Any stockbrokers here?

My house is a few blocks away from two commercial properties. These commercial properties are still for sale for 7 years. They used to be beautiful trees. I am happy that they are not sold out yet, but I am starting to nervous about the property value that makes the commercial developers (commercial buyers) excite to buy them for a cheap price. Is that true?

I am trying not off the topic here because you got me attention about your real estate stuff. You mentioned your two homes - which is really great. I would say that it is not perfect but a least that you are still making some money from the renters no matter what. Actually, I have two homes. I had a bad renter for about five years with his behind payments and we were not able to kick him and his family out because they had little kids at that time which is against the law. After five years, they finally moved out and I moved back to my home for now to fix it up slowly. I didn't want to sell my stocks in order to fix up my house because of bad economy. I was told that the bad economy won't be recovered for 20 more years. Should we stick our stocks or what?
 
I'm not making any money from our second home at all; it's strictly a vacation home for ourselves. We live there just short of half the year, from early May to late October. LOVE it.

Re: sticking to stocks: yes, but with an eye to careful asset allocation, keeping in mind how much risk you want to take, for how long, AND making sure you have adequate cash reserves on hand.

For a young person, it would not be unreasonable to have as much as 80% of long-term savings in stocks or stock funds. For an older person (older than age 75, say), maybe 30 % might be appropriate. For those of us in early retirement, 50%, plus or minus 5% depending on other assets, might make sense.

"Adequate cash reserves" would mean that you would not have to sell stocks to fix up your house, for example, because your cash on hand should cover things like that. In your case, it sounds like you're doing it right to fix it up slowly, as you can afford to out of your current income, rather than sell stocks at a loss.
 
wow man, I don't know that much about stock market and investing as you guys do...but just curious, has anyone ever worked with automated trading or high-frequency trading?
 
sheila022 said:
wow man, I don't know that much about stock market and investing as you guys do...but just curious, has anyone ever worked with automated trading or high-frequency trading?
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I don't think, or at least feel any regular on AD is a high profile trader. If they did they would at least very rarely post around here...

They'd be enjoying their riches right now, not on the forum! ;)
 
sheila022 said:
wow man, I don't know that much about stock market and investing as you guys do...but just curious, has anyone ever worked with automated trading or high-frequency trading?
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I have a friend that does. She doesn't seem like the happiest of people. :lol: But she does well. Her office looks like a sports bar but instead of games they are full of blinking charts.
 
naisho said:
I don't think, or at least feel any regular on AD is a high profile trader. If they did they would at least very rarely post around here...

They'd be enjoying their riches right now, not on the forum! ;)
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I think you might be surprised. I have met a few here that trade pretty aggressively.
 
sheila022 said:
wow man, I don't know that much about stock market and investing as you guys do...but just curious, has anyone ever worked with automated trading or high-frequency trading?
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my brother
 
TXgolfer said:
At a bank?
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no. before the bank job, he worked at a small firm in wall street that does trading thru computers. his boss came in, plopped down on chair, traded for about 10 minutes, and he left. he was done for a day.

why? he just made $5,000.
 
Jiro said:
no. before the bank job, he worked at a small firm in wall street that does trading thru computers. his boss came in, plopped down on chair, traded for about 10 minutes, and he left. he was done for a day.

why? he just made $5,000.
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Ah ok...lol Whew.
 
sheila022 said:
wow man, I don't know that much about stock market and investing as you guys do...but just curious, has anyone ever worked with automated trading or high-frequency trading?
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Not me. I look at what the market is doing every day, look at the leading indicators, etc., etc., but I don't make many changes in my holdings. I have mutual funds, not individual stocks or bonds (other than some gov't EE bonds), so I feel no need to be constantly in and out of the market.

If I think things are really going south (which I did in 2008), I move all my stock mutual funds into a gov't bond fund, so as to tread water and preserve capital. Then move back out of it at some point when analysis and a bit of guess-work lets me think we are close to a market bottom.

I made quite a bit of money from 2009 to July of this year following that plan, but then didn't move out of stocks in late July, even though I thought about it. From then until last week, things were looking increasingly grim as prices declined.

Now things are looking up again, though. I think we've been through a modest correction, and the market recovers more quickly after a correction than after a true bear market (loss of 20% or more). So, fingers crossed, I think I'll come out all right for the year.

I don't have the time, energy, or inclination to do day-trading with my money. If I were using someone else's money, it might be fun. :lol:
 
I buy and sell myself. I don't do stocks but I would like to someday. The problem is that one day it's very high. The next day, it's very, very low.

I saw this book when I was window shopping at Barnes and Nobles. I thought it was an interesting book. Not sure if I would want to get this one.
 

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Many years ago, I put a big amount of money in CD at bank. It was helpful for me as interest rate was much higher back then. Now I cannot make much interest on them. No more CDs for me.
 
Certificate of Deposit. A time-based savings, you buy a certificate for a certain amount of time and get paid a fixed interest rate.
 
You would lose a bit of interest (typically 3 months) if you cash it in ahead of the maturity date.

Other than that, it's a perfectly fine vehicle for *savings.* Not so much for investments, because the rates right now are really, really, low. But it's a perfectly valid place to stash your emergency savings, for instance. If you have laddered CDs (if you buy a series of them so you have one maturing every six months, say, for a period of 3 years), then you can just keep rolling them over every six months. You would get the highest interest rate possible on the longer-term maturities (although right now, even those longer-term rates are pretty meager).

As a place for your emergency savings or even your "life happens" fund, it's fine. Your money is safe, it's pretty liquid, has only the minimal interest rate loss if you need to cash one in early, but it's not something you're going to be easily tempted to tap into for general living expenses that aren't emergencies.

CDs also would protect an investor from having to cash in stocks at an inopportune time, because they would provide needed cash on a regular basis.
 
Beach girl said:
You would lose a bit of interest (typically 3 months) if you cash it in ahead of the maturity date.

Other than that, it's a perfectly fine vehicle for *savings.* Not so much for investments, because the rates right now are really, really, low. But it's a perfectly valid place to stash your emergency savings, for instance. If you have laddered CDs (if you buy a series of them so you have one maturing every six months, say, for a period of 3 years), then you can just keep rolling them over every six months. You would get the highest interest rate possible on the longer-term maturities (although right now, even those longer-term rates are pretty meager).

As a place for your emergency savings or even your "life happens" fund, it's fine. Your money is safe, it's pretty liquid, has only the minimal interest rate loss if you need to cash one in early, but it's not something you're going to be easily tempted to tap into for general living expenses that aren't emergencies.

CDs also would protect an investor from having to cash in stocks at an inopportune time, because they would provide needed cash on a regular basis.
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Ah, gotcha. I thought fixed rates meant absolutely fixed for the duration of the time period so when dereksbicycle said he invested years ago but rates have changed, I assumed he meant the rate for the CDs he bought years ago had changed or that inflation was greater than the interest accumulated.
 
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