Patrick

I usually visit KF around 8 - 9 AM and around 5 PM. Besides listening to music and glancing at e-mail, it's probably what I'm focused on. I might have the TV on, though.

I don't usually have any set time frame in mind. You can, though, and some people do. It probably depends on your goals and situations. Sometimes I have, but I don't really have a reason to do so most of the time. But I buy when I think it's a good time to get in and sell when I think it's time to sell. Pretty general. My thinking is that if you invest in good companies, their prices will go up... and up and up over time, if they are truly good companies. You should watch to see if anything sours, but you don't want to be too impulsive. There will be peaks and valleys, but the progression and trend will hopefully be up. To that end, I could keep a stock until I retire or longer, if I don't need the money. I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but I wouldn't be shocked if I have some of the stock I have now when I'm 60, which is 38 years from now. Consider that if you bought 100 shares of Wal-Mart 38 years ago ... well, scratch that... they only IPOed 31 years ago, so let's go with that... it would have been an investment of $1,400. You'd now have 51,200 shares of Wal-Mart. That's $2,355,200 at the current price of 46. And that's not even counting 31 years worth of dividends. This year, for example, Wal-Mart has declared dividends of around $0.15 in each of the 4 quarters. A dividend of $0.15 x 51,200 = $7,680. Over a year, $30,720 in dividends alone - per year. Most people could live off of that alone. If you had sold in the 90s, you would have been a millionaire and no one would have blamed you. But, if you held on, you doubled that and the dividends just keep accumulating. Of course, Wal-Mart is certainly a special example (and one that is used pretty regularly, I think) as one of the most successful companies ever. But, there are a lot of successful companies out there. The point is, if you believed Wal-Mart was a good company and you bought 100 shares and held onto it... you're all set now. I don't think it's crazy to have that sort of mindset. Maybe you won't make millions, but hundreds of thousands of dollars. In any case, it all adds up. At the same time, you do want to have money and enjoy life when you're young, so that's a factor, of course. You can't put a price on happiness. Generally, though, I work for my present and invest for my future.

Yeah, I think so, although I've never really looked into that part of the site too much.

Hello, I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy holiday season and a happy, healthy and successful 2007. I appreciate everyone who has contributed to KarateForums.com in 2006 and I look forward to 2007! Thank you for reading.

I think you can listen to music there, but I don't. The neat part of it is that it tracks what you listen to. You listen to the music on your computer and their plugin, which you install, reports what you are listening to, to their server. Then they organize that data to present your most listened to artists, songs, etc.

Yeah. Investing in general is a good thing to get into, I think, even if you don't have any money to invest. Knowledge is power and all that. Whatever you can put in place for the future, not neccessarily stocks which are a riskier form of investment, but maybe mutual funds and that sort of thing. I remember when I got into the stock market, what got me into it was my Dad. He was into it, I wanted to do what he did and we started having stock competitions where we'd pick 3 stocks (no money invested, just pick 3 stocks) for a month or 3 months and see whose portfolio performed better. And that's how my interest started. I didn't put any real money into the market for many years. My first stock was Atari - my grandfather bought it for me for my birthday because I said I liked it. I sold it for a 300% profit and just played with that money ($300ish) for a while, adding maybe a few hundred more. I didn't get too deep money wise into the market until the last couple years. But, I had been watching it for so long that that certainly helped my comfort level and confidence. i.e. as a long term investor, I know not to stress over day to day fluctuations. So, if I buy a stock and it sinks... I don't get all freaked out. I invest in solid companies and I believe that, long term, they'll make me money. Whereas someone who is just getting into it might be thinking "what have I done?!?" At the end of the day, you never invest money that you can't lose.

Sorry to hear that. Doing alright here.

Sorry to hear that. No, never been through it.

Welcome aboard.

Hello, This topic should steer clear of general political issues (such as the state of the public school system, good or bad, and related effects and causes). Thank you.

I'm not really a new years resolution type of guy. I do want to get my drivers license, perhaps start going to some industry conferences and events and step it up to a new level professionally.

Are you on last.fm? It's a pretty neat site. My profile is at http://www.last.fm/user/iFroggy

I'll drink most sodas. I really like a lot of sodas. Most of the time, we drink the Wal-Mart brand soda (Sam's Choice). It tastes good to me/us and you can get 2 2 liters for the price of 1 of a Coca-Cola brand. I don't buy the soda, but it's kind of a no brainer I imagine if you want to save money and like the taste. You can drink twice the soda for the same price.

Thanks, I appreciate that. It's the proper spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. It fools people.

Yeah, I agree (with it never being too early). I've been watching the stock market since I was 10 and have had stock since I was 11. So, although I'm only 22, I've been following the market for 12 years.

How many martial arts have you taken (by your own definition)? Vote in the poll.

No problem. Yeah, I don't know much about CDs, never had one. I've had a bank account since I was probably 7, 8ish I think. I'm not sure what my age was, but my parents have this picture of me going to open a bank account. I'm holding up a zip loc bag (with my apparent life savings in it... it was probably like $30-$50), smiling.

I'll drink either as I imagine most people would, but I prefer Coke. My great grandfather (who I died before I was born) worked at Coca-Cola for 30 years. My great grandmother (his wife, who I did meet and know a little) worked at Pepsi for 10 years. But, they always drank Coke.

Welcome.

I used to play RuneScape a bit.

Well, it depends on how you define luck, I guess. I suppose there is some. But, you do your research and hopefully that eliminates the need for it.

For those that trade stocks, etc. online, what broker do you use? I use TD Ameritrade. I've been with them for a while, probably nearly or more than 3 years, not 100%.

We'll be at home. My grandmother is flying in, though. It's only been like 5 or 6 months since I last saw her, though.

Yeah, I mean, if you just have money sitting in your bank account that you aren't looking to invest/risk losing and you have enough to reach the minimums, there is no reason not to keep it in a higher interest bank account until you need to use it. Like I said, there are minimums, so you have to maintain those minimums or face some sort of penalty (you could always check to see if you could cancel the account if that happens, before you open it), so you'll want to make sure that you can maintain them. The interest on mine is 4.64% which I think is pretty good. Basically, what it amounts to is if you have $10-12,000 in there (as an example), you are going to generate $40-50 a month in interest. Over a year, you are looking at an extra $500 to $600. So, that's a nice bit of extra cash with no risk. The amount of money generated changes with how much money you have in there and/or how the interest rate changes. Money markets/high interest bank accounts are just like any other bank account. The main limitation, I believe, is that you can only write 3 checks/withdrawals to third parties in a month (or 6 total withdrawals period, including ones to yourself), so that's why you can't just have one high interest account. That's why you need the checking account since you probably have to pay more than 3 bills in a month. Anyway, hope I'm not just repeating things you already know.