[bigboydan]

google stock was $400 this week. makes me wonder if i should start playing the stock market.

Investing Or Gambling?

NEW YORK, Nov. 18, 2005

(CBS/AP)


Don't you hate that when every time you look at a stock, you think, "Well its too late for me," and the stock keeps rising?

Do you Google? Do you own a computer? When I first discovered Google I knew it was the coolest thing. I used to tell people about it and they would thank me for weeks.

Eventually just about everyone was Googling and that's when Google stock went public. Well, Google stock went over $400 this week. And I must confess I'm one the idiots who has watched from the sidelines as Google has made its dizzying rise.

Don't you hate that when every time you look at a stock, you think, "Well its too late for me," and the stock keeps rising? Is it over-priced now? Is the bubble about to burst? Is investing in Google, investing, or simply gambling at this point?

Every time I pick up the paper I read about yet another Google initiative. This week it was Google moving into online classifieds. Brilliant. Google never stops growing, so the stock should keep growing, right? Unless it doesn't.

[pags11]

personally, I wouldn't mess with it Dan...

[bigboydan]

i probly won't pags to be honest with you.

[Illusion]

Ask John, I think he is really big into stocks.

[natrass]

By the same principle, he did miss the so-called dot.com easy profits.

[mad]

Seems a pretty high price. They making serious money?

If not wait for the inevitable correction. I like to buy when i hear media commentators whining about how low the market is, how it is the worst they've seen in 10 years etc.. Sell when everyone is bragging about how much money they're making and how easy the stockmarket is to make $$$. Contrarian is the word i am looking for.

[tacomax]

Google's IPO price was $85 - they've increased nicely but it's not as if they started out at $2 a share. But the big money was a few years ago in the tech boom - you could buy anything at IPO knowing it would double in the first week.

[JoshW]

Just like anything the less churn the better unless you can make money. If 99.9% of the population is thinking about gambling vs. investing they would be better off investing if they buy and hold. If they are just buying a couple stocks with all their money and selling all the time, they are pretty much just as screwed as a better. I personally keep my gambling to a minimum in the market: low cost domestic and foreign index funds.

[bigboydan]

By the same principle, he did miss the so-called dot.com easy profits.

ah yes, the dot com craze. i feel sorry for those people that ended up losing there ass, on some of those stocks.

[BrentCrude]

For the small time stock player,you can get micro cap pink sheet over the counter stock sometime for $100 for a million shares.One called PRRM that is into outdoor media,t.v.,magazines,ski equipment is selling at .0001 a share.They promise not to reverse split which is the kiss of death for a penny stock.Alot of these penny stocks will keep reverse splitting and it's a racket to make the ceo and his cronies rich.A million shares turns into 1,000 shares overnight and a couple months later that 1000 shares that were a dime are back to .0001 of a penny again.Nice work if you can get it.A gay t.v.network symbol QBID went up a couple hundred fold from .0001 to 2 or 3 cents awhile back making some penny stock players wealthy.

Anyone ever watch the movie Boiler Room with Vin Diesel?Great movie and usually those type of rogue stockbrokers are into creating rogue sportsbooks.The two go hand in hand.

If anyone wants to get into penny stock trading,the best and one of the only brokers that let's you buy small amounts like one million shares for $100 is Ameritrade Plus.They are low on commissions too at $20 a trade and they vow never to charge you with inactivity fees.

[BrentCrude]

I forgot to add that buying a million shares of a company like PRRM for a Christmas present for a young son and daughter isn't a bad deal.Or if you are unemployed and don't have taxable income.If the stock does go up to let's say the income tax threshold of 7 or 8 thousand and you sell,you don't have to pay taxes.

[tacomax]

Anyone ever watch the movie Boiler Room with Vin Diesel?Great movie and usually those type of rogue stockbrokers are into creating rogue sportsbooks.The two go hand in hand.

Coincidentally, I saw that a night or two ago. While watching I couldn't help thinking how close it came to my expectations of some scam tout operation or operating a dodgy book.

[blue rhino]

That movie gets you thinking about how many scams are actually out there. It's scary to see how some people will just throw money at anything without knowing one thing about it.

[BrentCrude]

A little side note about penny stock.It's always slanted in the market makers favor.They have a huge spread between ask and bid.That's what they sell it for and what they pay for a stock.Once a stock goes to .0001 of a penny and you buy it for that,the average person can't sell it until it goes up.The brokers and market makers have a huge advantage also because they trade at a .00000 decimal that average Joe traders can't buy or sell at.It's pure speculation because there is so little light shed on the actual finances of these companies.They put out glowing fantastic PR's ''public relation announcements''and most aren't true.They even have to have disclaimers attached to these PR's sort of like tobacco companies putting danger labels on their products.Brokers when you buy these stocks make you sign a form saying they were unsolicited trades.Most people call these penny stocks pump and dump stocks because you wait for the company to hype them to no end where they skyrocket up in price and you dump them before they go back down.Hardly anyone ever keeps them long term thinking that they will become the next Microsoft and they can hand down a fortune to their kids in stock collecting dividends.These stocks never generate money dividends but will give what's called spinoff restricted worthless stock as dividends.

One thing these penny stocks can do for a person is give the owner a gambling rush for a cheap price.You might buy a million shares for $100 and everyday for 3 years you may check the stock quotes hoping each time you see it go up in value.It's like having a bet on a football game that lasts for years.