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I am curious as to how many FG Members own and buy stock online. The U.S. market is moving right along as the DOW is possibly ready to set a record high today.

I buy stock and bonds on-line.

My stock holdings are mainly shares in individual companies and my bond holdings are mainly in mutual funds.

I use an on-line broker to transact the deals and always go for 'no load' funds when buying bonds.

I maintain a balance of stock and bond funds to counteract any significant swings in either.

With rising interest rates I also keep some holdings in the CD and Moneymarkets.

Philadelphia Eagle wrote: I buy stock and bonds on-line.

My stock holdings are mainly shares in individual companies and my bond holdings are mainly in mutual funds.

I use an on-line broker to transact the deals and always go for 'no load' funds when buying bonds.

I maintain a balance of stock and bond funds to counteract any significant swings in either.

With rising interest rates I also keep some holdings in the CD and Moneymarkets.


You sound like a prudent and wise investor Eagle. Do you buy and hold or do some trades during the year?

I buy & hold stocks and mutual funds. Hold too long, that is. Toyota (TM) along with Vanguard are keeping us in the black while I wait for MO to get broken up. I keep fairly well diversified in my 6-10 stocks and rely alot on index funds.



I use Firstrade.com and direct-buy my mutual funds, no-load only.

Being retired, I buy mainly to hold for dividend income.

At present I look for a stock which pays a dividend of between 8 and 20%.

My holdings are mainly in REITs and bulk crude oil shipping - VLCC - .

Bond funds - mainly Vanguard - are the supposedly 'safe haven' but although they produce a regular dividend they have been losing capital value lately.

I do some trading. If a stock falls below my 'stop loss' level I'll sell and buy something else - again with dividend income in mind.

Interesting ---- Eagle, Accountable and myself using Vanguard-------I do like Vanguard----My wife and I have our IRA money with Vanguard---This year I had to take Minimum Distribution on my IRA. The stock account is with TD Ameritrade and is my play account. I try to make sufficient gains during the year to pay for a cruise and so far so good. I am only carrying four stocks at the moment but CX, NOK, CFC & C have done exceedenly well during the past 8 months and I will use the profits on these stocks to pay for our next cruise.

I use Stop-Loss to protect my profit.

Do you guys rely more on fundamentals, charts, or what? I think I do adequate (certainly not exhaustive) research before buying, but I don't continue my follow-up as thoroughly as I should, once I buy.

I tend to use the websites of Vanguard, MSN Money and Yahoo! Finance to carry out 'due diligence' research but I'm probably not as thorough as I should be sometimes.

My current holdings in stocks are FRO, SFL, FICC, RNP, NEW and NFI - all high dividend payers and in the case of NEW, RNP and SFL have also produced healthy capital appreciation.

For bonds I own VWEAX, VFIIX and VBMFX. They're safe and steady in terms of income but have recently lost capital value. I'm hoping that when the Fed stops raising interest rates and, hopefully, begins to reduce them the value of these holdings will start to inprove again.

Accountable wrote: Do you guys rely more on fundamentals, charts, or what? I think I do adequate (certainly not exhaustive) research before buying, but I don't continue my follow-up as thoroughly as I should, once I buy.


I tend to be a bit of a contrarian and do not follow fundamentals, charts or graphs. I bought Google at $89 when it first came on board and sold out at $219 simply because I had used Google from day one and was throughly impressed with what they were doing. Nokia???--doesn't almost everyone use a Nokia cell? CX (Mexican cement company) a real winner, I bought right after the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Disasters create a real need for cement and CX is a big international player. Citigroup (C) and Countrywide Financial (CFC) were favorably reported on in Mornigstar reports which I subscribe to online. My Vanguard is VWIAX (conservative) and Health Care Fund VGHCX (a real winner).

Oil Royalties are a good investment for price appreciation and dividends. The best one I've found so far is Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (BPT). These are good to purchase in the late fall when the demand for crude from the summertime gasoline demand has fallen off, hurricane season is over but the demand for home heating fuels hasn't started yet.

Deep_Respect wrote: Oil Royalties are a good investment for price appreciation and dividends. The best one I've found so far is Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (BPT). These are good to purchase in the late fall when the demand for crude from the summertime gasoline demand has fallen off, hurricane season is over but the demand for home heating fuels hasn't started yet.
Royalties? That's new for me, & sounds very interesting. How's that work? Is it for income or growth?

Accountable wrote: Royalties? That's new for me, & sounds very interesting. How's that work? Is it for income or growth?


The royalty trust owns the oil field and receives a royalty from the operating company (or companies if there is more than one) for the right to drill and recover oil. The amount of this royalty is a function of the market price of crude oil and the amount of oil recovered. The royalty trust pays no taxes so must distribute its profits as dividend to its unit holders. Some distribute on a monthly basis while others do so quarterly.

Generally the distribution increases when the price of crude increases but only if production is not affected. It is for this reason that BPT's price performance does so well. The oil field recovery operations in most countries are subject to some form of risk that could impede production such as war, civil unrest, political or government instability, natural disasters and limits of recoverable product. But Prudhoe Bay is located on the northern coast of Alaska which is minimally affected by any of these. This stock has gone from $24 in the last quarter of 2004 to $88 today.

Philadelphia Eagle wrote: Being retired, I buy mainly to hold for dividend income.

At present I look for a stock which pays a dividend of between 8 and 20%.

My holdings are mainly in REITs and bulk crude oil shipping - VLCC - .

Bond funds - mainly Vanguard - are the supposedly 'safe haven' but although they produce a regular dividend they have been losing capital value lately.

I do some trading. If a stock falls below my 'stop loss' level I'll sell and buy something else - again with dividend income in mind.


The bond funds have been dropping lately due to increasing interest rates simply because a bond's value decreases when this happens. I'm pretty sure over the long run that will work itself out when the Federal Reserve stops raising the prime lending rate.

I haven't checked out the Vanguard funds but I have looked into the Nuveen family of closed end funds. Many of these have a 9 and 10 percent return in dividends and pay out on a monthly basis. The share values fluctuate slightly but the overal price is trending downward.

I'll check out BPT a little later, but by and large there's no point to entering the market with these wild fluctuations. I'm sitting on the beach until the storm settles.

yes.

Accountable wrote: I'll check out BPT a little later, but by and large there's no point to entering the market with these wild fluctuations. I'm sitting on the beach until the storm settles.


BPT broke the $90 mark today and will probably go higher given the current events but I'm taking a bearish approach and will wait for it drop after hurricane season.

Everything I've bought has stop-lossed out over the last few months except for Altria (MO). Seems nothing stops tobacco, coffee, & junk food :wah:

Some of the best value stocks around at present are IMO to be found in MREITs.

Many of them are trading well below fair value and offer significant dividend returns (15-18%).

Disclaimer - I own both NEW and NFI.

Philadelphia Eagle wrote: Some of the best value stocks around at present are IMO to be found in MREITs.

Many of them are trading well below fair value and offer significant dividend returns (15-18%).

Disclaimer - I own both NEW and NFI.I'm familiar with REITs, but what's the M for?

The 'M' prefix stands for 'Mortgage'

An MREIT is an investment trust operated by a mortgage company.

Often these companies specialize in sub-prime lending and, as such, are able to charge higher rates of interest than regular lenders. The loan default potential is also higher of course but a well managed sub-prime lender with REIT status offers a good investment for those seeking high dividend returns IMO.