Hey guys.

Didn't mean to derail the thread but what would you suggest to someone that is interested in buying a stock from just a company.

After doing my research for the company Alibaba I decided to invest some $$$ into their company by buying their stock (BABA). However they are not listed in the stock market yet.

1. Who should I approach?

2. Is it possible to buy it using onlime brokers?

3. What is the minimum limit amount of stock I can buy?

Seems over the top for 36k a year

Is this Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba?
"Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd [IPO-ALIB.N] may have dominated online retail on personal computers, but is some way from replicating that leadership in shopping by smartphone and other mobile devices. Alibaba, which is heading towards a bumper New York IPO later this year, is throwing billions of dollars at figuring out how to thrive as half a billion people"

If so, then you would be highly unlikely to get any shares in the IPO. Those go to large, favored investors. Your best bet would be to buy on the open market after the ipo.

Yes. How would you suggest me to buy the stocks when it is opened? Online broker or should I get an offline broker.

Is it possible to ask the offline broker to help me watch the market and help me buy immediately when it is opened?

I am from an Asian country and hence the New York market opens around 9pm[Local time].

You should probably ask someone who is in the country you are in.

Are emerging markets worth a look if I can stand the variance for long term returns? Looked at the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO). It appears to be flat for the last 4 years and has a P/E ration of 28.35. Not great but I think I'd like to be in something that is more of a "buy low" as opposed to the US Market which is at it's all time high.

"All time high" is not a measure of value. Flat for 4 years is not a measure of value.

There is nothing wrong with VWO. It might do well and it might not, just like everything else.

My dad wants to trade options same day. He used to be a broker with some of the bigger firms and has not been successful with his attempts. He has the foundation but he's not very creative and doesn't adapt well. I want to learn this stuff so we can do it together. He's kinda older(65) so I think we can help each other but I'm worried he may be out of touch. Where should I start learning?

Rainetech just recommended this, so here you go:

http://www.amazon.com/Options-Future...er+derivatives

Youtube also has a lot of really good information on the normal distribution and options pricing to get an intro to that.

Not sure if you are able to open an account with Fidelity but if so, I'd recommend them for purchasing stocks online.

Also, in the meantime, many people have been buying Yahoo as a proxy for Alibaba, since Yahoo owns a fairly large stake of Alibaba.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...reholders.html

I'd also recommend taking a look at Baidu stock symbol BIDU and consider one of the Chinese Internet ETF's like QQQC

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/1258...e-in-the-Space

Hey, noob question. I am 22 years old, and I want to invest in easy, long term funds where I don't have to work. My current portfolio is only 3 ETFs :
80% of my money in VTI
10% GVAL (I read on a post in a thread in this forum that this is a good risky investment)
10% VXUS

I did some google searches, and I read tht VTI is the best way to own a lot of stocks in the USA. I use GVAL and VXUS to give myself some foreign diversification. Anyways, is such a simple portfolio a fish move? and are these ETFs okay to hold for a very long time?

also I use Etrade, not sure if this is important though

Thanks!

Noob question:

Is buying Nasdaq-OTC AMYGF the same as buying AYA.CA stock in Amaya Gaming? If not, how does it differ?

Thanks!

Check out VHDYX. If you purchase and then set up with dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP), it could be a nice supplement to your VTI holding.

Also, I think simple portfolios are ideal and index funds like VTI beat most financial advisors over time.

I know others in this thread have mentioned it, but I believe it's worth mentioning again this book The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John C. Bogle

Am going to invest about £15k in a NISA
(for US people this is a tax free wrapper UK residents can get up to £15k per years).

I am a noob to investing, but was looking at a mix of funds for portfolio which basically is lowish/medium risk).
Was looking at Vanguard Lifestyle products (40% equity) and also some index linked tracker style funds to the FTSE plus something like Artemis strategic bond

Essentially are these type of products a reasonable mix to give some diversification and not high risk etc.

Will be investing for 5+ years likely and reinvesting profits.

Also going to get this book of investing that keeps being mentioned.

thx in advance

Quick question here. My school loans are about to kick in and my head is spinning a little from the different types of advice online. Anyone know if their are people that specialize in school loans or is this something any financial adviser would be familiar with?

Mainly, I'm trying to speak with someone about tuition forgiveness for public service (I work at a public university but its most likely I won't be there forever). Also I'm trying to become more aware of income based repayment plans, whether I should be overpaying my monthly loans, and future tuition forgiveness programs that might emerge.

The first step is to make sure your loans are eligible for public service loan forgiveness. Just apply for it and see if you get approved:

http://www.myfedloan.org/manage-acco...giveness.shtml

If you don't get approved, you can consolidate and then be approved.

After that, get on income-based repayment. The only possible reason to overpay public loans is that you think the cap will stick. Forgiveness is currently capped at $57.5k. That cap is very new, and could go away. The interest rate could also go very low. There was a Senate bill to lower the rate to prime+1% that got 54 votes, but Republicans filibustered it.

Thanks for that advice. I'm trying to educate myself on what these loans could look like in the future but have gotten overwhelmed. I wasn't aware of the interest rate potentially decreasing so drastically in the future.

Not sure this is the right thread, but can't seem to find one about general world-economy.
So I'm reading for an exam, and came up with this slide

http://gyazo.com/5806776cd52adb5e337f1b3c99f1446f

How can the wages in the 90's differ so much and what does this mean in practice?

Interactive Brokers offers 5.46% interest rate on positive cash balances held in Russian currency.

What stops me from acquiring a bunch of Russian currency and getting seemingly low risk, 'guaranteed' returns?

Is this due to currency risk? i.e. Russian currency is likely to go down soon? But surely this is already priced in the value of the currency...


In general, why do the benchmark rates differ from currency to currency?
Even a relatively solid country like Australia has a benchmark rate of 2.5% and the US has a benchmark rate on 0.09%. ( https://www.interactivebrokers.com/e...est&p=schedule )

Why wouldn't they? The Fed controls the interest rates in the USA. Each country is in a different economic situation. Currently we are in a low interest rate environment to encourage investment and growth, which hopefully will help with unemployment figures (at least, that's the current "argument").

Other countries may be in a different economic situation, so they will adjust accordingly. Recently China raised their rates to try to cool off some of their markets because they believed they were growing too quickly.

Each country makes their own decisions.

But my understanding is that I can lend Russian currency at a higher rate than US currency. Why would anyone lend US currency?

Not sure what you're asking here. Are you asking why someone would LEND money in the US? Like, a bank? Or why you would put money into a safe investment in the US, like a money market fund?

The US has low interest rates right now because they do NOT want people to park their money into money markets or even savings accounts and collect 1-3% return. They effectively want that return to be zero. They want people to say "why should I put my money in a money market and receive nothing back? I want a return, so I have to find another place to invest it". That is because the fed wants to encourage people to invest in things that have a higher return - which will fuel funds that are made up of different asset classes, which will make companies have more money because people are investing in their stocks/bonds, which they should take and reinvest into their businesses to make more money. Positive feedback.

Another reason people invest their money into the US is because of safety. The US dollar is looked upon as the safest investment in the world.

So either way, you can make an argument to invest in the US, depending on your needs. It just depends on if that's something you will take. Remember, when you invest in foreign currencies you take on many other risks, like political/policy changes, exchange rates, etc.

US and A, greatest country in the world

For a few reason. One of which is the same reason you can buy a McDonald's bond and get 4% or you can buy a bond from dog****.com that pays 6%.

Hey guys, I have a couple of questions about investing.

Basically i start from scratch now with ~60k and im eager to learn as much as possible and thereby hopefully maximize my profit over a timeframe of 10+ years.
Im a fulltime civil-engineer so i have no need to withdraw any time soon. It is 100% a hobby that i hopefully can spend an hour or so on per day, on average.

So whats my best plan moving forward?
So far I have about 20% in actively managed mutual funds that i intend to hold on to. The rest is divided between 5 different sector based ETFs.
What i am curious about is whether sector allocation through ETFs is a viable strategy to beat the market in the long run. Im sure it is possible, but is it realistic for someone like me?
I started with ETFs because it seemed like a gentle place to start. Its less about picking the exact right company but more about bigger trends in the market. On the other hand im sure there are lots of companies out there that spend enormous amount of resources on this exact researching. And of course i will always been one or two steps behind those.

So is there any other investing strategies I should look into now in the beginning?
Anything to read online or in books? (started to read inteligent investor btw)

My plan was to gradually start investing in individual stocks once i get some better feel for how everything works.

Thanks in advance!