Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stockmarket

Television advertisement showing the stock market as a frenzied sideshow

drdanger — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:10:10 -0800

Saw a television ad several years ago with fantastic art direction depicting the stock market as a circus or similar frenzy of colorful, somewhat frightening characters. Can anyone help me track it down? I'm guessing I saw this ad on American television about five years ago, but it could have been as early as 2000. The imagery and intensity struck me more like a Fellini movie than like a typical advertisement. It was colorful, kinetic, and showed a shouting, frenzied sideshow of crazy characters. There was the two-faced broker who yelled, "Buy! Buy! Buy" until he did a 180 and his other face yelled, "Sell! Sell! Sell!" There were carnival barkers and blimps and I can't remember what all else. The point, of course, was that the sponsor (Schwab? Ameritrade?) would offer you a refuge from the hysteria. I would love to find a video of this, but alternatively enough information to track it down in the real world (sponsor? agency?) would be enough for my eternal gratitude.

I want TO HAVE bought stock!

jefficator — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:14:22 -0800

Is there a stock market simulator that would let me "buy" stock at an arbitrary in the past and watch how that purchase would have affected my portfolio? I'm impatient to test my hand with the market--I want to start trading as soon as an impending cash windfall arrives. Obviously, however, I don't want to trade foolishly. I've set up a simulator account, but that won't "kick in" until the market opens tomorrow. Is there any way I can run simulations all day today using some "historical" simulator? As in "Buy 1 share of Caterpillar," but set the calendar to March 2, for instance?

How to make a bet on interest rates

thenormshow — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 10:17:22 -0800

How do I, as a small investor in Canada, make a bet, (preferably leveraged) as to what interest rates are going to be in 5 years? My wife and I are buying a condo, and I want to protect us from being hit by high interest rates. (We bought pre-construction, there's no way out of it, and we've accepted it and moved on. We move in in a year.) Problem is, in Canada, people usually take a 5 or 10 year fixed term, and the rate for a 5 year term is at 4%, while a 10 year term is at 5.25%. A 25 year mortgage is crazy expensive. Check out www.canequity.com.

Really what I'd like to do is buy something akin to an out of the money call option. Spend a small amount to make a bet that will likely be worth zero, but pays off huge if an unlikely event happens. There's general agreement that rates are likely to be higher 5 years from now. The bet I want to make would be on rates are substantially higher than pretty much anyone expects.

Essentially, I want to take the lower, 5 year rate on our mortgage, and then hedge, so that we're not in pain if the rate goes up huge in the meantime. Based on the price of this bet, I might be persuaded to take the 10-year term.

I don't know what kind of security I could buy that would do this. I know that certain sectors of the stock market are interest rate sensitive, but I want something more closely linked to interest rates.

Thanks!

Dump that Stock!

Static Vagabond — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:07:42 -0800

Stock market related questions-- help me drown in data! I want to improve my coding skills and virtually playing the stock market seems like it might be quite a fun way to do so, but I desperately need data to enable my endeavor.

So I'm looking for two elements really,

A detailed historical dump of the stock market, per smallest time unit possible, current I can easily find a daily current/high/low/average but I want to play around with minute (or second) values ideally but can't seem to find that anywhere.

Programming: Are there any stock-brokers that let you use their API (so you can program your own automated trader/interfaces) on a play account, for free?

The first element is the main one, I can essentially just play the stock-market offline if I have that, but it'd be great fun to actually link in with a play account on a (semi) real-time basis. Who knows, in a couple of years, maybe I'll try it for real.

Extra points for good resources on introductions to the various models used to predict the markets.

Any help appreciated!

Help Me Make My Paper Dress Last

thivaia — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:47:53 -0800

What is the best way to attach newsprint to a dress to insure reasonable longevity? After being challenged to go as something "scary" for Halloween, I opted to dress as the stock market . I have ripped pages from the Wall Street Journal and have thusfar attached them (in tiers) with fabric glue to the skirt of a never-to-be worn again strapless bridesmaid's dress with an A-line skirt. ( I plan to use black ribbon and fabric paint on the bodice to recreate the ticker and blacken an eye to indicate being slapped by the invisible hand.)

This dress will be worn for about six hours total on Friday, but I would like it to stay intact for most of those six hours. I have even less experience with paper dresses than I do with sewing. I wonder if any of you crafty folk have any ideas at all about how to make this work---a shellac? a sealant? a finising/decoupage solution?

It looks pretty amazing right now, by the way.

Financial crisis blog recommendations?

vizsla — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:21:38 -0800

Recommend any financial crisis blogs written by people who are following all the relevant indicators, or by people involved in the finance industry, who are trying to make sense of the market and economy?

Buying Low?

weapons-grade pandemonium — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:31:10 -0800

Stock market investment filter: Buying opportunities? Let's say Obama is elected in November and the U.S. economy gets a shot of optimism. Let's assume an investor is lucky enough to time when the market bottoms or turns around. What sectors or companies would most reliably recover or be quickest to recover from the current meltdown, and why? What indicators would you look for in a prospective investment with the Democrats in power?

Difference between the Canadian and American Markets Relative to Their Economies.

Toto_tot — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:17:28 -0800

On the Financial crisis: If the Canadian economy is in a stronger state than the American economy then why is the TSX posting larger point and percentage losses than the Dow and Nasdaq? Is it about investor whim or the make-up of each individual index?

Should I jump ship from my Vanguard mutual funds account?

metamush — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:03:59 -0800

Should I pull my money out of the stock market? I'm pretty clueless. Well, it seems we are facing the largest plunge on the stock market since 9/11. And I'm pretty clueless about the stock market in general, which is why I am seeking your superior knowledge.

In May of 2007, when I graduated college, I invested $3,000 in a Vanguard mutual fund (symbol VFINX). I've only lost money since then, and its sunk down to about $2300. For me, $700 is a lot of money. That's like half a paycheck!

Should I pull the money out and put it in a CD? Or just keep it in there and wait for things to turn around?

Credible returns on investment in virtual world finance?

vizsla — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:30:37 -0800

Anybody have experience in investing in virtual world banks/businesses/markets (such as those in SecondLife.com etc)? Do they provide a serious way of making a sensible risk/reward on five or six figure investments? I have found discussion of investing in virtual worlds in this article for example which concludes its very high risk but maybe someone has heard of a viable diversification strategy out there?

Resource for evaluating past stock recommendations?

ibmcginty — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:10:23 -0800

Is there anyone (especially online) who's collected reasonably well-informed stock picks from, say, 2, 5, or 15 years ago and explained why the recommendations did or did not work out? Is there a better way to track that stuff down than hunting around for old articles on financial websites? It seems like making the effort to learn from mistakes in the past would help guard against over-optimistic, irrationally exuberant picks today.

VTIVX FOF FTW?

selfnoise — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:24:57 -0800

What, if anything, is a "Target Retirement" fund like VTIVX missing? I am about to roll my 401k from a previous employer into an IRA at Vanguard. (The previous employer's plan doesn't have great plan options and the webacccess/customer service is crap).

I'm currently 29 years old, so I was thinking of putting a large portion of this rollover into VTIVX, which is a bundle of different Vanguard Index funds. It seems like a cost effective way of buying into funds that I would probably just have purchased separately otherwise.

My question is, should I be looking to add anything else from Vanguard's offerings to diversify or enhance my overall selection? For example, this fund of funds does not include REITs... would it make sense to invest in something like VGSIX in addition to it? Or am I overthinking this?

I realize that there probably isn't a scientific answer to this question. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Liquidating an estate in the USA... in today's economy. Shouldn't we just wait a while?

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:33:00 -0800

How should we handle liquidating assets in an estate in the USA right now? Assets consist primarily of a stock portfolio and a house. My father recently passed away, leaving behind an investment portfolio worth about $650,000 and a house valued at $300,000. This will be split 6 ways; four of the inheritors have expressed a preference to liquidate everything straightaway and wash their hands of it.

Aside from the emotional issues the other 2 inheritors have with rushing into this, we are wondering financially what is the best way to handle this given today's market conditions. My understanding is that housing prices are very low, and we can all see what's happening with the stock market. My first reaction is that now is an extremely bad time to be liquidating any assets from a strictly economical perspective; this view is what I am asking for your feedback on.

None of us are very experienced in financial matters; we plan on searching for a financial advisor next business week, but in the meantime I would appreciate any informed advice about how we can best retain the value of these assets as we decide how to handle the estate.

Specifically:

1) Should we sell the house now and take what we can get, or is it likely that we could get more value from holding on to it for a year or so and possibly trying to rent it in the meantime? I think that there are two factors that would contribute to the house being sold under value: today's market conditions, and the desire on the part of the executor of the will to sell the house as quickly as possible regardless of any loss. At least one of these seems avoidable, but if the market is expected to worsen, it would be an advantage to sell it now. No one plans to live in the house, but there are local family members who have offered to help with its care and administration if needed.

2) Same as above for stocks; I have not yet seen the contents of the portfolio, but am inclined to believe that after the November elections, there is a good chance the economy will be positively affected. We also know that the portfolio consisted of low-risk stocks aimed more at stability and long-term returns. Should we wait and see, for this or any other reasons, or should we cash it in now in case things get even worse?

3) The biggest concern: what happens if the 6 beneficiaries disagree on the questions above? One of the four who wants to eat the whole cake now will have power of attorney by Monday. If the two of us strongly disagree with his opinions on how to handle the assets, what happens?

More important background: the 4 who want to take the money and run are all 40-something homeowners who are married with 2 or 3 kids apiece, have Masters degrees, are stably employed in long-term careers, and generally already have all the security they could ask for as far as I know. We (the other two) are in our early twenties, have bachelor's degrees, are employed but with very modest salaries, and are unmarried. I think these differences are serious and, without being selfish, I feel that given that they have so much more security, our needs for the near future should be prioritized. The people who left this inheritance were there to support them when they were our age, and we no longer have any sort of safety net. Side question: is this incredibly selfish of me? I realize that they are probably looking forward to using their share towards their children's college tuition and their retirement funds, but the fact is that a few thousand dollars lost by liquidating sooner than necessary could mean a lot more to the younger beneficiaries. We are not sure why they want to rush into liquidating everything immediately when none of them have any immediate need for large sums of cash that we know of, and certainly no one was anticipating this to happen now.

Again, we will look for a financial advisor and are going to speak with some attorneys in our local network as well, but appreciate your advice in the meantime.

Is an index fund really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

reenum — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:34:08 -0800

InvestingFilter: Is there anything inherently flawed about investing in index funds? I recently opened up a Roth IRA, and have invested in an S&P 500 Index Fund. I'll also be investing in a bond index soon.

I've been reading articles online and books such as 'The Lazy Person's Guide To Investing' by Paul Farrell. These books make it seem that investing in anything but index funds sets you up for a loss long term.

In my opinion, I'm a passive investor. I don't have the inclination to try and pick hot stocks. I'm fine getting a market average return. Farrell's book and some other sources such David Swenson make it seem that investing in anything but an index fund is lunacy. They harp on about load funds and how actively managed funds always underperform the market.

My question is: What's the catch about investing in index funds? It seems to good to be true. You keep putting money in and 30 years later, a nice pile is waiting for your retirement.

Some input from the more financial minded members of the Hive Mind would be much appreciated.

When do we abandon the stock market (for investing)?

raddevon — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:28:02 -0800

So, we're in a recession. At what point should we pull our investments out of the stock market? I know we're hearing from the media, analysts, and the powers that be that there is no problem and we will pull out of this. I've also heard the stories about how the same things were being said at the beginning of the great depression. I've got a Roth IRA that is entirely in the stock market. At what point do I move all that money to a safer investment and wait out the turmoil?

I've heard all the claims that this is the best time to invest because everything is cheaper, but I know that is only worthwhile if there is a rebound at some point. I'm not so sure anymore there will be a rebound.

Buy Low, Sell High

Weebot — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:26:50 -0800

Does anyone have any recommendations for any fantasy stock market games online? I've been looking at playing with some fantasy stock market games, and I was wondering if the Hive Mind has any recommendations. I'm pretty open to suggestions, and would be happy with games that mirror real brokerages and markets closely as well as those who trade in more esoteric virtual commodities—think the Hollywood Stock Exchange and similar fantasy exchanges.

How Can the U.S Economy not Fail?

raikkohamilonso — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:28:10 -0800

How Can the Economy not Fail? Given the debt each of us owes (what, something like $150,000 each?), rising oil costs, cpi going up, infrastructure moved out, failed dollar, failing banks, etc. etc... What can be done to stop it? Can anything be done? I'm recently married, would like to buy another house - but "things are not looking good at all".... I don't see what Obama and co. could do to fix the way things are going to be left, Bernanke obviously isn't - it *looks* like a derailed train..

Should I be planting potatoes in my backyard?

Lifestyle changes post modern day 1929-style market crash?

raikkohamilonso — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:16:09 -0800

If the stock market were to completely crash this year, how would the effects differ from 1929? I am not saying I think there will be one - or not. I am also not saying circumstances leading to it would be the same, or that there aren't different safeguards today versus 1929.

But if there were, how would daily life be affected for the years afterward?

Is silver a good investment?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:40:17 -0800

With the US economy apparently getting ready to go 'foom!', a friend of mine has become very excited about silver as an investment. So apparently the great thing with silver is, it's seriously undervalued at the moment, due to ages of behind-the-scenes manipulation to keep the price artifically low, which is now getting ready to 'splode and send the price from $14/oz to $100/oz or more, and furthermore even if it doesn't, it's certainly not going to get any cheaper, so the worst possible scenario is breaking even. Plus the fact that it's hard value and not "fiat currency", and it's necessary to get the hell away from US dollars and the stock market, because everything's going to burst into flames any day now, he says. He's in the process of converting his savings into a safe-deposit box full of silver. Though I sound flippant, he's actually very convincing... but he's self-educated in these issues, so I'm hoping AskMeta has some more experienced economists.

At the moment, I have no retirement fund, but I do have about $23 grand in a mutual fund. I'd been thinking about cashing out some of it to start an IRA anyway, but given the current economic situation, what should I do? Should I get my money out of the fund and away from the stock market? And do what with it? IRA? Is an IRA safe if the US goes mega-inflation? Is that likely to happen? Should I buy a pantload of silver bullion and bury it in the yard? I don't know anything about any of this grown-up crap. Help!

(posting anonymous for reasons of not discussing my finances with strangers)

I can't get into the O: drive!

wafaa — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:38:10 -0800

I work for a world-wide electronics manufacturer--OEM, medical devices, design, test, etc. Business is so s-l-o-w. They have let temps go, they are cleaning house of the slackers, rumors of layoff abound. What is the current situation in the business of electronics, and more importantly, what should I be looking at in terms of "yep, you might be next on the list"? My department meetings consist of charts galore--backlog, inventory, sales, projections--the usual Powerpoint presentation. Instead of worrying about who's bringing the donuts, to what should I really be paying attention?

Stock market simulator

antipasta_explosion — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:25:45 -0800

Is there a good simulator for playing the stock market with imaginary money? I tried Yahoo Finance portfolio, but it requires you to go and look up the trading price (extra steps). Plus when you want to add something on the weekend, you have to wait until Monday morning when the markets open and see what the price is that you'd -really- be getting. Too much work!

So is there a place where I can dump some play money and pretend that I'm doing real selling & buying, with the system taking care of the legwork with the imaginary trades?

Computers were meant to do this kind of thing.

ScarletPumpernickel — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:29:02 -0800

How can a non-programmer automate their stock market screening and timing process? (semi-long explanation inside.) I've been helping my pal with his elaborate, many-years-in-the-making stock screening and timing process. I moved him from pen and paper to websites and Excel, but it's still labor intensive. He spends hours a day combing through data, inputting by hand, and formatting charts.

What's the best data/programming method a non-programmer like me can use to automate this process?

What he's actually doing is simple database-like functions. If he were screening for WalMart employees, he would be doing queries like "find all bachelors over forty with brown eyes and German surnames who have lived at the same address for five years."

Since some stock data changes from day to day, I'd like his to be able to download data into some kind of an app, and have it automagically pick the stocks he'd be interested in. Oh, and I have to be able to change the screening process, as he tends to tinker with it. (So far, to his benefit.)

No need to do real time, but a couple of times a day would be good. The data source need to be comprehensive, because he tracks all kinds of things beyond my ken like P/E, float, and capital expenditures.

I know enough FileMaker to kludge something together, but it's not much better than Excel. I'd really like a way to build an app that would download the data and offer the answers.

Thanks for any and all solutions!

Help me leverage my ability to pick failing companies.

Ryvar — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:52:46 -0800

Help me leverage my ability to pick failing companies. I've been playing fantasy stock market games lately, and have been doing pretty well at it (325% returns in two and a half months). Out of fifty picks, I've made money on 80% of my long positions and 93% of my short positions. By FAR my biggest gains have been on short positions (multiple instances of +70% returns in under two weeks). I have a few thousand in a brokerage account on ETrade that I use for short-term high-risk experiments with real money, but brokerage restrictions involving short positions prevent me from mirroring my fantasy gains in real life.

I seem to be extremely good at picking out when a company is about to implode, just before it does so. There's a new forthcoming implosion on my radar today. How can a market dabbler like myself effectively leverage this ability to consistently spot good shorts, given brokerage restrictions on shorting stocks?

My money is doing nothing more than 80% of the time!

tasty — Sun, 27 May 2007 20:53:06 -0800

Since the stock market is only active from 9:30-4 M-F, (less than 20% of the hours in the week, and even less of the year because of holidays), is it possible to sell at the end of the day and plop the money into a savings account, and then buy again on the beginning of the next day? If not, what prevents this from happening? Is it just fees? Would be an easy way to make an extra 4%/year from interest.

'Ethical' funds?

lindsey.nicole — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:49:26 -0800

How ethical are Ethical Funds? After meeting with an SRI adviser and perusing the literature, I'm not so sure. Recently I got interested in investing my money in something more profitable than a term deposit. I know nada about the stock market, but after reading up on Socially Responsible Investing, positive screening, etc, Ethical Funds seemed like a good fit. So I set up a meeting with an SRI specialist at my credit union to talk it over.

I'd thought SRI meant investing in only 'good' companies (told you I was new to this). Through the meeting I found out certain businesses I find rather reprehensible - and make a point of not frequenting - are on the list for most SRI funds. At least, that's how I understood it.

My adviser was pretty convincing - stakeholder activism, power to bring about change, and so on - but I'm still doubtful. Yeah, it's great that socially-minded stakeholders convinced Company X to finally produce a sustainability report - but if X still employs sweatshops, busts unions, and in general conducts itself in a way that I don't support, it seems like a moot point. I'm all for changing businesses from the inside, but it seems like any changes accomplished will be concessionary at best.

So I have a few questions. Feel free to answer any or all, in whichever way you see fit:

1) Do the benefits of ethical investing outweigh the negatives?
2) What have your experiences been with Ethical Funds, or related funds (Meritas, etc)?
3) Are there any other options? I know about local, microcredit initiatives, but I'm wondering if there are any super-ethical plans with very rigorous criteria (and whether they make any money at it).
4) How much knowledge/time would it take for me to be able to invest on my own, without a built-in plan? And would this be worthwhile, considering I'd be filtering out a lot of profitable companies? I should clarify that I mean "worthwhile" financially - I'm aware that supporting socially responsible companies is rewarding in non-monetary ways.