I don't see much talk about individual stocks around here, so I was wondering why that is.

Do most of you just not like talking about stocks you like or dislike, or are their rules about it?

Or is it just that most here don't invest in individual stocks?

well I'd hate to see this forum become yahoo finance boards.

if you search, you'll see many of us have mentioned stocks we own(ed). IIRC I've talked about ING, AMZN, PAL, SBUX, etc.

I am thinking about getting back into SBUX for the long haul.

I buy within and outside of my retirement vehicles.

I only gamble with a few thousand for individual stocks. I don't have the time to invest to determine day to day buying and selling.

no need for pump n dump here. Although I will brag about my employers stock at its 52 week high again

no need for pump n dump here.
>>>>>

You couldn't pump and dump with a forum this size I wouldn't think. Not to mention that I'm not talking about stuff off the pink sheets here, I'm talking more along the lines of good old fashioned solid companies.

<<<<<
well I'd hate to see this forum become yahoo finance boards.
>>>>>

I agree with that, but I think that with the YFB you have a seedy underbelly element that tends to congregate to recommend penny stocks in what is clearly a pump and dump.

I was just curious as to the rhyme or reason of why this was since I personally enjoy talking about stocks.

Or to phrase it another way...we'll use hege's example of Starbucks.

I'm more intrigued about what makes someone want to own a particular stock. Do they see something I missed? Does their mind work differently that mine? Did I miss what should have been a rather telling indicator?

It's more the method to someone's madness that I enjoy more than crap like "Buy Company X - guaranteed quadruple in 30 days" and that sort of garbage.

well on SBUX, the valuation is favorable and sure they may not grow as fast over the next 5 years the company has no real direct competitor. I traded it a few times when it was more expensive per share. My interest in it is not as a day trade but as something to hold for a longer time horizon.

See, that's what I'm talking about.

I don't trade, I invest.

I think the reason most people don't buy individual stocks is the time and effort require to beat a mutual fund. Realize most investors buying individual stocks are quick to talk about the big kill they made but are quiet about all their losses. The average stock "trader" actually looses money once all trades and fees are factored in.

I'll stick with no-load mutual funds myself

On these typees of boards you may see some talk about individual stocks by using their "mad" money.
Mostly I know I am not smart enough to pick stocks that will gain as much as my funds and be as diversified.


saladdin

I like to swing trade individual stocks by reading the charts. It really is amazing how stocks bounce off the moving averages, bounce off resistance ares, etc. mostly due to psychological factors of the investors. Fundementals of the company don't matter when you trade by using the charts as you usually only hold a stock for a few days or weeks.

Two things to keep in mind when buying or shorting individual stocks. 1. Stocks can remain over sold or become more over sold longer than most investors can remain solvent. 2.Stocks can remain over bought or become more over bought longer than most investors can remain solvent.

I think the reason most people don't buy individual stocks is the time and effort require to beat a mutual fund.
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I see it as a weird form of fear.

I think that most people are OK blaming "someone" (i.e. a fund manager) for their losses, while they wouldn't want to have to look in the mirror and blame themselves for those same losses.

I am in a handful of funds through my firm's 401k plan. I also pick stocks myself for my Roth IRA. My IRA stocks beat my 401k mutual funds this year.

I have more faith in my lean, mean IRA than I do in the funds in the 401k since I'm not limited by the rules of running a mutual fund and the difficulties that come with moving in to and out of large positions in a fund.

I have faith every year that I will be my funds.

I don't always succeed, and it takes a lot of work to do the research (which is why I think that some people are better off going with funds - if you can't or won't put in the time then you should go with a fund) but the payoff is more rewarding, both personally and financially.

You won't see too many individual stocks discussed here, as the primary focus of this board is credit.

Find a good stock board, and stay out of the penny forums. As a general guideline I recommend only NYSE and NASDAQ listed stocks, $5 and up.

SBUX is looking very good this week!

Yeah, if you're in for the long haul, then you've got one hell of a buying opportunity lying at your feet.

But I'd suggest you do serious homework on this one. One of their EVP's, David Pace, has been exercising options and then dumping them on the open market for over a year now. However, their Chairman, Howard Schultz, has purchased several million shares in the past year, including just a few months back.

I'd suggest gradually legging in to this one...

I'd have to dig into SBUX more...other than their fundamentals, I'd like to know how they're going to fuel growth. At first glance it's worth looking into, though.

My biggest holding right now is Wells Fargo, and I'm getting ready to increase my position there. The stock has tanked lately, but the fundies look good. The sub prime damage seems to have mostly run it's course with WFC, so unless something so far unreported comes up I should be OK.

I have looked at the options being exercised. As a longish term stock I still like it.

It may not grow as fast, but it is still a solid company that has not a single direct competitor (unlike target v. walmart, etc).

and as an anecdote, anytime I've been to one overseas it has been packed.

That's key, but the downside to that is that Starbucks can't make any real inroads in China. If they could they could gain some truly explosive growth.

Good for you.

The average age of the mutual fund manager is.......................................

Guess........!

















Guess 60, wrong.................

















Guess 40, wrong........................


















Guess 35.................wrong...................

















Guess 29..........RIGHT!



With research and due diligence, I absolutely think a person can do very well managing their own investments against an average age of 29 for a mutual fund manager.

I think a person should evaluate a funds performance in lousy markets, not just when it is a bull market and everyone is doing well.

http://www.msmoney.com/mm/investing/articl..._mutualfund.htm

I could care less how old a mutual fund manager is. that is silly to even consider the mean age of all fund managers.

Agreed, it makes no difference how old the MF manager is.

I think it is silly to not consider age and experience.

Would a 29 year managing a fund have any experience in investing in a recession right now? I'd be cautious to trust my money into a person with no experience in investing in various economic climates.

I want a fund manager who has been around to experience the markets in such areas as dot. com crashes, economic cycles as well as recessions and booms, various fed. policies of low interest rates to higher interest rates.

the reason it is silly is because you are using the mean for ALL managers, not looking specifically at the EXPERIENCE of the managers of the funds you bought or might buy.

it is also silly to use the statistic "mean age of all fund managers" to promote an argument that you can beat the market.

ETA: JMHO. ETAA: there may be other grounds to argue you can beat the market.

The odds are already stacked against money managers simply due to the sheer size of assets under management. Age is one of the least important factors.

I don't see your distinction and think you are misinterpreting the age thing. I never said, look at mean age of a mutual fund manager to determine if you can outperfom a MF.

Mean age was a caution a novice or newbie could very well be managing your money. Investing in a mutual fund isn't always a green light to outperforming, many underperform. I don't think MF's are always the Holy Grail that outperform individual investors, and experience of the fund manager could be an explanation.

To me, that matters. I want to know the guy/gal managing my money has experience in various types of markets.

And yes, I think an individual that is not a fund manager, yet follows markets and invests or trades, and is older, has a leg-up on a 29 year old fund manager. Lets say the individual is 50, has followed markets and invested for 30 years in all types of economic cycles, you still think it is foolish to place a premium on experience against a 29 year old that hasn't invested or traded in various markets?

Age does not matter for a fund manager, what does matter is how long the the fund manager has managed the fund, expense ratio, and long term performance.

More often than not, I think age and experience are inter-related.

Hard to have a long-term performance to review as a fund manager if only 29. If I'm trying to evaluate a fund managers ten year performance, they were probably in college at the beginning of the ten years.

how does age predict the person is a good stock timer?

many of the old guard probably have 29 year old underlings doing all the grunt work anyway.

Like the others, I have very few individual stocks, and one that I do have is Berkshire Hathaway B shares, which are close to being a mutual find anyway. I enjoy studying investments and reading about the market, but I have a full-time job and a personal life that don't allow me a lot of time to be making decisions about buying and selling, so I leave them to the pros who run the mutual funds. (And, BTW, I'm mostly in American Funds and there appears to be a lot of grey hair among their management teams!)

I'm just about to get into a couple of individual stocks on the advice of my broker (and my research into his recommendations), but we're talking a total of less than 1% of the assets in the account. It's "fun money".

SBUX down big again today. Hope you're legging in to that position, hege...

In itself, as the only consideration, i don't think it could point definitively to a successful mutual fund manager.

You could have a 60 year old with thirty years of experience, and still be an underperformer. However, a 60 year old with 30 years of experience of investing in markets while consistently outperforming the market is a better choice............experience + long-term proven track record of outperforming.

With a younger age for a MF, you can't gauge a long-term track record over varying economic conditions. Sure, they might have huge success in the few years they have been managing, to me though, that is more risky to invest in that specific mutual fund with a younger manager that does not have long-term consistent results.

To me, it seems common sense experience would outperform and at a younger age, an MF does not have that experience. Doesn't mean he/she is destined to fail, but it would seem more risky to to invest in lack of experience.

Anyways, interesting paper from the Dept. of Economics at Princeton, talks about the talent leaving Mutual funds in favor of the Hedge funds, explaining why there is this inverse relationship between the ages of hedge fund managers and mutual fund managers and success:

....after controlling for pre-hedge subperiod and for funds outside the Northeast, a younger manager in the Northeast underperforms an older manager in the region by 15 basis points annually for each year of age that separates them.

http://www.princeton.edu/~bcf/Seminar0708/...vetskyPaper.pdf

I am going in slowly.

That's what I'd do.

I'd figure out how much I want to buy, then pick four price points and scale in by buying a quarter of the total number of shares I want then buy at each price point.

If it never reached my bottom price point I'd either buy on the way back to my first price point or I would just never flesh out the position to the level I had thought I would.

You're a fearless investor to buy a stock in a long-term downtrend. Since late 2006, this stock has steadily gone lower and lower after failing to break it's May 2006 high.

I don't have that kind of luck to call a bottom or top, but I hope the trend reverses for you.

You do know they have more Starbucks in China and growing then in the United states right

the price of a share is not the only way I determine what and when to buy and sell. I look at valuation, dividends, profit margins, potential for growth, splits, etc. this is starbucks, not ford or GM we're talking about.

the stock is nearing a 4 year low.

The last time I bothered doing any real research, which was a little over a year ago, China had less than 200 stores in the mainland. Also, they had only a tiny fraction that were wholly owned. They had less than a 10% stake in the others.

The real problem was that the Chinese don't drink as much coffee as we do, and that there was already an established chain for those who do.

Having said that, if something has changed, and if there is true growth in China for SBUX, then that would be a good international play. But for now I don't see the Chinese market as being all that great.

that dog cant hunt.

when I've been in the PRC the Starbucks were jammed with people under 20 years old. I've seen the same in Thailand, Singapore, etc. just anecdotal I know, but the potential for real growth is there; both in the number of stores and year on year SS sales.

Maybe not for a quick trade, but it would be OK for a long term investment. I think the ROW possibilities are very real with Starbucks, it just doesn't do it for me...

My long term ROW play is NBG.

I don't know about the fundamentals of SBUX.

But I know stocks do not always trade purely on fundamentals, they can often go well into overbought or oversold territory without regards to their fundamentals. You think a fried chunk of dough with some frosting smeared on it, Krispy Kremes, deserves to trade at $50? A few months ago the GM you mention was at $40 or so.

You like to buy and hold, but how do you know a trend reversal is coming soon and SBUX is done bottoming in this downtrend and there won't be a more attractive price to enter for a long in the future?

Im thinking he is trying to dollar cost average it down.

another reason I rarely post about stock pics: too many critics LOL

Ha! Good point!

But I like the discussion that follows these sorts of threads...

PRC, has the biggest growth rate of middle class in the World.... They be drinking up the coffee like it is going out of style

hege, good news from SBUX...Howard Schultz is back and they will be closing some underperforming stores.

So that should brighten your outlook.

I'm thinking that you'll get another good buying opportunity here after the initial bounce from Schultz goes away. I think that at some point there will be a sell off once some people get back to even...

Heres a Yahoo link on it...


http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080107/starbucks_ceo.html

Good news: They bulldozed a wachovia bank by my house at the beach, and put a starbucks there.

Bad news: Its directly across the street from an existing starbucks.

WTF