F13 Investment Challenge

[Sky]

Holy crap, I'm in #1? Total newb luck.

Need to dump KBR. I've made some brief gains with them, but they have been way too volatile. One good rally and they're history.

Google should bounce back, even though it might be overvalued because of all the cash outflow and long upward trend. I was considering it, but it's way too expensive per share for the way I've set up my portfolio.

[Ookii]

I'm trying to short GM, let's see how it goes.

It's also fun to see what people are saying about stocks when searching for them at finance.google.com (they have the best interface by far), apparently GOOG is having a late market correction and only pussies are selling their stock, because it's going to go back up (apparently everyone who comments in bullish and flames the bears).

[Viin]

Why would any Google fan-bois sell GOOG? To buy APPL? Maybe.

I really hate the charts on MarketWatch, so I'll try Google's - I like Yahoo's beta Flash-based ones the best so far.

[Nebu]

There's one thing I love about playing this with you guys: Everytime I think that I have a great idea, reality smacks me upside the head.  All the research in the world can't prepare me for the tension caused by daily fluctuations.  It's teaching me what I've suspected in the past; that I'm definately a long-term investor. 

[Krakrok]

Good thing this is fake or I'd be getting a margin call on GOOG. I put $100k and $100k margin in it. 

[Nebu]

I'm trying my best to diversify my buys just so I don't end up taking one big loss.  With the current market swing it doesn't seem to matter much... now I'm taking 3 small losses instead of a single (equal sized) one.

[Krakrok]

You can always hide in BRKB or BRKA.

[Nebu]

Today's Market Watch headline:

Tech stocks sell off as Cisco leads decline

Looks like I picked a really bad day to buy Yahoo long.  They were at a 5 day low and I thought this was the time to pounce.  HAH!

[UD_Delt]

It is also pure awesomeness that someone who has yet to make a trade is sitting in second place.

[Viin]

It is also pure awesomeness that someone who has yet to make a trade is sitting in second place.

I thought about doing that as well, just to see if I'd win by keeping the $100k you start with. :P

[WayAbvPar]

The only way to win is not to play.

/wargames

[Ookii]

GODDAMN GM STOCK IS RALLYING.

I can never win!

And google dropped to 690!  I bought it at like 740!

[Ookii]

Ah the dicussion page for GOOG on finance.google.com is awesome right now.  Some people are posting saying bad things about the stock and convincing people to sell, others are people complaining about those posts saying their manipulating the stock price, others are links to the SEC complaints to report those people and their blogs, and others are people saying they're going to buy a million more shares because it's at a sales price right now.

I'm inclined to believe that it will go up because it seemingly went down for no reason, but If I have no clue why it went down I also have even less of a clue why it would go up, unless it's because it shouldn't have gone down in the first place.

[Sky]

Ah, shit. I was in a meeting that went long and I couldn't dump my shorts before the bell and most of them rallied like fucking made and cut my profits in half in less than an hour. Bah. I was at 5% almost all afternoon, knew I shoulda dumped before I went into that meeting. Bah.

[Nebu]

I missed my big spikes as well... I knew I should have cancelled lectures today!

[Simond]

This thread has a disturbing lack of Eddie Murphy & Dan Ackroyd.

[Ookii]

According to Google Priceline.com's revenue for 2006 was 1.2 BILLION DOLLARS.  Who uses priceline? I really don't get this.

Goddamn that stock is climbing after they announced the doubled their profit for 3Q.

[Nebu]

This thread has a disturbing lack of Eddie Murphy & Dan Ackroyd.

What you need are pictures of a young Jamie Lee Curtis.

BEEF JERKY TIME!

[Nebu]

I will now confess that I don't understand the stock market at all.  Merck just loses a huge court case having to pay out tons of cash in vioxx settlements and guess what... their stocks go up. 

Someone get me a dartboard.

[Righ]

The only way to win is not to play.

/wargames

A well placed war will save me. :)

[Phildo]

Word, I've got a bunch of Haliburton and Lockheed that's just itching to invade Iran!

[Grand Design]

Why is cmlancas showing a $50k loss on Sun stock?


I'm confused.

[Ookii]

Why is cmlancas showing a $50k loss on Sun stock?

I'm confused.

OK GET READY FOR THE ANSWER:

Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:JAVA) (NASDAQ:JAVAD) traders may have a bit of identity crisis for the next month as the stock will begin trading ex-split to reflect its previously approved 1 for 4 reverse stock split.  The high-end server maker and owner of the rights to Java will temporarily change its stock ticker to "JAVAD" to reflect its 1 for 4 reverse stock split.  The "D" added on will trade that way for twenty trading days before reverting back to the "JAVA" ticker.

Any fractional shares will be paid out in cash rather than in fractions of a share.  Based upon a $5.14 close, this would in theory have a $20.56 equivalent open if there were no price change.

Keeping the books at the company is about to get much simpler.  The total of authorized number of shares of common stock will be reduced from 7,200,000,000 to 1,800,000,000.  The par value of common stock would change from $0.00067 to $0.001 per share.

Now what does this mean?  All I know is JAVA is no more and the stock ticker is now JAVAD.

EDIT: And this is why you don't sink half of your 100,000 into one stock.

[Grand Design]

 

[Viin]

EDIT: And this is why you don't sink half of your 100,000 into one stock.

Oh, now you tell me.

[Grand Design]

It is also pure awesomeness that someone who has yet to make a trade is sitting in second place.

Right now, Morat20 and Croaker69 lead the pack and they haven't invested in anything.

Whose idea was it to play virtual stock market the week that the market crashed?

[Phildo]

And right now I'm in 2nd place BECAUSE I invested half my money into one stock in preparation for huge Black Friday profits.  Also, you can invest more than $100,000.  You have something like an an extra $100,000 in equity, or some sort of credit.

[Krakrok]

Also, you can invest more than $100,000.  You have something like an an extra $100,000 in equity, or some sort of credit.

Yeah. It's called margin. You pay interest on the 'margin' money you borrow. I don't know if this game has it but you have to have X% of real money to back up the margin with. Once you drop below the X% threshold you get a margin call which means you have to either put more money into the account to cover the margin loan or sell some of your stock to make up the X%.

I specifically put it all in a single high risk stock because I wouldn't do that with real money.

[Ookii]

And right now I'm in 2nd place BECAUSE I invested half my money into one stock in preparation for huge Black Friday profits.  Also, you can invest more than $100,000.  You have something like an an extra $100,000 in equity, or some sort of credit.

Pff, you got lucky.  But apparently that is the only way to make money in the stock market anyways.

NEW YORK -

Shares of Mattel Inc. rose Monday, after a JPMorgan analyst upgraded the toy maker's stock and said a decline in its share price presents a nice buying opportunity for investors.

Apparently everyone thought it was undervalued all of a sudden.

[Phildo]

The only REAL way to make money in the stock market is with insider information which, of course, is illegal.  The best way is to get lucky, or to play on obvious trends like toy manufacturers around December.

Also, yeah, the whole buying on credit thing = bad idea, so I'm unloading about half my shares.  Effing transaction fees.

[Krakrok]

It sure doesn't make trades very fast. They aren't doing their part for the fake $19.95 commission.

[Nebu]

I sold off about 1/3 of my portfolio today and I'm afraid to reinvest it until things stabilize.  I'm hoping that I can find something that bottomed out recently (HI2U tech stocks) and ride it back up to a norm, but I'm not sure if we've hit rock bottom yet.  I bought Yahoo at (what I thought was) the low point in a cycle and have lost 5k watching it drop another 4 points.  I R TEH STOCK NOOB.

[Viin]

I've lost $9k on GOOG so far.. been thinking of selling but then what if it rallies? Not sure I'll be able to regain 9k on another stock!

[Krakrok]

Of coarse it's going to rally because I sold mine just now . I'm going to sell it short and bank on it going to 600 based on what the charts say. It's up in after hours at the moment though.

[WayAbvPar]

I've lost $9k on GOOG so far.. been thinking of selling but then what if it rallies? Not sure I'll be able to regain 9k on another stock!

I sold it short to the tune of just over a grand. I finally remembered to buy to cover it, so I can actually take my profit and run. Yay team.