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I hope you loaded up on GM when you were talking about it. It's at $38 bucks a share now.
Since when was GM 60 cents a share? I looked and it never went below $33 in the last 3 to 5 years. Or am I looking at something wrong?

 
Do you understand the stock market? Had some discussion about this with a few guys yesterday and figured I'd do a bit of a straw poll. Does anyone here feel they understand the stock market to any degree?

In recent years, the thing companies seem to do is just let their price climb. Historically the stocks never really got above $100 or if they did a stock split would occur. Do people really understand that a stock having value of $50 may not mean the company is any better off than another trading for $40?

I by no means would say I understand the stock market. I can spot big things that may cause one to move up or down a bit, but in general the movement of the market or individual stocks and what makes it tick seems to just be smoke and mirrors a lot of times.

And yes, yesterdays debate was the result of the fact that for a little bit MSFT surpassed Google in value, and the fact that we didn't figure most of the general public understood how a stock price of ~$32 would possibly be better than something near $800 a share....

 
I know just a little bit on how it works over the past few years. I know it's right up jmanz's alley though. I could had made tons of money in the past years with guesses what will be big and what won't be. I could had made alot of money. I just never had money to dump into them in the first place.
 
I know just a little bit on how it works over the past few years. I know it's right up jmanz's alley though. I could had made tons of money in the past years with guesses what will be big and what won't be. I could had made alot of money. I just never had money to dump into them in the first place.
Yeah, the startup funds aren't easy to come up with. Like I said, the amount I know is pretty miniscule, but I still think it's probably slightly more than most people that just see a headline somewhere and think "oh wow, that Stock is up to $1000, that company must be the best ever to invest in. I wish I had a $1000"
 
See I would be the opposite. I guess if you want to ride the bandwagon and have safe and stable stocks then average companies would be the ones to take stock out in. The ones I look for are start up companies that are coming out with break through ideas. Stock is low and when their products hit the market, boom their stock soars. It's not even in the companies with new products but simple things like parts that may be used in another product. Like take for example after 9/11 when the x-ray machines were introduced. You might had looked into not only the companies making the x-ray scanners themselves, but the makers of the parts that went into them.
 
I don't know much about stocks to have an intelligent conversation. You need money to make money. From what I understand the buy-in for ipo such as google when they came out was $100 a share, but you would have needed to spend thousands or tens of thousands to secure it at that price. Also, seemingly, you can buy in larger volumes for lower prices.

I don't know how normals buy into the market outside of 401ks, IRAs and mutual funds. Or stock options from being employed at a large company or small startup. I rolled a 401k to an IRA with Fidelity in 2007, but didn't feel comfortable doing anything other than leaving it cash at the time (now its in another plan, but I don't remember what it is)

The other thing to note is that the big shot traders (according to the internet at least) lay fiber to get quicker trades on their custom algorithm trading software. My perception over time is that I don't know enough to invest anymore than my employer would match in a 401k plan.

 
Just a tip for you stock guys. Right now I would be watching companies that make 3D printers or materials that go into 3D printers. The next few years these things are going to be hot.
 
Just a tip for you stock guys. Right now I would be watching companies that make 3D printers or materials that go into 3D printers. The next few years these things are going to be hot.
Which companies do you like?

 
Which companies do you like?
No clue about them. I have just been seeing them more and more latey. In fact I just read that UPS is going to start carrying them in their stores. You gonna have to do research on the companies making them. Plus they must use some sort of refillable material for printing.

 
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If by looking at articles (which means it already went mainstream and thus stock prices would be mostly reflected), the two main big players are: 3D Systems(NYSE:DDD) and Stratasys(NASDAQ: SSYS). Stratasys is making the $16K machine for UPS in the video above in nodle's post. They are also said to be stable and hopefully won't go belly up anytime soon. But there are small players that could gear their products to different masses and thus become very successful. That's why playing the stock market is difficult, 99% of what we read already means it's mainstream, so we go by our gut on future projections...unless you have insider tips. Though I do think a long term investment in the big players will yield nice profits, but you have to be patient through the ups and downs.
 
Tesla (TSLA) is on fire today! They had a good financial report last night, also heard that they scored well on some crash tests today. An expensive stock at 157 per share but there might be some meat left on the bone.
 
Kinda interested in what other stocks people will think will be big in the future. What do you guys think?
 
Noodles & Company (NDLS) is another one I like. They are adding locations like crazy and they posted even better earnings than expected today. They were just added to the market a couple of months ago.
 
Noodles and Company is pretty legit, tried them out in Fargo yesterday. Might have to get in on this one. Could be the next Chipotle
 
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