I just wanted to know how you guys choose where and who to invest in. Do you pay for stock information? How do you find new companies to invest in? Is there a core group of stocks you invest in or do you have some sort of monitoring system of tons and tons of stocks which lets you know when certain stocks are undervalued? Do you invest with your gut?

In order to answer some of these questions with respect to me, I usually log into Marketwatch and read a lot of the front page stories and that is how I get exposed to new companies or how companies are doing. I then look at that chart and look at certain patterns like lows and highs and then I look at various news about the company. If the chart is high but there is a distinct upward trend, then I invest but only marginally. If there is a downward trend then I keep an eye on it to see when it turns around and then invest when I think it will be turning. I don't ever go into a companies financial information, but I do look at P/E and P/S ratios.

I don't invest in individual stocks anymore. I honestly don't have enough time right now, and don't have enough money to invest in stocks for the time spent to be worthwhile. Maybe in 10 years when I have $200k or so in liquid assets to play around with, it'll be worth my time to move outside of mutual funds (where I am now).

Back in the late 90's when I was not in full-time employment and had $5k to play around with, if I spent a week following and trading a couple stocks and made $100, I was happy. Depends on where you are in life, I guess.

That said, stockcharts.com is one of the best for technical charts (if you know how to read them) to analyze stocks and determine trends, MAs, candlestick, patterns, etc.

Cool, thanks. Does stockcharts.com have any sort of news system that pinpoints certain companies to look at or possibly invest in?

I should say this:

I only put money into stocks of those companies I know "very well". It's not that you read a lot of reports and then claim you know everything about a certain company. Most of the hear-say on those stock info sites are pure bullshoot.

and even so, the market is very hard to predict, I try to hang on to one stock once I buy it, and wait patiently. you might have heard about people come in and out of the market in a matter of days and making tons of cash. tell you what, fast money goes fast too. I am not greedy. as long as the money is better than other investment tools at the end of the year (funds, bonds, CDs), I am happy.

There is always a chance of a life time coming at you at some point. Don't be shy to play big.

Example, AZ just bought MEDI. Looking that trading history, lots of volumn about a month before the deal. Those are those insiders tradings. you don't have to be a daily trader, just make sure you don't miss such an event.

Check out the Investors Business Daily newspaper, especially the Monday edition with the IBD 100 list.

Index funds will likely make you more money over the long run than attempting to beat the market (either by yourself or one of those 'professional' managers). Very few of them beat the market each year and almost none of them do it two years in a row, much less over a 10 year or more period. Even managed mutual funds eat up your gains in fees and such compared to index funds over a long term.

If you've just got to 'play the market', make sure it is with money that you don't need for anything else at all. Even with all the work you might pour into it, you're at the whim of forces much more powerful than you if you are just trying to trade your way to big money. If you want to buy stock in individual companies, it's better to buy the stock of companies that you know you would want to own instead of what you think is going up.

I would recommend reading a variety of sources, too: WSJ, businessweek, financial news, even reading the message boards for particular stocks at yahoo finance and google finance (but be very skeptical, yahoo's boards are usually full of spam, google's seem a bit more level headed)

but always make your own decisions for your own reasons

Thanks, all great advice...I will consider some index funds. I will also read those financial sources. All of it seems a bit overwhelming, but I will see what I can find.

Another piece of suggestion, is not to buy a whole lot at one time, but instead, set up a purchase plan that would automatically buy some every week or every month. That is another good strategy to go against the market's up and downs.

Another option you can look into is ETFs instead of (or in addition to) index funds. Of course some track the indexes, e.g. SPY (S&P 500) and QQQ (NASDAQ), but there are literally hundreds of others available now. The benefit to these over mutual funds is that they can be traded like stocks - e.g. you can set stop loss orders, trade options on them, etc. Downside is that due to the ability to have more active trading, they may be less likely to truly follow the index than a traditional mutual fund. Also, in either case, watch those fees. Have fun!

Commissions on these can add up very quick. They allow you to trade at the time you want, where mutuals do all trades at the end of the trading day. OTOH with mutuals, if you are trying to liquidate on a big down day, you have to wait until the end of trading. If you "buy and hold" this is not a problem.

This is true. One other benefit to ETFs, especially sector-based ETFs, is that they don't charge a load. A lot of sector-based mutual funds (for example, Vanguard and Fidelity) charge loads on sector-focused funds held less than 1 or 2 years. A strategy I've been reading about is using ETFs as sector hedges, to get the diversification of a mutual fund (or portfolio of mutual funds), and stop-loss orders to manage downside risk on any given sector.

It took a lot of stubborness on my part to finally learn that the best method is to use as investing money funds that are not needed for 10 - 15 years and then to buy and hold. Historically, you will get good returns and can ignore the down periods entirely, as there has never been a 10 year down period. Market timing is luck, for the most part.

err... is anyone else having problems with StockCharts.com homepage? It's only updated to 3:26pm ET.