Wasn't there a forum here about investing tips and stuff?

[. ._]

I remember seeing that, I think.

After finishing "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life", I wanna buy some stocks!

According to Warren, you should try to find a place that doesn't rip you off on the stock buy/sell fee. I wonder where I should go. Are there some online stockbrokers or something that are cheap?

I can't believe I'm even fucking talking about this.

-istp

[JakeYYZ]

Take a look at Quest trade: http://www.questrade.com/?se=google&gp= ... 2godfD2I4A

(all the usual qualifiers...I'm not a lawyer, add salt to suit your taste)
I don’t know much about Buffet’s book. I would encourage you to invest with attention to risk management. Always use “stops” to limit losses and “trailing stops” to lock-in gains.
Pick up a book on “technical” trading http://www.amazon.com/Chart-Your-Way-Pr ... 0470043504.
Paper trade until you feel relatively comfortable. One last thing; NEVER trade on tips.

[Expat]

...or contact me if you wish...no taxes, no paperwork...no one knows...

[Widow]

It's in the private forums. Contact KAG for entry.

[Siddley Hawker]

Buy shares in food companies. Everyone's gotta eat. Seriously, if you had bught $4500.00 worth of shares of Loblaws in 1976 when Dave Nichol joined the company, they would have been worth a cool million when he retired as CEO 25 years later.

[JakeYYZ]

Siddley...are you a licensed financial advisor? I’m thinkin’ not! You’re the “buy and die” variety of investor. Or, is it buy and hold? I guess ISTP to be in his mid 30’s. Stock picking a 25 year hold is fine
(I guess) for a teenager.. for a 30 something..not so much. I’m a leverage fan. I use to trade options,
in what I like to call "special situations" (theta burn can be a bitch). Since 2007, I use leveraged ETF’s. I trade financials (FAS/FAZ) and indexes (TZA/TNA, BGU/BGZ, TYP/TYH)..much easier than stock picking...for my style, anyway. I’m a swing trader.
I pay attention to fundamentals, but rely on technicals for buy and sell signals. My goal has been
1% (net) per week.

[. ._]

It's in the private forums. Contact KAG for entry.

Oh yeah. I wonder how I missed that. Thanks.

[Siddley Hawker]

Jake I haven't invested anything in years, but I did make a few bucks on buy and hold as you call it, with Provigo/Loblaws.

[niss]

Wasn't it Karl Marx who suggested its best to purchase mutual funds?

[tzu]

Tip:
Don't ever take a stock tip. Ever.

If you want to invest in a company do your research and crunch the numbers - financial report ratios, income statement blah blah blah. Then take a leap of faith and pour some dough into that company.

Where do you start to get that info? One good book to flip through would be the "intelligent investor" by Benjamin Graham.
A better option would be to enroll in the Canadian Securities Course online at www.csi.ca - this will help you with bare minimum you'll need to do some number crunching financial analysis.

Now if you think you don't have the patience to complete the CSC, then, do yourself a favour, and don't invest for yourself. Give your money to someone else to lose it, or just stick to buying government strip bonds in your RSP or TFSA.

Everyone wants to make a quick buck, and often they get lured by impressive stories of the average joe rackin in the cash from a few stock tips. IMHO - unless you know what you're getting in to - it's probably better to start your own grow-op and be done with this stock game you'll never win.

[rotorfloat]

As you can see ISTP, there's 2 types of trading; Fundamental trading, as tzu mentioned, and technical trading, as Jake mentioned previous. You can do both of course, you may find yourself favoring one over the other.

I'm in the same boat as Jake...technicals all the way; scalping, day trading and swing trading. You don't have to go as in depth with the fundamentals, but you do have to be aware of economic news releases. It can be easier at times as you usually are trading indexes or ETF's, instead of plunging deep into a company's books to see if you like their product & numbers. It's up to you.

Questrade seems to be the cheapest. You can keep your funds in US$ or CAD$, so that you do not get dinged a forex fee for every return-trip if you're buying US markets.

It offers stocks, options, bonds, gold, and mutual funds, in both US and Canadian Markets. Also you can trade with your TFSA at most brokerages.

Getting Canadian market data can be a pain in the butt. Most brokerages will charge you extra or you must be an active trader to get it free. For this, I usually trade US markets. All of that stuff is free; real-time charting, level 2, etc. I chart with Thinkorswim (the best free platform) and keep my questrade window open (basic platform) to make trade entries. This is really only important if you're daytrading. For buy & hold, your basic level 1 quote, and a 15-minute-delayed chart is fine.

I've started reading "The intelligent investor", but it's not for me. It is more traditional 'buy & die' type of investing.

For a good taste of technicals, have a look here for daily videos.

Good luck moneybags!

[Dash-Ate]

Nortel stock will make you rich!! oh wait...

[JakeYYZ]

Rotorfloat, thanks for the Ron Walker link. Long ago, I decided to tune out the “noise” and rely on myself. This guy does impress me. In fact, I donated! What does that say?
I plan the trade and trade the plan. As I said earlier, I do pay close attention to economic news, but I try to stay away from the prognostication. Today we had the FED announcement.
If you follow the gyrations on FED days, you know that you are going to have very significant swings up and down between 14:15 and 14:45. You look for the gap fill and pull the trigger (TZA) and place your stop. So far, so good.
I have to say, this guy is very simpatico to my analysis. I have followed him since your post and I like his methodology. Crisp. Clean. Clear. Thanks.
Cheers,
JakeYYZ

[rotorfloat]

Cheers Jake.

I cant't trade this time of year....too busy. On days off I'll try & pull off a daytrade or a scalp, but that doesn't happen too often (days off, that is)

Also thanks to ZeroHedge, I've occasionally picked off decoupling between the E-Mini and the AUD/JPY. It doesn't happen for long; it recouples quickly. You basically have to be sitting there bug-eyed, watching for it, if it happens.

Since you can't trade futures in TFSA, I'll usually play it with a quick put or call scalp on SPY.

Happy trading!

[JakeYYZ]

I use to watch the EUR/USD pair..and we’ve seen them decouple many times since
April. It works..until it doesn’t. The same can be said for oil and gold. As I said in my earlier post; I try to tune out the noise and look to the pattern. Zero Hedge has well written opinion pieces that I read after hours. ZH is a one trick pony, in my opinion. Since we are trading links, here’s a daily for me. As you scroll through the articles, pay attention to the links on the right.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/

Stay nimble,

Jake