Investing

[Aloha_Shooter]

BTW nynco, I'm glad you're asking questions and hope you note I'm not slamming you. However, I would like to add something which is more of an aside. The whole situation you're posing is something that burns me up. People get greedy so they dump money they don't have into something they really know nothing about (except what the salesmen tell them). All of a sudden, Reality smacks them in the face with a #10 cast iron dutch oven and they get mad at anyone but themselves so they make a lot of noise saying "there ought to be a law to protect me". Crap like this is how we end up with Sarbanes-Oxley, the CFPB, and a whole bunch of other legal and extra-legal bureaucratic bovine excrement that does nothing but add costs and complexity and hurt the small consumers or investors.

Want to make money or at least improve your financial situation? Follow Dave Ramsey's "no debt" plan and you'll find your financial worries will melt away like a May snow flurry -- it's part of the financial tradition in this country or was before the New Deal and Great Society got people thinking they could get free checks. Hell, it's how I was raised (long before Dave Ramsey got cool). Putting 10% of your gross away before you even see it will do more for you in the long run than all the "hot" stock tips in the world.

[hatidua]

Simply put, american liberalism portrays profiteering to be evil.

As do American online gun forums. Just look back at all the whining about $40 pmags. Capitalism is only popular in the abstract.

[roberth]

As do American online gun forums. Just look back at all the whining about $40 pmags. Capitalism is only popular in the abstract.

Truth.

[kawiracer14]

I would suggest watching Boiler Room!

[Inconel710]

+1 to what AlohaShooter said. You're gambling, not investing. Don't put any money into this that you can't afford to lose.

The key to successful, long term, investing is diversification. I love Dave Ramsey for getting out of debt, but his investing advice leaves much to be desired. I learned alot about investing and diversification by reading Ric Edelman's The Lies About Money and listening to his radio show. It's a two hour show on Saturdays and it's also available as a podcast. The hard part about his method is that it is based on strict asset allocation. When one fund or sector gets too big (because it's going up in value) compared to the target percentage, you have to sell it and buy something in a sector that's low (it's losing value). It's counter-intuitive, but it forces you to "buy low and sell high" which is the only way to make money in the market.

[ChunkyMonkey]

IMHO Dave Ramsey has some good advice for those who are heavily in bad debt. But as far as creating wealth, there are many other better sources.

I also dislike his method of paying the smaller debt first. Rule of thumb is highest interest on bad debt first i.e. on depreciating asset like car etc.

[RblDiver]

As do American online gun forums. Just look back at all the whining about $40 pmags. Capitalism is only popular in the abstract.

On the contrary, this is an example of good capitalism. It's all about supply and demand; at $40, our demand will be lowered. By complaining and not purchasing, we increase the supply while decreasing the demand, which will lead to a lowering of price.

The difference between this and liberalism: We don't demand that the government force those mags to be sold at a lower price. We may think the shopkeep is greedy, but recognize their right to be so.

[Sawin]

+1 to what AlohaShooter said. You're gambling, not investing. Don't put any money into this that you can't afford to lose.

The key to successful, long term, investing is diversification. I love Dave Ramsey for getting out of debt, but his investing advice leaves much to be desired. I learned alot about investing and diversification by reading Ric Edelman's The Lies About Money and listening to his radio show. It's a two hour show on Saturdays and it's also available as a podcast. The hard part about his method is that it is based on strict asset allocation. When one fund or sector gets too big (because it's going up in value) compared to the target percentage, you have to sell it and buy something in a sector that's low (it's losing value). It's counter-intuitive, but it forces you to "buy low and sell high" which is the only way to make money in the market.

That's just plain old re-balancing. If you're not doing it with all of your investments, at least once per year, you're making a mistake.

[Irving]

IMHO Dave Ramsey has some good advice for those who are heavily in bad debt. But as far as creating wealth, there are many other better sources.

I also dislike his method of paying the smaller debt first. Rule of thumb is highest interest on bad debt first i.e. on depreciating asset like car etc.

I paid off a lot of debt with a low paying job, in a relatively short amount of time. I developed my own method of doing so, and after having great success, found out that it was pretty much exactly Dave Ramsey's method. I knew the old addage about paying the highest interest off first, but recognized that by paying off something smaller first, it would boost my confidence to continue, make my list of debtors one shorter, and finally that I could roll that amount into my next biggest debt to tackle.

If you hear Dave Ramsey respond to the question of why smallest first, instead of highest interest first, he says that they've done the math both ways and the difference in the end is negligible. That is also what I found, as I spent a lot of time playing withs trying to find the best way to get out out of debt.

I also agree that Dave is good to follow for getting out of debt, but not the best for making money. Two different, and sometimes conflicting, mind sets.

[MrPrena]

Last time I checked, you cannot buy a pink sheet/penny stock on a margin account.