As a former employee of Halliburton, I'm setup the same way. I don't have a crystal ball but I would think ten years is plenty for the market to go down and come back up. Oil is cyclical just look at the charts before 2010. If he was buying stock through the down time, he's sitting pretty with fantastic gains just like I am. I would pay attention of course but I wouldn't move the HAL stock just yet. It's what I am doing with mine. I'm no where near retirement age though. If he or you are wanting something more steady with better dividend payments, then there are plenty of options for you. I have no idea on the tax implications of selling the stock. I believe it simply follows the one year and a day rule even though it was bought through the ESPP.

Great, thanks for the info.

Also your post made me think of something that I had completely forgotten about, its not in an IRA, its just stock, so the tax side of it completely was not in my thought process.

Thanks again

OK, I will remove my tin foil hat after this post. GPRO, we know its IPO was a few months back and then it took off hovering around $90 a share for the last month. We then get a report stating that some famous race car driver's accident could have been caused due to the GoPro camera on its helmet.

On October 30th GPRO is scheduled to report their Q3 earnings. Which from financial report articles they claim they meet or exceed the earnings projected. Which if this is the case it could send the stock price back up.

NOW, could that article about the injury come out just in time to send the actual stock price down to allow more buyers to jump ship before the Q3 reports? This is where my tin-conspiracy-foil hat comes into play. Am I crazy to think this way? Or should I just stop talking and keep reading more.

sebtarta,

That would be something more like a day trader would do. We are investors.
You want time in the market not timing the market. What happens when you buy on the dip because of that helmet issue and then when the Q3 earnings report comes out they didn't do as good as well as they thought and the stock drops even further? Would you be mad?

Unless your portfolio is already loaded with good dividend paying stocks and your reinvesting those dividends and its some play money.

Just my thoughts
John

I'm going to agree with John on this. If you're playing with the GoPro money, then maybe you should be concerned. If you're investing in the company, don't sweat it and maybe consider it as a sale on GoPro stock. Go ahead and have the cash in the account waiting to buy if that's what you want to do. Don't wait until the reports come out to transfer the cash. It may just go right back up within a day or two and you'll miss it. Which doesn't matter in the long run but it's one of those small I wish I would've things that could just make you feel a little better.

Are you gambling or investing? When you're "betting" on something (one way or the other), that's gambling. When you're investing - then you're not trying to game the latest tick by tick info. And if the stock you own is DOWN and you're worried about it... then maybe you shouldn't be in that stock.

Nobody can answer your questions. Which is why I advise EVERYONE... know what you own - why you own it - what your goals are. To advise someone what they should do, or what they "think" some stock is going to do is fools advice. Nobody knows how you're doing financially - what someones risk tolerance is - someones mental capacity for handling market swings etc. Only one person can possibly know how they feel and what their guts are doing.

The reason I advise people reading INVESTING 102 to start out with great businesses - great names - things they can monitor themselves and that pay dividends... is so they stand some chance of feeling good about their investments. It takes awhile to gain some confidence investing in a market where you have ZERO control. I advise AGAINST gambling - because this thread is for beginner investors. While they "might" miss out on the next hot stock -- they might also miss out on losing their money. I'd rather see people stay in the market - and get healthy over time. Once they feel comfortable and can afford it - they'll know when it's time to take a gamble on "X".


Personally -- if "I" owned GoPro (GPRO) I'd be a holder. I wouldn't add to my position on weakness nor on any news. There's way too much speculative money in the name. These are not "strong hands".... people are just betting that it's going higher. That's usually when you get your ass handed to you. Just when EVERYONE thinks one way in the market - look out below. Companies like this can report a stellar quarter -- but the quarter isn't "stellar" enough for the market and the stock can drop. Read the posts about "priced for perfection".

Buying stock like FB and Gopro to me is just gambling. I invest in dividend paying stock. Invest in long term growth stock with dividends. which is what this thread is about. if your going to gamble on a few stocks, gamble with money that you can afford to lose some on. Gambling a bit allows me to use some of the winnings if there is some and purchase more investment stock.

example of what transpired in the last 1.5 years with me and FB

My Gambling thought process.
I use facebook, 98% of my friends are on it. the IPO didn't go as well as most thought. they just started advertising on mobile. I'm going to take a chance.

1-15-13 bought 16 shares of FB @ $31.53, cost $514.47 again in my house this is a couple weeks of eating out and keeping the wine-o at home supplied. I'm already pissing money like this away.
3-23-13 bought 12 shares of FB @ $25.92, cost $321.03 this brought my cost average down and I still believed in the stock and that it would turn around and show that it can make money.

On Gopro, my friend is on a reality show and they use suitcases full of these and demolish gopro cameras at a large rate. They are always buying more. Robyn's brother has one mounted on his mountain bike. He convinced me to buy one for my bike. I'll use it in my Camaro on track days also. I see a ton of people have them. I also been watching the crazy videos on facebook that users submit. I decided to gamble again and get in early but slowly.
7-1-14 bought 8 shares of GPRO @ $46.4 cost $381.20
7-14-14 bought 10 shares of GPRO at $38.85 cost $398.50

I gamble with small chunks of money. If I lose half my money its like me going on a trip to Vegas and gambling and losing $100 a day for a few days.

I have been watching my FB for a month or so going on a roller coaster ride so I decide to take some of Greg's advice and sell some when the pig was fat.
On 8-7-14 sold FB 15 shares @ $73.37 nice little profit.
ON 9-10-14 sold FB 13 shares @ $77.67 nice little profit.

Still holding onto my Gopro, I feel it will go back to its high soon.

The market stared to correct a bit past couple of weeks and gave me a buying opportunity so I used the money and profits from my Facebook and bought and added to my investing 102 type stuff.

10-10-14 bought 20 shares of BPT @ $82 which I already owned at a higher price point.
10-14-14 bought 10 shares of BPT @ $77.5 allowed me to bring my cost average down on my already existing shares.

This is how I'm starting to build my small fortune. I don't have large sums of money like GW but its a start, and I know I'm probably not going to hit onto mother load of money. However its a lot better than letting it sit in a savings account at .1%

Good stuff Bob!


It's NEVER about how much or how little money people have -- it's about earning and multiplying what you do have so that LATER you'll have SOME rather than NONE.

Baby steps.... Learning... understanding the market... WINNING.

Money is all "relative". Large investments also LOSE large on big market swings. So it's not all just fun and games! What I'm trying to imply here is that how a guy feels about losing is as important and how he feels about making money. Because as you have success -- and that pot grows -- so do the swings! This is why I encourage people to look at PERCENTAGES rather than dollars. Percentages are much more relational!

If a guy invests $500 and it doubles to $1000 --- that's a 100% profit!! How do you handle that? Do you skim some of the fat and reinvest in something else? Do you let it all ride and hope it doubles again? Do you look at that and think that over time it might be 10 times that? Or do you freak out and sell it all? Are you checking the market every 15 seconds... or do you look at your account once every quarter...


These are all thoughts that people go thru.... and it's what each individual needs to learn about themselves. It makes little difference to ANYONE if it's 50 bucks or 50 thousand bucks... The feelings and thoughts will be there.

I understand everyone's point of view on this.

One thing though is that you all assumed I wanted to buy GPRO and all. Maybe I do maybe I don't. My question was, could that article come out a perfect time to allow for a stock to go down in order to allow buyers to jump ship before their Q3 earning revealed?

What do you guys look for in 401k mutual funds?

My new employer has a pretty good number of funds we can select. My old job only had target date funds at decade intervals.

I looked at their charts, expense ratio, trailing returns and the percentages as far as stock/bonds/cash

Anything else I missed?

I selected 6 at 15% and 1 at 10%

they have different categories, like growth, income, bonds, growth/income, aggressive growth

I picked 3 out of the growth, and 4 out of aggressive growth

quite a few of the funds dont have a ticker, so I really didnt know how to research them