TheDragon,
I like GE as Large Cap. Conglomerate stocks are diversification in themselves. I made about 12% last year trading GE. GE is a good buy however the uncertainty with them right now is what the Obama admin. is trying to do them. By the way I totally disagree with what he's trying to do.

chaos,
I like HK's advice, within reason.
Never "bet the farm" on any one investment.
The best way to determine how much you should invest is to maximize your purchasing power by factoring in commissions. I always invest enough to where commissions account for no more than 2% of that investment transaction. Recommended by the Gardner bros.

So for ShareBuilder, you don't need $1K, you only need 200 because they have $4 trades (lowest on the net)! But with Scottrade, E-trade, etc., you'd need $400. Which is why I love SB, you have double the purchasing power.

Given the above explains why I don't like Mutual Funds, because:
1. They charge 4-6% right off the front, then 1-2% annually.
2. I can beat their performance with little effort.
3. 90% fund managers lose to the S&P 500.
4. You'd be better playing an Index fund/ETF for 1% annually and have better performance.

If you go with SB then $200 is all you need. The higher the purchasing power the better. I usually do about $500 - $1.5K blocks.

V/R

**********************************************************
DISCLOSURE
Stock performance can't be guaranteed.
Risk can be reduced through proper education and tool application.
The author of this post has posted for educational/information purposes only.
The author cannot be held liable for the readers investment performance, or lack there of.
***********************************************************

chaos,

A grand is plenty.
Mitch King took $15K and turned it into 3.5M through scalping.

And I never buy stocks on margin (thus agreeing with HK) because of the volatility and stipulations the brokerasge firms instill on those type of transactions.

However a good strategy that works with proper sophistication is to get a credit card offering 0% for one year, pulling out the maximum, and dropping it into a low volatility index fund for 11 months. Then you place a stop-loss to protect the money until you sell-out. This works well in a bull-market, which we're technically in now. If it goes wrong, you get stopped-out and lose $10 bucks, or 3%. But if it works out, you can double that investment, then pay-off the card with free money in your pocket.

V/R

**********************************************************
DISCLOSURE
Stock performance can't be guaranteed.
Risk can be reduced through proper education and tool application.
The author of this post has posted for educational/information purposes only.
The author cannot be held liable for the readers investment performance, or lack there of.
***********************************************************

AAAAAGH!!!! ITS ALL TOO MUCH!!!

You are going way over this grunts head.....Im just a "run and gun" man!

Sorry man.
My first stock purchase ever was when I was 16 1/2.
I bought .25 shares of McCormick Foods (symbol: MKC) on ShareBuilder.
Cost me $24.00 bucks, and I paid a $4/16.7% commission LOL!

It takes time, but is well worth it man.

Here's a simple strategy:
If you want to stay with the market and see a long-term average return of 11% then just put your money in the symbol: SPY. It's a fund traded like a stock, tracks the S&P 500, pays dividends, has low fees, and beats 85% of mutual funds. Requires zero sophistication and makes a damn good return.

V/R

**********************************************************
DISCLOSURE
Stock performance can't be guaranteed.
Risk can be reduced through proper education and tool application.
The author of this post has posted for educational/information purposes only.
The author cannot be held liable for the readers investment performance, or lack there of.
***********************************************************

Thanks Brother

For those of you who have bought BP stock recently, and just for fun, I'm going to do a running and daily re-cap of the stock, indicators etc., up until it would be a wise decision to sell. This should help novice investors follow along with how the trading process can go.

Stay tuned...

V/R

**********************************************************
DISCLOSURE
Stock performance can't be guaranteed.
Risk can be reduced through proper education and tool application.
The author of this post has posted for educational/information purposes only.
The author cannot be held liable for the readers investment performance, or lack there of.
***********************************************************

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

BP is sitting at 28.50/share, down from $59 in May.
BP's stock chart [ stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=bp ] shows the RSI indicator line bottomed out (top of chart), but the MACD indicator lines are revealing an early up-trend (bottom of chart). Kind of like a bouncy ball hitting the ground, then bouncing back into the air. Theoretically this means that the stock is under-strength but it is starting to recover. Good sign. The gray and red bars toward the bottom of the chart represent volume. Gray means buy, red means sell. The chart reveals 4 consecutive days of buying (4 gray bars back-to-back), and at similar levels. Also there are more offers to buy the stock then there are to sell, meaning higher demand, lower supply = Increased Value.

For a Chartist/Trader, this means you should BUY! From here, it's easy.

V/R

**********************************************************
DISCLOSURE
Stock performance can't be guaranteed.
Risk can be reduced through proper education and tool application.
The author of this post has posted for educational/information purposes only.
The author cannot be held liable for the readers investment performance, or lack there of.
***********************************************************

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

BP closes at 29.39/share for the day. You've made 3.1%.
If you're 30+, the average you should have in stocks is $15K.
If you sold BP today, thus scalping the profit of 3.1%, you'd make $465 for less than an hour of work. Might I mention that it consisted of you sitting on your behind?

But, all of the up-trend indicators noted on WED are still promising [ stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=bp ], so why not hang on?

A Chartist/Trader would either take the profit, or hang in there. I'd say a majority would hang in there.

V/R

**********************************************************
DISCLOSURE
Stock performance can't be guaranteed.
Risk can be reduced through proper education and tool application.
The author of this post has posted for educational/information purposes only.
The author cannot be held liable for the readers investment performance, or lack there of.
***********************************************************