Aussie Stock Forums

Not another newb

chuk01 — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:13:42 GMT

Hey,
I'm very fresh to the stock market and have only a few months of experience in reading up on how everything works through books, news and watching your money on sky business channel. I am someone in my mid 20's that has started putting money into a high interest savings account (5.6%) and when ready put together a portfolio ranging from blue chips for long term investment and some mid caps for a higher capital gain in the mid term to try and put together enough for a significant down payment. I work in the mining services sector and can see first hand how bad we are doing at the moment due to obvious reasons in the economy. Being involved in the mining sector I find it hard to shy away from such investments even though I realise the volitility at the moment.
I would like to know whether the experienced folk in here believe that as someone stepping into the market, would it be wise to take advantage of such a crash in the market by buying up now, or waiting for things to start heading on up before trying my luck. Should someone like me wait until everything has settled down or am I wasting a great opportunity.
Maybe if some of the experienced people in here share their experience or journey through the rocky road of shares from their beginnings to now?

Thanks for your time!

Trading with an Index Filter

pavilion103 — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:02:56 GMT

Looking at the XAO the past week or so and seeing the carnage in some stocks, got me thinking again about Index filters.

In Nick Radge's latest book "Unholy Grails" there seemed to be consistent mention of the importance of being out of the market at the right (or wrong) time to protect capital and maximise returns.

I'm interested to know how people on here trade based on the position of the Aussie Index.

- Do people analyse the Index like a regular stock and determine whether it is in a weak or strong (short term and long term) position and the base their stock selection/exposure on this?
- How much time to people spend out of the market all together?
- How strong (or weak) does the Index have to be to warrant taking any positions?

Maybe if people could just share some general thoughts (either answers to the above or something else) it would be a huge help.

Thanks.

The future is not all doom and gloom

Lantern — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:28:14 GMT

Just watched this vid of one of the TED talks, it makes a lot of sense, but I can see some company's having to be dragged screaming into making the changes necessary.

http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovin...or_energy.html

Own vs. owed

Tyler Durden — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:16:43 GMT

Sorry, it's late, so forgive me if I can't articulate my question with precision, but I wanted to get this out of my head before I forget it.

In general, do you think it is easier to become wealthy by owning assets, or being owed money?

I was thinking of banks and they seem to make humongus profits, not from owning assets, but from other people owing them money and paying interest on it.

Seven Ho's for One Brother

Garpal Gumnut — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:16:18 GMT

Perhaps in times to come, we will have a movie about Federal Parliament's less than edifying spectacle of a government protecting a Federal Member who has been found responsible for the use of ho's, using Union funds, exploiting vulnerable women, while retaining a vote in Parliament.

Oh for a simpler more innocent age.

My contacts tell me the women are about to go public.

In the meantime, from that great movie.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

gg

Language Annoyances

MrBurns — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:24:22 GMT

Who else is sick of people saying "absolutely"

Another one "it's unacceptable" after anything from swearing to child molestation, don't people have the ability any more to express outrage and disgust aaprt from just saying "it's unacceptable" ?

Google Drive

ValueSnatcher — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:09:17 GMT

As per the link below: "Google Drive lets you do more than just store your files. Share files with exactly who you want and edit them together, from any device.

Google Drive gives you instant access to Google Docs, a suite of editing tools that makes working together better�even when your teammates are miles away."

https://drive.google.com/start#home

They are providing the service for free for the first 5 gigs of data, with up to 25 gigs costing around $2.50 p/month.

Seems like a great idea (especially for google as this opens up an entirely new revenue stream)...my only concern would be data security.

What does the ASF public think about google drive? Are you using it now or will you in the future?

Also if anyone has any knowledge of where exactly the data is stored I'd be delighted to find out! Im assuming it is stored in massive data centres?

GMY - Goldfields Credit Union

System — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:44:46 GMT

Goldfields Credit Union Limited (GMY) currently provides a broad range of retail banking products and services for its Members, such as home or personal loans, term deposits, savings accounts and cash management facilities.

GMY is expected to list on the ASX on Monday, May 21.

http://www.gcu.com.au

Active Traders

collector01 — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:13:47 GMT

Does anyone have any experience in dealing with the firm trading as Active Brokers? NB They charge an annual fee of $4k for trading on a minimum client portfolio of $10K.

Australian Share Broker Roundup Review

SanityShares — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:32:16 GMT

Hi guys,

I struggled with finding decent resources that looked at comparing different brokers so I went through the pain of signing up to 5 different brokers and posting the information that I learnt from the process. Hopefully someone will find it useful and save them the hassle that I had to go through.

http://sites.google.com/site/sanityshares/

Sanity Shares

Mother charged with neglect

Julia — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:12:06 GMT

I can't believe this:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/m...-1226354734032

A mother left her children in the car in an undercover park, ensuring they locked the doors as she left. The children were aged 10, 5 and 3.
She was gone 10 minutes as she purchased three items from a supermarket.

Some busybody has contacted the police and the mother has been charged with neglect.

This seems crazy to me and a huge intrusion on the mother's capacity to make a reasonable decision.

What do others think?

Government saving or wasting?

roxane — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:20:15 GMT

We've seen times and times again how the government is wasting taxpayer's $$$.
The list would very long, but I'm giving just one example.
This is a product from China. The government claims it's highly cost effective. For every $1000, $995 is directly wasted down the drain, $5 is consumed by the people, and less than $0.50 is consumed by the targeted group.

That would be comparable to buying one gallon of milk, using six-and-one-half drops of it, and pouring the rest of the gallon in the sink.

What is the logic in investing in a product where only 1% is used and 99% goes down the drain?

Market Depth - Importance when buying/selling

MattyJ — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:55:06 GMT

First off, I apologise if this has been covered elsewhere; I had a brief look but couldn't see this specific question answered.

How much emphasis do you/should you be placing on the market depth of a stock when buying and selling? For example, is it usually best practice to buy a stock when it has more buyers & volume (i.e. more buyers price is likely to rise), and sell a stock when it has more sellers & volume? Basically, is the market depth an accurate representation of the supply and demand for any given stock? Keeping in mind I trade on Comsec so can only see the top 10 for each side.

I am aware that you should be buying stock when it is cheap, and sell when it is expensive. If you are placing too much emphasis on market depth, would this classify you as a "follower"?

Maybe if you wait until "the tide turns" after a downward/upward trend for example, would this be a valid strategy? e.g. At the moment Telstra has about 3x the amount of buyers than sellers (volume) and has been in a strong upward trend. If this shifts to even buyers/sellers, would that be a good time to sell?

Of course this should only be one of many factors considered. To refine my original question, how much weight should be placed on market depth as one of the factors considered when buying or selling a stock?

Handing your money over to a fund manager...

MrBurns — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:54:30 GMT

What safeguards are there in place if you decide to put money with a fund manager such as Nick Radge, I've only ever heard of him recently I can Google him to find out more but when it's all said and done if I were to deal with him I'd be handing over hundrens of thousands of dollars to a man I don't know, unlike with a TD at a bank you're dealing with a bank so you don't give it a second thought.

What's is to stop a fund manager transfering everyones money into a Swiss bank account and disappearing.

Work for it or do without

timestwo — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:31:02 GMT

An interesting email I received, source: unknown. I think I will have to agree to a certain extent. Fixing some problems will no doubt introduce others.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied 'hard' were upset and the students who studied 'little' were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied 'even less' and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied 'little'.

The second test average was a 'D'. No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that "socialism" would also ultimately 'fail' because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Remember, there IS a test coming up. " elections sometime soon � perhaps the sooner the better"

Your chance to have YOUR say.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.