After reading and researching for some time, I decided to make a purely speculative play in the stock market after not buying / selling stocks online in about 8 years. I opened up an account with Zecco and bought just under $1,000 in stock of a company I think can return 15% in 6-16 weeks. That was on November 11th.

Right now the stock is down 24% since then and at its 52-week low, even though the company continues to have good news being reported.

As things progress over the next month or two, I'll try to keep this updated as to how my first real play in the market fairs

May I ask why you stayed away from the stock market for 8 years and then suddenly decided to jump in with a relatively risky play (single stock, short time frame).

Ticker symbol, please.

I was in a series of bad car accidents (not my fault) from 2000-2003 which resulted in the loss of my job and finally spinal surgery in 2004. During that time I was able to attend school for a while to further my education, but even with the support of my family I fell into a money hole. I finally dug myself out of it and put away an 8-10 month emergency fund and started the rode to Roth IRA's and the such. I've also eliminated and reduced my total cost of living wherever possible, from food to heat and so on and so forth. I'm living virtually debt free at the moment with the exception of my mortgage (put 30% down on home) and a very very small student loan (interest is a tax deduction). So, I figured I'd try playing in the market again instead of using the $1k to go on a vacation or a trip to Atlantic City.



AMD

[covers head] tell me how bad an idea tech stocks are right now[/covers head]

I think you would have had better odds playing Roulette in Atlantic City. I don't see AMD doing all that well. I think INTC would be the better play right now. AMD has a -5.00 EPS that is ugly. If i were going into indivual tech stocks INTC and MSFT look pretty nice at current prices. But the way this market is going those prices could be even cheaper next month. Both stocks give a nice dividend as well.

MSFT is at a 10 year low right now, while it is a bargain, I don't believe in the company. I am a network admin for a living, I use Windows and support it at work but switched to Mac more than a year ago due to my hate of Vista.

Additionally, HP posted earnings better than expected yesterday and flew up 15%. A good portion of their line-up of comptuers contain AMD chips, as do the Wii, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, which always do well this time of year. ATI is also doing really well compared to Nvidia.

My 2 cents, for what it's worth, companies are loosing money but the intranet and networks that hold them together need to keep up. Computers fail, need to be replaced and upgraded even when business isn't booming - AMD has almost always offered a more value added line, or cheaper line of computers. Dell offers almost all of their consumer grade laptops and desktops in AMD and Intel powered configs, AMD is usually 10-15% cheaper. IT people and consumers are more likely to go for the value / savings vs. Intel's well known name.

At what price did you buy AMD?

Switching all the way to Apple just on the account of Vista is pretty strong hate there. I prefer to wipe my drives and install Linux instead.

$3.00



My previous reply kind of states why - I believe in the company and working in the IT field, see the need for continued computer support and upkeep, regardless of how any business is doing. Also, being in the 3 main gaming consoles at the holiday season can't be bad.



I don't know that hate is the proper term, but having used Windows since 3.1 and previously in my life owning Macs (Classic II, G3 iBook) - I felt it was time to move back to them due to all the massive headaches Vista was causing me at work - I was in the market for a laptop and didn't want to deal with Mac.



And that's fine, I had a Ubuntu box for a while - the problem is that I am also a photographer who post processes in Lightroom and Photoshop, Linux has Gimp, but it is not a replacement for either Lightroom or Photoshop.

LOL. My question was more out of curiosity than anything else.

I don't ususally buy individual stocks at this point, but it sounds like you have your financial house in pretty decent order with the emergency fund and retirement account, so why not give it a go?

I'm tempted to buy some GS of all things...

Hell a friend of mine got in on AIG @ $2.12 three weeks ago, it spiked up around 2.55 and they held on for $3, now it's down to 1.66... crazy times.

I see no logic in the market at this time. Good companies and bad companies seem to be suffering in the market. I'm putting every penny I can into mutual funds, but I would not put a penny into individual stocks.

Yeah, I hope no one takes my comment and interpret that as a recommendation for everyone else to switch to Linux. As you have implied, there is more to it than just making blanket statements that one operating system is somehow better than another.... Expect maybe Vista. It seems to be pretty much universally maligned at this point.

Buying into companies without researching is like gambling.
You can never predict the market. Like what Warren Buffet said,

"He can never predict the market tomorrow, but he can predict the market 10 years later."

Invest in companies not trade. Trading is like predicting the market to go up or down.

I absolutely agree with you regarding research. To the author's credit, he's in the IT field and appears to know what he's buying into. The thesis provided in this thread is basic, but at least it's there.

As for trading equating to market predictions, well I don't know about that. I do agree that trading based on market predictions is a recipe for disaster. However, trading strategies don't have to be based on market predictions. For example, it can also be based on Graham's principle of intrinsic value, which to some extent is what Warren Buffett follows.

Speaking of which, even Warren Buffett trades, and has been known to pare down and even sell positions that he no longer believes in. That's also the primary reason for buying actively-managed funds in the first place, so that fund managers can do all the trading for us while we only buy-and-hold their services.

As I originally stated, I decided to make a purely speculative play and am aware of the risks, which is why I didn't invest all my money, I actually only invested about 3 or 4% of my savings into this stock. I also stated that this was a short-term play, 6-16 weeks is what my goal is however I am prepared to wait longer if need be.

Had I been looking for a longer term, slower growth rate I would have put more money into a much safer mutal fund, not in the tech market like I did. Most companies in the tech industry are at 10 or 15 year lows right now, some will fold, some will get bought out, some will sit here at the bottom for 2 or more years.

My opinion is that AMD won't go out of business and I'm fairly certain that Intel would never be approved by the gov't to buy AMD, it would create a monopoly in the chip market, lord knows the US gov't hates monopolies... and Apple could potentially buy them, but why?

AMD has made some moves in the right direction, selling off losing portions of the company, firing execs that didn't do a good job and reducing the labor force to cut expenses. If they break even the stock should shoot up.