What stocks should I buy?

[ben]

What stocks should I buy?  I'm looking at NTDOY.

[Bahku]

I can tell you what stocks I have and like, but I try to avoid giving specifics or telling others what to buy, because when I've done it in the past, (especially with family/friends), people have blamed me when something went wrong. The "Never do business with friends" rule is very pertinent to giving advice on investments.

Anyway ... it depends a great deal on what your intentions/needs are ... are you looking for a secure long-term steady climber, or are you looking to make a chunk of change in a short period of time and keep turning it over?  The latter is obviously much more of a risk, but if you can read the economy well, you can find some sweet returns without having to wait years to reap any rewards.

I have some of both, about 75% longer-term slow, (but steady), climbers, and 25% in what I call "crap-shoots", of which I have very little expectations of, that way I'm prepared for the worst. Those are like gambling, (which all stocks are, really), and if I do end up producing benefits, then it's like frosting on the cake.

[incoherent]

I can tell you what stocks I have and like, but I try to avoid giving specifics or telling others what to buy, because when I've done it in the past, (especially with family/friends), people have blamed me when something went wrong. The "Never do business with friends" rule is very pertinent to giving advice on investments.

Anyway ... it depends a great deal on what your intentions/needs are ... are you looking for a secure long-term steady climber, or are you looking to make a chunk of change in a short period of time and keep turning it over?  The latter is obviously much more of a risk, but if you can read the economy well, you can find some sweet returns without having to wait years to reap any rewards.

I have some of both, about 75% longer-term slow, (but steady), climbers, and 25% in what I call "crap-shoots", of which I have very little expectations of, that way I'm prepared for the worst. Those are like gambling, (which all stocks are, really), and if I do end up producing benefits, then it's like frosting on the cake.

So which ones are your long termers and which might be frosting on the cake?

[manl_lui]

i dont know much about stocks, but I know for a fact that silver and other precious metals are on the rise in terms of price...a friend of mine said the price of precious metals are going to rise rapidly within 5 years

[action781]

Some famous investor once said, "Invest in what you know."

So find a company that you like, you think will be around for a while, and invest in it.  For instance, I love the Apple brand, invested in it when it was down about a year or 2 ago and it has since grown by over 100%.  My mother came home from work one day and talked about how Nuance is really dominating the voice recognition sector (what she works in) and I immediately after saw a commercial talking about how Nuance is the creator of Ford's Sync software.  I see a future in that product, bought it, and it's since gone up 25%.

There are tons of stocks that are going to increase over time, nobody knows which will go up the most.  So buy what you know is my advice.

[Celtics17]

If you are talking about long term investment wise then follow the logic of 'dont put all your eggs in one basket' concept and invest in an S&P 500 index. Probably as many as 85% of all fund managers out there don't beat it on a long run consistent basis and even fewer do if you adjust their portfolios for risk. If you want a pretty good lesson in how the market works read the book entitled "'A random walk down wall street' or at least I think that is the title.

Are you aware that a three year old throwing darts at the stock quote section of the newspapaer can beat the performance of most mutual fund managers?

If you are willing to be a 'gambler' with your money maybe you should bet on ther Miami Heat to win the title this year or possible even the Lackers. My point is, don't throw your money away by buying what someone recommends as it rarely pays off. Put your money in something that will grow but not lose your ... in.

[action781]

i dont know much about stocks, but I know for a fact that silver and other precious metals are on the rise in terms of price...a friend of mine said the price of precious metals are going to rise rapidly within 5 years

Not that I agree or disagree, but you "know for a fact"... because a friend of yours said so?

[Bahku]

I can tell you what stocks I have and like, but I try to avoid giving specifics or telling others what to buy, because when I've done it in the past, (especially with family/friends), people have blamed me when something went wrong. The "Never do business with friends" rule is very pertinent to giving advice on investments.

Anyway ... it depends a great deal on what your intentions/needs are ... are you looking for a secure long-term steady climber, or are you looking to make a chunk of change in a short period of time and keep turning it over?  The latter is obviously much more of a risk, but if you can read the economy well, you can find some sweet returns without having to wait years to reap any rewards.

I have some of both, about 75% longer-term slow, (but steady), climbers, and 25% in what I call "crap-shoots", of which I have very little expectations of, that way I'm prepared for the worst. Those are like gambling, (which all stocks are, really), and if I do end up producing benefits, then it's like frosting on the cake.

So which ones are your long termers and which might be frosting on the cake?

I'll throw a few out that I have ... but I'm not saying "buy them", for the reasons I listed before.


Long-Term: INTC, TTEK, OSIS, GOOG, AAPL, POT, ABT

Short-Term (at present): FCS, ZRAN, IR, NVS, APD, NBR

(I can supply the names and descriptions if needed).


A lot of short-termers are very liquid and can change abruptly, so keep a close eye, but these are fairly solid at the moment. I get most of my advice from the father of an ex-girlfriend, believe it or not ... he's been investing since his teens and is a rare, (and cost-free), "inside" treasure for me. Luckily, my ex and I parted on good terms, and I'm still close to her dad ... I know next-to-nothing about the market, but he's learned it inside and out. Regardless, even he loses big chunks from time-to-time, (but he always makes it back ... and then some).

[Eja117]

Some famous investor once said, "Invest in what you know."

So find a company that you like, you think will be around for a while, and invest in it.  For instance, I love the Apple brand, invested in it when it was down about a year or 2 ago and it has since grown by over 100%.  My mother came home from work one day and talked about how Nuance is really dominating the voice recognition sector (what she works in) and I immediately after saw a commercial talking about how Nuance is the creator of Ford's Sync software.  I see a future in that product, bought it, and it's since gone up 25%.

There are tons of stocks that are going to increase over time, nobody knows which will go up the most.  So buy what you know is my advice.

You gotta be careful with that. At one point I loved Myspace and almost everyone I knew was on it. I don't know if it's publicly traded, but I'm glad I didn't try to invest in it. You know what I mean.

[action781]

Some famous investor once said, "Invest in what you know."

So find a company that you like, you think will be around for a while, and invest in it.  For instance, I love the Apple brand, invested in it when it was down about a year or 2 ago and it has since grown by over 100%.  My mother came home from work one day and talked about how Nuance is really dominating the voice recognition sector (what she works in) and I immediately after saw a commercial talking about how Nuance is the creator of Ford's Sync software.  I see a future in that product, bought it, and it's since gone up 25%.

There are tons of stocks that are going to increase over time, nobody knows which will go up the most.  So buy what you know is my advice.

You gotta be careful with that. At one point I loved Myspace and almost everyone I knew was on it. I don't know if it's publicly traded, but I'm glad I didn't try to invest in it. You know what I mean.

Definitely.  I've actually read quite a bit on investing and I should have mentioned one of the first rules of investing:  don't invest in fads.

[Overrated]

You should have invested in BP back when their stock plummeted this past summer. Since July their share price has gone up about $20/share. I'm sure a lot of people made some money there, but I was late to the party 

[indeedproceed]

Some famous investor once said, "Invest in what you know."

So find a company that you like, you think will be around for a while, and invest in it.  For instance, I love the Apple brand, invested in it when it was down about a year or 2 ago and it has since grown by over 100%.  My mother came home from work one day and talked about how Nuance is really dominating the voice recognition sector (what she works in) and I immediately after saw a commercial talking about how Nuance is the creator of Ford's Sync software.  I see a future in that product, bought it, and it's since gone up 25%.

There are tons of stocks that are going to increase over time, nobody knows which will go up the most.  So buy what you know is my advice.

You gotta be careful with that. At one point I loved Myspace and almost everyone I knew was on it. I don't know if it's publicly traded, but I'm glad I didn't try to invest in it. You know what I mean.

Definitely.  I've actually read quite a bit on investing and I should have mentioned one of the first rules of investing:  don't invest in fads.

So you're saying all the money I have invested in Zoomba stocks is going to disappear???

[bdm860]

Like others have said, it's hard to say what stocks you should buy, because it depends so much on your risk profile and your holding period.

Instead of a blanket "what should I buy" it would probably be better to ask us about specific stocks. 

You  mentioned NTDOY.

Instantly, I would be very cautious of stocks trading on the pink sheets.  But this is Nintendo, a very well known company, not the type of company that is usually find on the pink sheets so I would be more willing to take a chance on it.  (For those who don't know pink sheets are an over the counter securities, not traded on exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ, indicated by the .pk or or .ob at the end of the ticker).  Probably trading on the pink sheets because it's a foreign company.  Because of this, might not be able to really see/compare their financials, but I'm comfortable moving on.

I like to compare a company to it's competitors.  This is difficult for Nintendo because nobody does exactly what Nintendo does.  Microsoft and Sony do so much more and are in so  many other industries it's hard to compare, as well as other companies who just make video games but no hardware like Konami, Namco, Activsion, Electronic Arts, etc.  This I don't really like too much because I like to compare apples to apples, not oranges.  Just based on names I know that trade on an American exchanges or OTC I have a list of 8 stocks.  Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Activision, Electronic Arts, THQ, Take Two, Konami. 

I'd probably quickly scratch Electronic Arts and THQ off the list since neither has made money in the last 3 years. (Unless you think one of these companies is going to have a major hit coming soon that will make them profitable, but other companies like Midway and Acclaim are both in bankruptcy, so just having hit games isn't enough to keep video game companies from going under).  Now I got 6 stocks.

Compared to these other stocks, Nintendo has the 2nd best earnings per share at 1.86 (2nd to Microsoft's 2.32).  Nintendo's P/E is in the middle of the pack at  18.35 (Microsoft is the lowest/best at 12.08, while Sony and Activision are at the high end at 35.68 and 38.25). Enough to make me take a closer look at Nintendo.

Tried to pull up their 10k and 10Q reports (their annual and quarterly reports), couldn't, it doesn't appear they publish them (which is probably why they're on the pink sheets and not the NYSE or Nasdaq). Found their annual report on their website though:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2010/annual1003e.pdf
(their next annual report should be coming out in a couple of months though).  Not the usual style I'm used to. Looks like positive trends from 2005 to 2009 in the major areas, then a slight decline in 2010.  Would like to see 2011's number which should come out in next few months.  If you want to invest in them, read their annual report.  Compare to competitors.

Things I like about Nintendo:
Seem to have dominated the casual gamer and the under-12 gamer market very well, while their biggest competitors focus more on the series gamer.

Seem to have a loyal following.

Nice library of games and exclusive titles (mario, zelda, etc.)

Long history of success (for the video game world)

Dominate player in the hand-held market


Things I don't like:
Wii has peaked.  Do they have any other consoles in the pipeline?  Will there be a next generation Wii?  Also with XBox and Playstation now entering the motion-controller marker with superior hardware could seriously hurt Nintendo. 

Nintendo has always been the dominate hand-held player.  But I'm concerned this market is on the decline as cell-phones and tablets eat away at market share.  Will Nintendo 3DS be a hit?  Personally I don't think so, but I don't really know video games, last hand-held I owned was a first generation GameBoy.

With current economic outlook, it is believed the industry will hold on to the current generation of consoles longer, rather than sink money into the next-gen system.  I'm worried about the Wii's decline here.  It seems like most people I know who have a Wii have the few key games (like Wii Sports, Wii Fit), but aren't big gamers.  So I think this may hurt Nintendo's revenues in the next couple of years.  I think people who own PS3's and XBox's are more hardcore gamers and will keep buying games, where the Wii's casual gamer is done buying games.  From the people I know who have a Wii, it seems like more of a fad, a fad that is on the decline.


Overall
Like others have said, buy what you know.  If you love Nintendo, buy all their systems, think the 3DS will be huge, think the Wii has tons of life left.  Then I'd probably buy.

Personally I probably wouldn't buy now though, because I think the Wii and handheld market are on the decline, and I'd rather they were listed on the NYSE or Nasdq (for uniform standards and reporting purposes).  I'd probably wait till the next generation product is closer to launch, and if I think it would be a huge success, then I'd probably buy.  If I owned the stock, I'd probably hold it, but I don't think I would buy it.

[bdm860]

Also to continue my thoughts on whether Nintendo (NTDOY) is a good stock or not, I want to point out how I see Nintendo's market share shrinking.

3rd generation of video games
NES sold 61.91M units
(no other competitor matters)

4th generation
SNES sold 49.1M
Sega sold 40.8M

5th generation
PS1 sold 102M
N64 sold 32.9M
Saturn sold 9.5M

6th generation
PS2 sold 147.6M
XBox sold 24M
Gamecube sold 21.74M
Dreamcast sold 10.6M

7th generation
Wii sold 75.9M (as of 9/30/10)
XBox 360 sold 50M (as of 1/6/11)
PS3 sold 41.6M (as of 9/30/10)


They went from the best selling console to the 2nd best selling console to the 3rd best selling console, back to the best selling console with the Wii.

The only problem with this is, I say the Wii as a fad. When they have to follow up with another console, I seem them likely losing to Microsoft and Sony.  I think you'll see results worse than the Game Cube next time around.  I don't think there is room for 3 players, and I don't think they'll have success grabbing the casual gamer again like they did this time around with the Wii.

I think the Wii is an anomaly, so overall this trend worries me.



And as I said before, I think we'll see a decline in the hand-held device market due to the advance capabilities of cell phones and the emergence of tablet pc's.  Although if you disagree with me, Nintendo has proven very strong in the hand-held market.  If you think the market is sill strong and growing, then Nintendo's hand-held division could keep the company profitable even if they fail at the console part.  Although I see them maybe becoming like Sega and exiting the console market altogether and just focusing on games (although this is probably not likely, it would say it's the worst case scenario.


(I pulled the images from the annual report)

[Rondo_is_better]

Not the ones the internet tells you to.