TR Forums

For those of you who dabble in investing in stocks I'm curious what your investing in right now. I've been messing around with just nvidia for the time being. I bought in back when it was around high 11ish. So far it's been playing along nicely.

My real money in stocks is only in the 401k right now. I have a mix of growth fund, large cap, small cap, a little international, and 1% in treasuries.

But I have been playing a stock simulator on investopedia.com.
http://www.investopedia.com

I'm getting my butt kicked (lost 9k of 100k in a few months) and pretty much reminds me I shouldn't dabble in individual stocks for real.

Empirically, a retail investor will realize the best return by investing in an index fund. In fact, the more you trade, the more likely you are to lose money.

kumori wrote:

Empirically, a retail investor will realize the best return by investing in an index fund. In fact, the more you trade, the more likely you are to lose money.

This. Word.

kumori wrote:

Empirically, a retail investor will realize the best return by investing in an index fund. In fact, the more you trade, the more likely you are to lose money.

I would agree with you 99% of the time. Most retail investors have no knowledge of the market (especially ones i talk too)and end up buying a bunch of crap (i.e., RIM, Sunpower, Facebook, Nokia...etc) because they are "cheap" or they like the product (meanwhile 99% of population hates it) or it is the current hot stock. Instead they shart their pants when 2 weeks later the stock takes a nosedown after it is downgraded/they report bad earnings/financial meltdown a la 2008.

I've been trading individual stocks (and options) with real money for about 7 years now ever since i turned 18. After making back losses from the 08 crisis i am up about 30% on a money-weighted return. I invest usually in what i know, i.e. tech stocks.