262
votes
Investment strategy for Google: What did I do wrong?
This is clearly not the answer you’re looking for, but you went wrong by trying to pick stocks and time the market. It’s been shown to be a fool’s game.
Furthermore: if you picked several stocks, ...
- 1,399
120
votes
Accepted
Is trying to learn day trading a complete waste of time?
The vast majority of people that day trade lose money. Of those that make money, most aren't going to beat an index fund. Of those that actually beat an index fund, very few do so without investing ...
- 26.5k
103
votes
Why is the stock market so unpredictable?
The stock market measures how things change from what we predicted. If only things we predicted happened, the prices of stocks wouldn't really change.
You might think, "But Apple went from a tiny ...
- 10.3k
101
votes
Why aren’t there more stock market prediction tools available?
If one could build a model for accurately predicting future stock prices then:
Why would anyone share it?
Wouldn't there be some individuals cornering the market, making people like Peter Lynch, ...
- 75.8k
88
votes
Accepted
Is it a good idea to copy a trader when investing?
The first thing that pops up when you open your link is a disclaimer:
66% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how ...
- 75.8k
87
votes
Why did Tesla's stock value drop by 40 USD for just 5 minutes on August 2nd at 3:20pm?
Refresh the report. You'll probably see that dip gone. It was likely just a glitch in the reporting data when you happened to run it. Oddities like this happen from time to time. When you see ...
- 13.8k
63
votes
Investment strategy for Google: What did I do wrong?
It's tech-heavy because I am a tech guy and I always feel comfortable investing in a tech company.
First, no you do not feel comfortable. You invested in an incredibly volatile company in a volatile ...
- 4,800
63
votes
Is it a good idea to copy a trader when investing?
Well, consider it from the other side. Why would a trader be willing to share trades? Consider the following scenario.
The reference trader makes a trade in a low volume market.
The trade is ...
- 21k
59
votes
Why aren’t there more stock market prediction tools available?
These tools exist (see Nelson's answer), but they aren't available for purchase because once they become publicly available, they cease to work. The logic goes something like this.
Suppose the stock ...
- 2,664
53
votes
Can I profit from anticipating a drop in value?
To expand on the comment made by @NateEldredge, you're looking to take a short position. A short position essentially functions as follows:
Borrow a share owned by someone else
Sell that share
Wait ...
- 49k
48
votes
Accepted
Is it true that, "just ten trading days represent 63 per cent of the returns of the past 50 years"?
Mild vs. Wild Randomness:
Focusing on those Risks that
Matter and A focus on the exceptions
that prove the rule are copies of the original article referenced by the Wikipedia page. The authors are ...
- 26.5k
44
votes
Why is the stock market so unpredictable?
If you think about, most of the things we do in a day are pretty predictable.
Really?
Waking up,
You never oversleep.
deciding what sites to browse,
Not sure how many people plan that in the ...
- 11.6k
44
votes
Does the stock price drop if one of the largest shareholders of the company sells all their shares?
I'm not sure I would classify Musk's recent TSLA share transactions as "selling like a madman".
For one thing his holdings are extensive and he's sold, so far at least, only a small ...
- 3,468
40
votes
Why can more jobs mean more inflation and decreased stock prices? What are other links in the chain to watch out for?
Many news outlets ... are reporting that the current US stock sell-off is due to a stronger-than-expected jobs report in January...
Had the market done well in the last few days those same people ...
- 47.2k
38
votes
Accepted
What happened to Home Depot's Stock in 1988?
It's got to be a bad chunk of data on Google. Yahoo finance does not show that anomaly for 1988, nor does the chart from Home Depot's investor relations site:
- 115k
36
votes
Why do some investment firms publish their market predictions?
They do so because it’s free advertising. If they get it wildly wrong, it will be totally forgotten —- it’s not news when a prediction fails to come to pass. Unfortunately, it is often considered ...
- 1,317
35
votes
Is it true that, "just ten trading days represent 63 per cent of the returns of the past 50 years"?
Nassim Taleb is remarkably brilliant. It's his work that's cited in the article. In my opinion, there are 2 choices, a misquote, if the article is wrong, or a misunderstanding on the part of the ...
29
votes
Why is AT&T's stock price declining, during the days that they announced the acquisition of Time Warner inc.?
It is not unusual for the acquiring company's stock to fall in any time of merger announcement. Some of it has to do with the fact the acquirer is going to either take on new debt to pay for the cost ...
- 10.1k
29
votes
Accepted
How to interpret stock performance charts "vs S&P 500"
tl;dr: The CNN Money and Yahoo Finance charts are wildly inaccurate. The TD Ameritrade chart appears to be accurate and shows returns with reinvested dividends. Ignoring buggy data, CNN most likely ...
- 671
25
votes
Why aren’t there more stock market prediction tools available?
They exist, but it's not for you to buy.
Here is a story about Ke Xu, quantitative analyst.
Basically, the algorithms exist, but they are closely guarded secrets. Someone tried to steal them and got ...
- 856
25
votes
Accepted
Can a subsidiary/division of a company have a larger market cap than the parent company?
The market capitalization of Naspers is approximately 1.3 trillion ZAR, which is equivalent to approximately 75 billion EUR.
The market capitalization of Prosus is approximately 130 billion EUR.
If ...
- 16.9k
24
votes
Investment strategy for Google: What did I do wrong?
Check your price to earnings ratios and your price to book ratios for each of your assets. It has been an upward ride, so "foolish" stocks like Alphabet tend to rise faster. I would begin to ...
- 4,267
23
votes
How do you take profit from stock trading while keeping capital invested?
You don't have to sell just because the price has gone up 25%.
You sell...
if you need the money...
because you think that the company share price will not be growing any more or even it will be ...
- 136k
21
votes
Accepted
Why is this stock price inflated by 70x its real price?
For example, on Jan 29th 2016 the price was reported as £178.21 when viewing over a 3M range, and £12,425.10 when viewing over a 5D range.
The confusion is primarily arising because UK equities and ...
- 10.6k
21
votes
Why is the stock market so unpredictable?
Short answer: arbitrage.
The way I see it, you're not really betting on anything physical, nor even on how well companies perform; you're betting on what all the other investors/speculators think ...
- 417
21
votes
Does an IPO mean a company is going public or is already public?
I know IPO means that particular company, regardless of the country,
is offering some quantity of their stocks to the public via stock
exchange.
An IPO is an initial Public offering. They are taking ...
- 136k
20
votes
Investment strategy for Google: What did I do wrong?
If there was an easy answer to your question, everybody would be millionaires.
I suggest reading "One Up on Wall Street" by Peter Lynch. After you are done with that, read "Security Analysis" by ...
- 9,775
20
votes
Accepted
At which P/E ratio can a stock be considered overvalued?
It sounds like the asker is looking for a rule of thumb about P/E. If only the market would be so kind as to have a simple rule of thumb. It unfortunately depends on the time and the range you are ...
- 322
18
votes
Accepted
Why was S&P 500 PE Ratio so high on May 2009
Asking why the p/e was so high is best answered "because reported earnings were so low".
Recall that the S&P500 bottomed in early March 2009 when the panic of the financial crisis reached ...
- 6,400
17
votes
Can I profit from anticipating a drop in value?
Purchasing an option to sell the stock is probably the safest bet. This gives you reasonable leverage, and your risk is limited to the cost of the option.
Say the stock currently sells for $100 per ...
- 10.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible