I invested about $2,500 in Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) about three months and have seen a 10 percent increase in my portfolio value, which is not too bad considering that I've only started doing this for three months now. I'm generally patient and would definitely like to hold on to the stock for a long period, but I would also like to grow my portfolio value at a somewhat acceptable rate. My question is: How can I increase my small portfolio to higher values? Would you suggest I move away from stocks to other securities? If so, which ones? Thanks.
Your most important task is to do your homework. Never trust what someone says unless it is a fact verifiable with an official source. Do your own math and always be skeptical. As a somewhat new investor or trader, your first priority is to not lose money. Look around you and figure out how much risk you are willing to take on the money. Then find the investment vehicle that gives the most reward for that amount of risk.
Thanks for the reply. I have only started trading officially three months ago. Before that, I was practicing using a fake portfolio for about two years and for what it's worth, I made an annual gain of 25% the first year and 30% the next year. What other investment vehicles would you suggest for $2,500?
To be honest, that is not a whole lot of money. Most brokers require more than that to open an account. To daytrade stocks requires $25,000. You can swing-trade (leaving positions open overnight) with much less than that. One investment/trading vehicle requiring a very small amount of starting capital is e-mini futures. However, there is great risk in futures. Some will steer you this direction. Please read the risk disclosure at the below URL before proceeding, and if you still head that way, proceed with caution: http://www.chartingyourfutures.com/disclosure.htm I am not affiliated with that website. They are just one of the first to come up in a google search for the futures risk disclosure document. If you'd like anything explained after reading that, or are not interested in futures or options, just let me know... -Raystonn
Raystonn: I was aware of options and futures, but some reason, they don't get me excited at all. I'm more of a stocks person. Here's basically how I think: I'm fine playing the waiting game (the traditional buy low, sell high), but if the opportunity strikes, I'm willing to exit at decent returns (such as the 10% gain that I've seen with my MSFT holdings). So I was thinking that maybe I should exit and invest in stocks that are cheaper. Obviously it wouldn't make sense for me to invest in Google (GOOG) at over $375.00/share due to the limited budget I have. Maybe look at stocks that are around $10 and play the waiting game again. What do you think?
This is how I approach stock investing: Write down your criterion for stocks, including a minimum to filter out trash stocks, and a sort criterion which ensures your best picks are on top. Each day/week/whatever recheck all stocks in your universe and get the new top ten list. Split your funds evenly among all stocks in the list. The next day/week/whatever when you recheck/resort the stocks, exit any stock not on the list, and rebalance your portfolio to give all top ten stocks an even dollar amount of investment. In this manner you have no explicit exit signal other than the fact that the stock is no longer a top ten pick. You also limit your risk by diversifying to 10 stocks rather than just one. -Raystonn
Perhaps switch to a more frequent trading pattern? 3 months almost qualifies as investing rather than trading. Suss
Here's what you need to do. First, you need to earn a good living. Maximize your earnings from your job/business. Then you need to spend less then you earn and invest the difference. If you really want to grow your portfolio, you need to save 30% or more to invest. Invest that 30%, don't sell often...paying taxes is never a good thing, reinvest your dividends. Continue this process for 10 years, and you'll do well....30 years and you'll be very rich and have a very large portfolio.
you'd better learn to flip burgers and save money before taking a shot at flipping financial intruments.