Well, my uncle didn't have QUITE a 100% record, but pretty close. He's 99 now and in the "spending it down" phase. One stock he DID ride all the way to zero was Commodore Computer. That cured him of the "it can't go to zero" belief. Late 1980's.
I've been somewhat luckier. I haven't ridden anything that far down yet. I pay attention and I have the added advantage of being juuuuust young enough to have some formal knowledge of tech, and I spend a lot of time on understanding it. New tech startups don't even want to get big any more; they only want to be bought by somebody big so the "angel investors" can get their money out with a profit. At some point, Blackberry/RIM became basically a Canadian "pride" or "patriotism" play. That's not a good place to find oneself.
Yea I am just gonna wait till dec and pre order all my stuff together and save on ship. If trends keep up should be cheaper mid dec . Will have to wait and see.
They have a chance as a software company, phones just couldn't compete app wise which is all that matters for phones now
Preordering bullion is standard. I have done it with APMEX and ASEs. The price is firm so by preordering you are betting the price will go up. If it goes down you are just out.
Actually it IS TRUE. "About 2/3rd of trading in the US is dominated by high frequency algorithm trades and ETFs. Active investing industry is a shrinking industry where even professional investors with an army of highly trained analysts find it hard to beat the market on consistent basis. Although, each one of us thinks that she is an excellent investor, the reality or results tell a different story. The major reason is market timing. Most individual investors do not get the timing right, largely because of lack of a disciplined process, and greed and fear." Take a look at the Dunning Kruger effect. Its somewhere in a 80/20 split. 20% win and 80% lose.
All that is true, but it ignores that "beating the market" isn't even necessary for an individual investor to come out ahead. If you're claiming that the system is rigged so that the individual investor isn't doing as well as he should in a fair market, you're right. But that's true of EVERY market - equities, debt (bonds), AND commodities. Pros that handle trades are "front running" most orders and therefore the individual is slightly overpaying on the way in, and undercollecting on the way out. Even WITH all that, most individuals come out ahead. Just not AS FAR ahead as they should. That said, no profit is EVER real until you sell.
Oh, I get that; my point was that they get to play with YOUR money for the time interval between order and delivery, and all other things being equal, the longer that is the better for the seller.
This has become an AWESOME discussion, and I feel I've already learned a lot from all the obviously very knowledgeable back and forth in the thread.
That was quite a long goalpost-haul from ...and it's still wrong. "Individual investors" trying to beat the market with day trades are a blip next to the big players. Yes, they're likely to get spanked by the big players. But buy into ETFs or mutual funds, and you get to ride on the big players' shoulders. So what if they get 12%, but you only see 10%? That's still a 10% return, better than money (or, lately, silver and gold) under the mattress.