must be invested in a taxable account which means you pay tax twice on it.

4. You have direct control over your assets, which means you can picks stocks, or funds YOU want, instead of the funds your company has which can sometimes be limiting or just suck with high fees.

5. You don't get the use of a Roth after you make 95k or so, best to use one now.

All that being said, I do both because it's acts as sort of hedge against taxes, so if they go up or down you don't worry about which tax advantaged account you chose.

But, the fact that they are both your only real tax advantage ways to save, the more you can put into both the better, but I think prioritizing the Roth is the way to go for someone in your situation.

by **Nate** » Nov 08 2007 09:28:43 pm

I bought some puts on the dow this morning. I was up about 300 bucks but I thought the market would do a fake rally and then crack. Now I'm sitting at a slight loss and I'm guessing the markets should at least bounce tomorrow if not rally back up again for a while. I'll probably have to ditch those puts at a loss. I shoulda sold them when things seemed really good.

I don't know what will happen, the nasdaq closed at support, the dow closed above support and the SP 500 closed below support.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 09 2007 08:09:36 am

DJSteve wrote:
daoist wrote:Suppose my company doesn't match 401(k) at all, what should I do? Do I not bother until I've maxed out Roth for the year? Or do I still want to do some along with Roth?

Unless you're really tight on money (paying down debt or whatever) and want the tax break of the 401(k), max out the Roth. The tax-free returns compounded over 30-40 years far, far, outweigh what you'll pay in taxes now.
Also, since you were taxed on the money before it went in, with a Roth you can pull your initial investment back out at any time with no penalty (i.e. in an emergency).

If you take money out of your Roth before age 59.5, you WILL be penalized 10% on the earnings. I'm going to go read publication 590 (I think it's 590) again to see if you can choose which share lots to distribute in from your Roth. You can't choose when it's inside of an annuity, but maybe you can inside of just a basic brokerage acct. Annuities are mandadated LIFO on the earnings and then FIFO on the premiums. But probably with the brokerage accts you can choose which share lot to liquidate. But you'd still receive some type of growth in most cases, unless you're selling a lot that's lost money. With reinvested dividends though, it can get trickier.
But in general, if you're in a pinch and have to decide between $ from Roth or traditional, you'll get zapped less by choosing the Roth.

And even though this doesn't apply to us, you have to keep the roth open for 5 years, otherwise you a bigger tax penalty. This is mostly for people who are about to retire and just dumped a ton of money into a roth before they reached 59.5 with the hope that it would all have tax free growth, and then wanted to take it all out right away.

This is all pointless, I think I just felt like typing.

by **LucasPukus** » Nov 09 2007 08:15:48 am

And maybe your company offers a Roth 401(k). My last job did, but this place doesn't. They're going to become more prevalent though, and might be good for people who dont want to take the time to research stuff.
Also, sometimes you are better off choosing the company's 401(k) over the roth because on occassion you get a better account type through the company and you can continue the same type of plan when you leave. Ie my friend who worked at Starbucks has the Fidelity Silver brokerage acct which gives him free trades and some other junk, but if we were to open one now, we'd have to have a minimum of 50K to invest.

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