This thread will explore the following question: Would it be possible for a recreational investor to achieve decent returns from investing in individual stocks instead of an index fund – from home using internet resources, without needing to invest a ton of time?


There seems to be some conflicting reports as to what may be achievable?

On the one hand - investing experts haven't always had the greatest track record ...

1. Monkeys, cats, and other random picks have routinely outperformed many experts
2. Many experts, after doing research, seem to think Amaya's a good buy

On the other hand – Warren Buffett believes that if even cats can do it, people should be able to manage

http://time.com/money/4428509/warren...esting-quotes/

Quote:

On buying individual stocks: “If you like spending six to eight hours per week working on investments, do it. If you don’t, then dollar-cost average into index funds.”

Something else that seems like it may be possible for even a recreational investor to do okay from home, is that there seem like there might be quite a few similarities between poker and investing? As in poker, it sounds like it might be possible to minimize the risks associated with uncertainty, by gathering and processing info, to help in finding the most +EV choices?

Have had good luck with investing so far, but did get lucky – so this thread will explore if it's possible with research to help improve the odds of continuing to do well with the stock market?

Hope it's okay to post my thread in this section of 2+2 - looks like a lot of people are using quieter area to reflect on what's on their minds? So that'll be nice ...



Preliminary Findings - added August 29, 2017

Investing in stocks does seem to be quite a bit like poker?

1. There's promos for recreationals - the government offers very generous tax breaks to encourage amateurs to participate, which makes buying and selling tax free
2. Have been trying to maximize EV to stick with strong starting hands, and then continue to gather info and monitor changes post-flop - have stuck with investing in quality companies that appear like they may continue to grow profits in the long-term, like Amazon and Facebook
3. Have been avoiding higher stakes play where the sharks hang out - so no day trading, options, or short-selling ... any more
4. Guess there's still risk and uncertainty though - so guess it helps to run lucky!

The Big Investment Dilemma


Guess there's three basic ways one can invest in stocks ...

1. By investing in index funds
2. By investing in mutual funds
3. By buying stocks individually

And just about every article on the internet seems to recommend the first option - of investing in a index fund that tracks one of the broad market indices, like the Dow Jones Industrial Average. So it's interesting to look at how much/little the Dow has grown over the last 15 years, when it's compared to something else like Apple stock.

Here's the graph of Apple (AAPL) and the Dow Index (^DJI) since 2001 (the blue line is Apple, and the red line that looks horizontal is the Dow Index)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has grown by 67% over the last 15 years - but Apple's grown by 9206%. So guess $10k, invested 15 years ago ... would it be worth this much today (?)

The amount for Apple's so crazy, am afraid my spreadsheet might be wrong But if it's right, the difference is enormous.


DILEMMA: With conventional wisdom being that index funds that track the Dow are the way to go, would it be foolhardy to take a different route and buy a stock like Apple instead? Or would it be more foolhardy to stick with conventional wisdom, when there's the potential to make millions by making different investment choices?


It would be incredible if $10k invested in Apple fifteen years ago would have made someone a millionaire by now – it seems too good to be true?

A Closer Look at the Case Being Made that Picking Stocks is Junk Science - the random stock picking experiment

So experiments comparing index funds or the picks of professionals with those of monkeys, cats, and random picks made by computer have been conducted several times - with different sample sizes, and lengths of time. And the random picks have repeatedly outperformed the market ¹,²,³


There's several theories as to why this may have happened:

1. Some believe that trying to beat the market is a junk science ³
2. 2. Some have noticed that the random picks have tended to more often be small-cap stocks, which tend to outperform large-caps? ¹
3. 3. It may be possible for some, but not all, to beat the market – and to show a profit, hedge funds not only have to beat the market, they have to make enough to overcome taxes as well as the large fees that they charge. Which is a really high bar to have to clear ⁴,⁵

The third theory is interesting, because the writer talks about ability/talent - and with the rise in popularity of mutual funds, he believes demand for fund manager likely exceeded the supply of those capable of beating the market plus taxes and fees?


A LOT of articles pointed to the poor performance of the experts to conclude that the lesson to be learned from the experiments were that many mutual funds these days are probably not worth the money, and that index funds are a better way to go. Except, guess that doesn't take into account the third option of selecting and investing in individual stocks? That seemed to work out pretty well for the monkey and cat, who managd to beat the index funds?


In addition to Warren Buffett, there's at least one writer who felt like the monkey method of picking random stocks, checked twice a year, just might be the more EV way to go (see: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how...ain-2015-06-25)


So, maybe it should be possible to make picks that outperform index funds?


So much info to pour over about investing on the internet - am trying to keep this thread free of the dopey that's usually filling my mind the other 90% of the time (the cats, knitting, recipes, Mariah Carey holiday tunes, etc ) ... will see how things go


¹ http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickferri/2012/12/20/any-monkey-can-beat-the-market/#3f177be46e8b
² https://www.ft.com/content/abd15744-9793-11e2-b7ef-00144feabdc0
³ http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/06/financial-knowledge-and-investment-performance
⁴ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/almost-no-one-can-beat-the-market-2013-10-25?page=2
⁵ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-hedge-fund-geniuses-got-beaten-by-monkeys-again-2015-06-25
⁶ http://time.com/money/4428509/warren-buffett-investing-quotes/

Guide for Beginners


Found a really nice guide for getting started on learning more about index funds, and researching stocks, and all that:

Investopedia: Getting Started In Stocks

What's nice about the guide is that they mention all three options of buying index funds, mutual funds, and individual stocks, while many resources only seem to mention the first two? So will use this as my guide, and will next try to take a closer look at index funds

These US election results are looking pretty bad right now ...

Already sold my Exxon stock in October, and hadn't bought anything to replace it yet. So just have my Amazon stock - was planning on holding it for the long-term, but my stocks are in a tax-free RRSP, so won't have to pay any tax if it gets sold. Not sure what sort of price will be able to get for it when markets open tomorrow, but hopefully won't get caught up in too much of the drop everybody seems to be expecting? Guess can hopefully buy it back after everybody's jitters settle down ... maybe in 4 years, after someone else gets elected?

Seeing Trump on the verge of becoming President of the most powerful country in the world reminds me a tiny bit of when Rob Ford got elected - only a tiny bit because the sale is so much larger now. But guess it is what it is - guess will just have to wait and see what happens next ...

Went to bed feeling a bit sickly like the grey kitty in the photo below

Guess it was very jarring to see that the world as it really is, might be very different from how it's seemed to be? And in light of that surprise finding, there was that uncertainty of like ... did people just vote for Hitler? Is the world about to go down in flames??

Maybe it's too soon to assume too much, but guess the fact that many of us were expecting the stock market to crash, and instead it went up shows that maybe we're not on the verge of armageddon as feared At least the person that voters became passionate about is savvy, when that hasn't always been the case ... like didn't George Bush used to think that God was giving him policy advice, or something like that? And look where things wound up then - he wound up invading Iraq! Guess peoples' choice for President could have turned out a lot worse, as far as economics go. Rob Ford did quite well with economic stuff when he was in power, so maybe Trump in office will wind up being a bit like that with the economic stuff? Guess will have to wait and see about the rest ...


Anyways, life goes on - have been reading so many interesting things about investing, can't wait to be able to start posting some of them. Guess the part that takes the longest time is trying to distill all the info down into a simple couple of sentences. Would love to be able to redo the second post of this thread - probably could have been cleaned up a lot more

May try and post some more tonight

Warren Buffett's Approach to Investing in Individual Stocks


Here's some more detailed advice from Warren Buffett, that makes investing sound so much like poker!

1. Value comes from being able to accurately assess the quality of a company, and putting money into strong ones ¹ (like only putting chips into the middle when having the best hand)
2. Added value comes from capitalizing on other peoples' mistakes - stocks can go on 'sale' when people get pessimistic and sell stocks in companies that are inherently strong, thereby making the price lower than it would normally be ²,³ (pots are bigger when other people make big mistakes)
3. However there's variance due to factors outside one's control:
   1. The economic and political climate that surround a company can have as much of an impact on a company's performance as the CEO ⁴ (like a bad board run-out)
   2. And sometimes info can be incomplete or inaccurate ⁵ (bad outcomes are sometimes unavoidable)
4. So bankroll management's important for comfortably weathering heaters and downswings ⁶
5. And so is tilt management, to ensure that analysis of the fundamental quality of companies stays the primary focus ⁷

It's seeming more and more like investing in individual stocks might be a viable option – guess maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a closer look at each of the two options?



¹ http://www.businessinsider.com/the-circle-of-competence-theory-2013-12 ("What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word "selected": You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.")

² http://www.suredividend.com/warren-buffett-quotes/ (“The most common cause of low prices is pessimism—some times pervasive, some times specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces. It’s optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer.”)

³ http://www.suredividend.com/warren-buffett-quotes/ (“So smile when you read a headline that says ‘Investors lose as market falls.’ Edit it in your mind to ‘Disinvestors lose as market falls—but investors gain.’ Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other.”)

⁴ http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/warren-buffetts-15-most-memorable-quotes.html/?a=viewall (“Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured tow world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a fly epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.”)

⁵ https://www.gobankingrates.com/personal-finance/7-investing-mistakes-warren-buffett-regrets/ (“To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I’ve made,” Buffett said according to Reuters. “But I’ll make more mistakes in the future — you can bet on that. A line from Bobby Bare’s country song explains what too often happens with acquisitions: ‘I’ve never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I’ve sure woke up with a few.'”) <- Gosh, Warren finding himself in some spots, back in the day lol

⁶ http://www.suredividend.com/warren-buffett-quotes/ (“I’ve seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage – leverage being borrowed money. You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing.”)

⁷ http://www.suredividend.com/warren-buffett-quotes/ ("You need to divorce your mind from the crowd. The herd mentality causes all these IQ's to become paralyzed. I don't think investors are now acting more intelligently, despite the intelligence. Smart doesn't always equal rational. To be a successful investor you must divorce yourself from the fears and greed of the people around you, although it is almost impossible.")

⁸ http://www.dummies.com/personal-finance/investing/stock-investing-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/

⁹ http://www.investopedia.com/university/stockpicking/stockpicking3.asp

The evening news had a clip of Prime Minister Trudeau being asked today what we're going to do about the "sexist, racist, bully" that just got elected



Even funnier was his answer, "Well, we're Canadian - we work hard to get along with people, so ..."

Trump made such a big deal about NAFTA during the debates, but the US trade deficit with Canada's not that large, relative to the amount of trade that goes on? It looks like there was $280-$295 bil of trade last year, and a $15bil deficit - maybe it's Mexico that he had in mind, since the US trade deficit with Mexico last year was $58 bil, on $236-295 bil of trade?

It looks like their biggest trade deficit might be with China - because they only exported $116 bil of stuff to them, but bought $482 bil in return. Guess that's not really trade any more if the difference is so wide, and so one-sided?

Guess will see how things go with the trade re-negotiations - but it seems like the US-Canada relationship might be a lot healthier than some others. Looks like we export to them our excess oil, and they export to us all their lovely fruits and vegetables. Also more Canadians go to the US for vacation, so they make lots of Canadian $ that way too, and stuff

Hopefully we can continue to be friendly neighbours ...

Basic Intro to Index Funds


For the person who doesn't have time to spend on investments, index funds that track the Dow Jones Industrial Average (or the S&P 500) are believed by many to be the 'safest' way to get the most returns over the long-term ¹,²

As Investopedia notes:

A $10k investment made 10 years ago in an Dow Jones index fund would now be worth about $17k

More About the Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow was set up over a hundred years ago to show how the US economy is doing ³ - so it's one of the most-watched indices, and includes big companies from various sectors, many of which are household names ...

Therefore, buying into an index fund is the same as buying a pre-packaged bundle of 30 large-cap individual stocks. And because the primary purpose of the index is to show how US businesses are doing, the companies that make up the Dow haven't been picked to maximize the returns of the funds that track it. For example, Walmart is part of the Dow, but Amazon is not ...






Risk Level?

However, it seems super important to note is how the Dow lost 30% of it's worth in 2008, since quite a few articles on the internet had this to say about index funds:

Quote:

Zach's Research

A central advantage to index funds is that they are relatively low-risk options for investing in stocks and bonds, designed for steady, long-term growth. They are inherently diversified, representing many different sectors within an index, which protects against deep losses.

Quote:

Forbes

Building a portfolio of low-cost index funds allows you the emotional freedom to completely ignore the stock market, focus on the financial issues that actually matter, and get on with your life.

Two of the Dow's 30 companies actually wound up going bankrupt in 2008 (or close to it?) - GM and AIG. In light of that, not sure it's the case that index funds are so safe, they don't need to be monitored?


LESSON: So even with index funds, guess like with poker the gains will tend to be more long-term - while in the short-term, it's possible for the variance to be quite high?


¹ http://finance.zacks.com/primary-advantages-disadvantages-index-mutual-funds-4030.html
² http://www.forbes.com/sites/thebogleheadsview/2013/05/23/index-funds-low-fees-arent-the-only-advantage/#59514cca3f25
³ https://www.djaverages.com/?go=industrial-overview

Very Basic Intro to Seeking Gains From Individual Stocks


When it comes to investing in individual stocks, it appears there may actually be two different approaches to trying to profit?

1. Focusing primarily on looking for stocks that may be undervalued by the market?
2. Focusing primarily on looking for corporations with fundamental value – because they have something competitive to sell, and are well-managed?

Approach 1 - Focusing primarily on finding info that the rest of the market has yet to find, that indicates a stock is undervalued

This approach seems like it's might tend to be more of a short-term thing?

An example of someone who uses this approach - Zach's Research (https://www.zacks.com/)

Zachs looking for an earnings 'surprise':




Zachs hoping for an earnings 'surprise' next week ... from Amaya




The shape of the long-term graph of the company (Amaya) they're recommending

Approach 2 - focusing primarily on finding a quality company that stands a good chance of continuing to grow and thrive through the times?

This approach seems like it's might tend to be more of a long-term thing?

An example of someone who uses this approach - Warren Buffett (as evidenced from his past quotes? )

Warren Buffett's focus on the company, for the long-haul

Quote:

“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”

Quote:

“It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

Quote:

“I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”

Quote:

"If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value."

Quote:

"You're dealing with a lot of silly people in the marketplace; it's like a great big casino and everyone else is boozing. If you can stick with Pepsi, you should be O.K." --**Interview in Forbes, November 1974

The shape of the long-term graph of the company (Pepsi) he recommended *42 years ago* (same timeline as the Amaya graph above)

It seems like there's some people who might try to look for both good value in the short-term and long-term before buying stocks - including Warren Buffett. But there might be lots who don't as well - guess there might be pressure on fund managers to try and find value wherever they can find it ... but it seems like trying to find short-term hidden value from home would be really hard? So was thinking of trying to stick with the second approach of looking for long-term quality?

Funny thing, Warren Buffett also seems to see a fair amount of parallels between investing and dating!


Sounds like he might have been quite the ladies man back in the day

(have posted this quote before in my old blog)

Now after being married for ages, he talks about his grandsons' dating lives instead

(phonebook )


Go Raptors!

Guess a silver lining of it getting dark so early was that there was a chance to enjoy today's 'supermoon' - the sight in Toronto wasn't especially pic-worthy but saw some pretty pics on the internet ...






Here's a pic of Toronto, without the moon - feels like the snow might be coming soon? Guess it won't be as easy to enjoy the outdoors then, so may have to go back to whaling away $ playing the Storm on Sunday afternoons, will have to see ...






Feeling low energy

Short-Term Gains Experiment - featuring Amaya (AYA)


Might be funny/interesting to see how the Zach's recommendation of a short-term Amaya flip will turn out? Guess they're hoping the price will go up after their latest earnings report, next Monday - so here's an imaginary $10k ... will see how it goes!

Current Price




Imaginary $10k, minus $9.99 in commission

What a joke - just put this up as a joke because this company seems like such disaster, with the massive debt, the founder facing criminal charges, the 'stealing' from customers, etc.

Guess the stock flippers were hoping the price would go up if the quarterly earnings were higher than expected - but it sounds like that didn't happen (See "Amaya misses by CAD 0.09, misses on revs; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus")? Coincidentally, there was also an annoucement from David Baazov, saying he may have gotten the financing to possibly buy Amaya at a higher price than it's selling for, so it looks like that's what caused the price to rise today?

Just going to stuff the results in a spoiler, because Warren Buffett says trying to guess the way stocks will rise in the short-term is basically like gambling - so was going to stick to looking for long-term value instead ...



Haven't been able to find any learning materials on the internet that seem very helpful for learning how to research stocks - it reminded me a lot of how many of the articles on how to play poker were like that as well? Wound up reading, gosh ... maybe 20 poker books instead when trying to learn how to play poker - with maybe 2 of those being helpful? Wonder if maybe it'll sort of be the same with learning how to research stocks?

So will try reading this book to start - the author Jim Cramer's sometimes on The Today Show, and seems to be able to explain things in everyday words, so that seemed like a nice book for beginners. Went digital with my reading materials a couple of years ago, but the Kindle version of his book is actually more expensive than the paperback, so will have to wait for the book to arrive in the mail ...

In other news, this Beauty and the Beast movie with Emma Watson looks sooo good!

How to Find Individual Stocks to Invest In – Using Online Analyst Recommendations


Guess there's maybe really 3 possible investiong options?

(1) Considered buying some Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's portfolio - was wondering what might happen to his company though, if something were to happen to him? Turns out am not the only one who's been wondering - he's 86 years old, so people on the internet have been talking It sounds like everybody feels like he *is* the company - so there's that?

(2) And then there's index fund ETFs - guess Donald Trump has promised to slash taxes across the board, and slash regulations - so everybody's expecting the market to flourish next year? Looks like the DOW and S&P 500 have had some double-digit growth years, so maybe next year will be one of those years as well?

(3) There's also online 'analyst recommendations' of individual stocks - haven't had a chance to look too closely at any of the recommendations in greater detail, but there's sites that keep track of what everybody's recommending, and here's what they're recommending for Visa:

15 out of 24 analysts are recommending Visa as a 'strong buy' today




And on average, 30 analysts are expecting Visa to grow by 20% in the next year

Two analysts are also recommending Amaya as a strong buy which makes me nervous about trusting these online recommendations. But ...

Since going public in 2008, Visa's outperformed the Dow






And there's signs that Visa might be under-priced

The stock tanked after Trump won the election - but analysts say it they should do well under a Trump Presidency. So they think people must have just been moving their money within the financial sector to banks, where they think they might be able to get an even larger return?¹,²

So the Year-to-Date graph looks like this - it's doing worse than the Dow right now ...

Wish there were more time to just sit on the sidelines and ponder stuff – but maybe sometimes the best way to learn is by jumping into the pool to get our feet wet? So decided to give investing in Visa a try. Visa's part of the Dow, and part of the S&P 500, and Warren Buffett owns some too - so, guess if were to buy some Berkshire Hathaway or a Dow or S&P ETF, would be buying a bit of Visa anyways?

Guess if everything's expected to do well next year with Trump cutting taxes and deregulating everything, it'll be hard to go wrong with any pick - so hopefully if Visa continues to underperform 'the market', it won't be by too much. Will just have to be mindful of the swings in the short-term - eek!

Will see how things go!



¹ http://finance.yahoo.com/news/buy-donald-dip-payments-stocks-202011626.html
² http://www.investors.com/news/visa-mastercard-paypal-stocks-suffer-ugly-losses-american-express-discover-fly/
³ http://time.com/money/4428509/warren-buffett-investing-quotes/

They were saying on the news that Justin Trudeau's in Cuba, and gave Fidel Castro a call and asked if he wanted to meet up - and he said he wasn't feeling well. But yesterday the President of Vietnam rang him up, and Fidel told him to come on over - it feels like 'we' just got snubbed by Fidel

So it looks like the new investment is off to a positive start today - can't help but look at Visa's graph for today, without being reminded of my own cash graphs though. Like with how every once in a while, my cash graphs can look super nice on any given day - but then after days become weeks and the big picture starts to emerge, things don't always look so hot


It's sure nice to have had the experience of dealing with swings in poker - to help keep the day-to-day variance in perspective, if 15% swings aren't uncommon for this stock?



Have been trying to read up on those huge stock market downturns that happened in 2001-2002, and 2008-2009, but my head's a bit fatigued from all the new stuff have been reading and trying to digest It's been verrry slow going tonight - may need a couple more days to read up on all the details ... may even need the weekend too, what with my head feeling all scrambled, and all


Night everybody

Goody Corner


Looks like my peanut head is still feeling fried from the overload of information have been taking in - so the continued learning will have to wait for my head to de-clutter ... d'oh!


Guess it's nice to take a break every once in a while - it gave me a chance to look at flyers tonight instead, which was fun. The free local newspaper gets delivered every Thursday night with all the flyers for the week, and it looks like today's was especially packed. Every year the holiday shopping seems to get started earlier and earlier, and this year it looks like they've decided to start 'Black Friday' a week before US Thanksgiving, instead of waiting until the day after? Maybe they figure that since it's been a whole five (six?) weeks since our Thanksgiving, that must make it okay to start getting ready for the holidays right now?

Did see a couple of things or two - looks like the 2 for $5 poinsettias are back at Home Depot again this year. Here's a pic of one from last year from my old thread ...

Such a cheap way to add something fresh and festive - and they last for weeks too, so wound up buying a bunch of them last year to give away as little gifts, and people seemed to really enjoy them?


Also saw this special promo - would be lovely to be able to get like a $50 Roots gift card to buy gifts with ... then could keep the bonus $10 Canadian Tire gift card for myself lol





It does say there's only limited quantities, so will be very disappointed if there's only about 2 per store, and they're already gone


Then saw this on the Shoppers Drug Mart website - it's a flu shot finder ... will have to try to remember to get my shot before it starts to get super cold, to avoid catching anything this Winter!

http://flushot.shoppersdrugmart.ca


Final bonus - a doggie in pajamas ... so cute!




Looks like the Head of the Federal Reserve in the US announced today that they're planning on raising interest rates soon - guess are people are maybe expecting the economy to get worse before it gets better now? Hopefully my head will be in better shape to read more about this, and other downturns of the economy, and will be able to get going with more learning by the start of next week


Hope everybody has a nice weekend!

i like this blog. thank you for sharing.

could you possibly explain to me in normal language what the difference between GOOG and GOOGL is? like, what would that mean for me if i bought either planning to hold it for 10 years+?

Hey, a visitor! Hi ScreaminAsian!!

Wasn't expecting anybody to be interested in my thread, since this part of the forum's so quiet to begin with - and then with your thread in this section, figured if anybody were to open up my thread and see talking cat comics, they'd just close it up right away and head right back to yours

Thanks for stopping by


Am just beginning trying to learn more about stocks and stuff, so really hope the learning's on the right track? The only stuff have really felt good about so far was Warren Buffett's tips, since he's been around forever, and continues to do so well to this day. So hopefully his advice is reliable?

Something that's a bit 20th Century about his approach though, is that he only sticks with goods and services that everybody can understand, like Tim Hortons. So he's avoided tech stocks altogether - while so much of the 21st Century has been about tech stocks. Guess Visa is something Warren feels comfortable with - but yeah, what to do about tech stocks, if maybe there's the potential there to make even more, with something like GOOG/GOOGL?


Have just gotten started taking a closer look at some of those online analyst reports - guess banks/brokerages have free ones available ... and Zacks online has a bunch available for $29/month, with a one month free trial. Here are their notes for GOOG/GOOGL that Zacks has - kind of liked how they have a list of pros and cons, and try to keep things as simple as possible. Although they don't mention what the difference is between the GOOG with the L and the one without it ..

The report's 10 pages long - and my eyes were glazing over when attempting to read about 80% of it But the bullet list seemed more beginner-friendly ...

A little thing they had at the bottom said this - was Zacks saying that Google invests heavily in R&D, so sometimes they may have stuff that's bearing fruit, while other times stuff is still trying to take root ... and that's why their returns can be "lumpy"?

Here's GOOG/GOOGL's year-by-year returns - guess they are a bit patchy, but have been nice overall. Maybe higher risk than Visa, but higher chance of a better return?? (also a risk of a lower return too?)

Saw Google on at least one person's list of recommended stocks to hold for the next 10 years But maybe there's just as many analysts recommending to sell it, who knows?

http://investorplace.com/2016/04/10-best-stocks-to-buy-next-10-years/view-all/


So much info out there - it's dizzying Guess will just try to take it one step at a time, and try to learn a bit each day - looking forward to my books arriving in the mail ...




Cheers SA!!

Oooh, looks like the American Music Awards are on tonight

The music awards shows are kind of fun, with all the musical performances they stuff into it - and only about 50% of them are lip-synched, so that's not bad

They used to be more exciting back when Lady Gaga was doing all those over-the-top things like wearing edible clothes, and hatching from giant eggs - although there's a 3-way race for 'Best Male Artist', between Drake, The Weeknd, and Justin Bieber, so that should be fun ...

Very Basic Economic Policy Stuff - Government Spending, Tax Cuts, and Interest Rate Changes


So a couple of posts ago, had discovered that maybe investing might be a bit like poker - with there being some room to make choices, but also variance due to other other stuff that's outside one's control? And had found this list of other stuff ...


Maybe one thing that might be different from poker, is that when certain economic policies are implemented, sometimes the effect of those policies is more or less known ahead of time?

Like when the US Government increases spending and cuts taxes, (and borrows money rather than increase taxes and decrease spending to pay for it), guess absent other big changes such a large influx of money may generally tend to have this effect?



So it's pretty exciting that Trump promised to increase spending and cut taxes if he were to get elected ...



One thing that might be a bit worrisome in the short-term is that annoucement that came last Thursday, that the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates soon? Only because they raised interest rates last December, and after that the economy dipped about 10% - and then after it recovered, it kind of stayed flat ... until Trump got elected?




Although in the past, when interest rates were raised, the economy continued to grow, when there were tax cuts in place (from 2003-2007)?




Guess if interest rates get raised before Trump takes office, there's maybe a chance stocks might go down in the short-term? Guess if that happens, maybe that might be a good time to buy, before the spending and tax cuts get passed in the new year after Trump takes office?

Goody Corner


Found this gem on youtube - 365 views

Enjoy!




Also discovered that discount brokerages all have free reports for a bunch of stocks? Here's the stuff available at TD Canada Trust ...




They all look a bit like the ones at Zacks that cost $29/month to access - especially the S&P one. But the ones at Zacks seem like they've been written with beginners in mind, so that's especially nice?

Have a free 1 month trial for Zacks - but am still struggling to understand the majority of the reports And am having trouble getting the reports to save to my computer as well. Wrote an email to support asking for help, so if am able to get that to work, am going to try saving the reports for every stock in their library before the free trial expires lol. They get updated all the time, but maybe they'll be nice to have, for later if am eventually better able to understand them, and want to read about more?

Have some stuff to post about market crashes too - am not so sure about the stuff have managed to find, but guess will give posting what have found a try tomorrow

Ahhh, my jammies are so soft ...



Still working on market crashes - will keep plugging away

Recessions and Crashes


Saw this pattern when looking at market downturns ...

Guess between 2001-2003, the bankruptcies in the telecommunications and utilities sectors were only part of the cause of the recession (the part in red ... about 40%) - with the other part being because of the dot-com bubble bursting, and 9/11?

And guess in 2008-2009 the bankruptcies in the finance industry were were only about 75% of the crash - with the other part being the bursting of the credit/housing bubble?

The stuff in the yellow text was interesting to see though - was reading that after the original 'Black Friday' (the stock market crash of 1929 that ushered in the Great Depression), US Congress wound up enacting a slew of regulations they believed could have lessened/limited the damage done during the big market crash ¹,²,³. So they focused their regulations on industries that provide vital services, where companies tend to wind up being big and monopolistic due to the high costs involved - banks (finance), power (utilities), cable (telecommunications).

Guess if a lot of regulations were put in place after Black Friday to try and prevent market crashes, and some of these regulations get removed - maybe there's always a chance some big important companies could go bankrupt, and the market could wind up in a downswing/crash?


LESSON: Perhaps it might be helpful to pay close attention to what regulations wind up getting overturned by the Trump administration - to see if any of the regulations were put in place after the great stock market crash of 1929, to prevent stock market crashes? (not a universally accepted viewpoint ¹)

Also, maybe helpful to look out for any talk of inflationary bubbles?



¹ https://www.princeton.edu/~starr/articles/articles02/Starr-TelecomImplosion-9-02.htm
² https://business.directenergy.com/blog/2015/july/direct-access-electricity-deregulation-in-california
³ https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/11/bank-n01.html