Investing 102

[Gandalf]

Greg - have a great time as I am sure you both will.

Just a quick update - I opened a couple of broker accounts last week to check them out. Hands-down the Schwab folks get my business. I had cause to ask them a question so I picked up the phone. Not only did they pick up the phone without delay but the guy who picked up could not have been more helpful if he tried. He made some changes to my account while on the phone and had me log back in, made me feel welcome and did not talk down to me, made sure I knew they were available for any type of assistance 24x7 for free, pointed me to their on-line resources and booked me into a free one-on-one session with one of their traders to go through their tools and get me started. Completely no pressure and did not ask me anything about my funding intentions. Additionally they just happen to have an office barely 2min from my house - bonus!

I'm going to deposit some limited funds in that direction this week and get my feet wet. I've always wanted to do this myself so right now I just want to learn and have some fun. I appreciate your self-deprecating humor at your own past mistakes - helping to illustrate the point about gambling vs investing for the long term.

Thanks for the "push" - will keep you posted

Gregg

[GregWeld]

Originally Posted by Gandalf

Greg - have a great time as I am sure you both will.

Just a quick update - I opened a couple of broker accounts last week to check them out. Hands-down the Schwab folks get my business. I had cause to ask them a question so I picked up the phone. Not only did they pick up the phone without delay but the guy who picked up could not have been more helpful if he tried. He made some changes to my account while on the phone and had me log back in, made me feel welcome and did not talk down to me, made sure I knew they were available for any type of assistance 24x7 for free, pointed me to their on-line resources and booked me into a free one-on-one session with one of their traders to go through their tools and get me started. Completely no pressure and did not ask me anything about my funding intentions. Additionally they just happen to have an office barely 2min from my house - bonus!

I'm going to deposit some limited funds in that direction this week and get my feet wet. I've always wanted to do this myself so right now I just want to learn and have some fun. I appreciate your self-deprecating humor at your own past mistakes - helping to illustrate the point about gambling vs investing for the long term.

Thanks for the "push" - will keep you posted

Gregg

This is just like track days or anything else for that matter.... getting started is half the battle. And NOBODY expects you to be an expert! We're all at different levels of expertise at various endeavors. An attorney buddy of mine is always marveling how I can take a car apart and put it back together.... I finally said to him. Todd... I can't write a contract.... get over it.

Personally -- I have accounts at 4 different brokerages.... and Schwab is just fantastic in my book. Glad you had a good experience - as this echoes my own.

[RECOVERY ROOM]

Thats a great way to put it

[toy71camaro]

APPL announced its 1.8% dividend. That should make some people happy... it wont affect much of the 0.4 shares I own. hahah.

[CRCRFT78]

With Apples announcement of their stock buy backs and dividend payouts, what should we expect to see happening now? Buy more, sell, sit back and relax its not that big a deal? Just curious. My 6 measely shares won't make or break me but I am curious how this will affect the stock.

[GregWeld]

Originally Posted by CRCRFT78

With Apples announcement of their stock buy backs and dividend payouts, what should we expect to see happening now? Buy more, sell, sit back and relax its not that big a deal? Just curious. My 6 measely shares won't make or break me but I am curious how this will affect the stock.

I don't think any dividend hunters are going to back up the truck tomorrow - or anytime soon for a <2% dividend. It's just a kind of "peace offering" to the big holders that were screaming for some 'use of the cash hoard'.

The thing that is propelling Apple is it's products and it's stellar sales and profit numbers. As long as they have that growth and the stock is still "relatively cheap" on a P/E basis... and it has momentum. It should be just fine.

This is where I would remind people not to load the boat - or think that they're missing out not having MORE Apple. Remember the pigs get fat - hogs
get slaughtered. Be thankful if you own some and you're sitting fat and pretty.

[GregWeld]

I'd like to make note of something that we've only touched on before -- and that's the INVERSE relationship of BOND YIELDS and STOCK PRICES....

Bond yields have risen quiet nicely (relatively) in the last couple weeks. When YIELDS on bonds go up -- they'll steal money from the stock market. People like a nice safe return...

I don't think anyone should REACT to this "news". I'm not going to. But I'm pointing it out that once you start hearing about this on the TALKING HEAD TV...
you can start to correlate the movement in stock prices.

If the yields go too high too fast -- they'll knock the legs out of the housing market... NOT GOOD.... and if they continue to rise... they'll knock the legs out of the stock market as well.

Remember that you'd still get your dividend... and that's what many are invested in... but a 4% stock dividend doesn't look as good when bond yields creep up to 3 or 3.5% etc. So then stock prices have to go DOWN to make the apparent yield go UP. A .35 dividend on a $10 stock is 3.5% -- but it's percentage goes up as the stock drops to $9 and higher still at $8.50

Just a "look, watch, and listen" reminder to the newbs out there. I want you all to learn from these events and to understand their correlation.