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The stock market is a big casino and we are very small fish in its ocean. You can look at fundamentals and technical analysis to get ideas. But a stock goes up when more people want to buy it than sell it, and down when the opposite sentiment is present.
Once you see it in Time magazine its too late to buy. Look at things in 'your world' find goods and services that you think are valuable. Then look up the company on Yahoo or another financial website to see if they have a lot of debt or 'bad incidents' in their history.
I buy many stocks that are out-of-favor, like housing a banks right now. I like to get stocks under $10 a share and hold them for a few years, which by then I think/hope they will have appreciated. You need to figure what your horizon is for holding a stock AND what if it goes bankrupt. Thats essentially what the 'Pucker factor' is. BP was a decent stock until the Gulf incident, then BIG HAIRCUT!
Following the herd doesn't really make you money, if you want that just buy and S&P 500 index fund.
actually the number of people who want to buy or sell really does not matter. for every buyer there can only be one seller and for every seller there can only be one buyer. transactions have to be matched and actually take place in order to count.
what matters is not the number of sellers or buyers but the offers those sellers and buyers make are making.
think of when someone wants to take over a company by accumulating shares. they are one buyer and there can be many sellers.
that one seller makes an offer that lots of sellers want to take advantage of. one buyer and many sellers can still have a stock rising.
what changes daily is the prices someone is willing to pay based on the lasted news and perceptions of the future.
Why not own diversified mut. funds, ETFS, for a low fee & hold for the long term, reinvesting div. & cap. gains. Rec. FSTVX, FSTMX, Fidelity funds low exp. ratios. Also own a good perform. Internat. Fund, ETF. for 10-155 of total. Depending on age, more in the stk. mkt. up to age 50-55 for ex. and less in indiv. bonds, holding to matur. At age 55-60- or so to a more conserv. stance, 60-40 or 50-50,, mkt. holdings- individual bonds.
If the OP doesn't like their mutual funds, why not just invest in different mutual funds? Scottrade, Trade King, etc. all have great tools to scan for umpteen different parameters.
Personally the OP sounds less like a trader (which is what you do when you buy individual stocks) versus investing. In today's world, nobody except enthusiasts and professionals have time to take the exhaustive time to research stocks (e.g. HOV, man what a terrible stock!). So the vast majority of us should just look at mutual funds and ETFs.
The lazy person's portfolio will have three funds; an S&P500 tracking fund, an international fund from a reputable source, like Vanguard or something, and a bond fund from teh same house. Keep it 50%-30%-20% (adjust based on your risk appetite and KEEP IT THERE by rebalancing every quarter).That's it. And that's good enough for 95% of people. Buy ETFs where possible.
And don't get fooled into thinking that the S&P will do the same stellar results this year. You can play with fake money on Google portfolios on a stellar year like we had last year and even pigs will do well or at least not drag down a portfolio. DO NOT BET THE SAME WILL HAPPEN NEXT YEAR!!! That's why we say diversify.
good job on testing the waters before using real money. one thing you can't replicate is having skin in the game. as you start playing with real money you'll realize the emotions and mental aspect of making decisions to buy or sell are much different when real money is at play
whenever i see someone use the term played the stock market i know they are not investors.
they could be just speculators but more often than not that term means hey have alot to learn about investing yet before they are ready to put a penny in.
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