Would You Invest In Ford?

A better play than Goodyear or any tire company is to buy materials stocks, that which goes into the making of rubber.

 

I am thinking about buying some stock for Lil 93, and I think GE, Ford and Phil Morris will be the three.

Going long term for part of her college funds. I am thinking about $100 on each of them.

So etrade is not worth looking into?

 

Goodyear is an American company and is therefore traded on the American stock market. Michelin and Bridgestone are traded only in the international markets. You can invest in those, but it's a little trickier. I know I haven't been able to buy international stocks using Sharebuilder.

Also: On July 10, 2008, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was recognized as one of America’s most respected companies by the Reputation Institute and Forbes magazine. Goodyear ranked 16th on the magazine’s third annual listing of companies with the best reputations in the United States.

Again, faith is big in the stock biz. Although Goodyear's stock is near its 52-week low at $3.51 per share, it's a good bet to return strong and maybe even approach its 52-week high of $30.10 per share.

 

I believe eTrade has a $1,000 minimum initial deposit, and there are many clauses associated with its no-commission advertisements (a minimum of 30 trades per quarter, etc.; to qualify for the $7.99 commissions, you have to trade at least 50 times per month, which is an awful lot).

I'm biased because Sharebuilder has treated me well, but again, 93, if you're looking at long-term investing, I'd definitely give a hard look at Sharebuilder's automatic investing plan. Even if you want to stick $25 a week into it and forget about it, it'll draft the money directly from your bank account and automatically buy those stocks you've pre-assigned. Other than the relatively small subscription fee, which is somewhere around $10, you can buy unlimited stocks for free when signed up for the auto plan. In 15 years, that $25 a week could turn into something pretty big.

For long-term stocks, I'd probably encourage you to look into at least one technology company for diversification's sake. You mentioned three very old-school companies, which might be fine. There's nothing wrong with the Googles and Apples of the world, either (You can buy fractions of stocks using that auto-investing plan), and there are some tech companies that I'm investing in that some stock advisers suggest are can't-miss when some new government initiatives are put into place.

 

I have an ING savings account & use Sharebuilder as well. I do the automatic investing thing (not much though) and while I've obviously lost quite a bit, I'm certainly not in it to make a quick buck.

I also have around $100 to buy some stocks with & was wondering what to purchase. Decisions, decisions...

 

Believe it or not, check out McDonald's. When people tighten their budgets, they eat crappy food more often, which is great for the fast food joints. It's also rated an A-plus long-term growth stock by TheStreet.com.

 

This thread got me interested in Ford so I've been tracking it. It closed at $2.28 today. It's been going up steadily for the past week. So I checked out the Ford Web site to see what it would take to invest. If you buy from there, you have to do an initial investment of $500! Which I guess isn't a lot when you think about the initial deposit you're required to make at TD Ameritrade and those other sites. But still you'd think they'd want all the investors they can get (like me, who wants to buy 100 shares), not just the ones who can afford $500. Just me thinking.

 

I own 100 shares of Ford, which is now worth about half of what it was when I bought it.

I still think it's a good long-time bet.

 

I've bought some F twice in the past six weeks. I'm up to about 3k shares.

 

I think you are better off diversifying and buying some ETF mutual funds from a firm like Vanguard.

I just loaded up on the ETF Financial fund which is off 62 % for year - top 10 holdings:

Holding
1 JPMorgan Chase & Co.
2 Wells Fargo & Co.
3 The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
4 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B
5 Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
6 Bank of America Corp.
7 U.S. Bancorp
8 The Travelers Cos., Inc.
9 Morgan Stanley
10 MetLife, Inc.

Also invested in Vanguard Mega 300 which is off 40 % for year - this has a similar mix of the S&P 500.

1 ExxonMobil Corp.
2 The Procter & Gamble Co.
3 AT&T Inc.
4 Johnson & Johnson
5 Microsoft Corp.
6 International Business Machines Corp.
7 Chevron Corp.
8 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
9 General Electric Co.
10 Cisco Systems, Inc.

 

Last week. Damn. The stock was at $1.70 something. Damn damn damn damn damn. I am kicking myself now.

I wanted to buy. Got a bit busy and forgot and then it boomed. If it goes back under 2 bones, I'm buying 100 shares.

 

You open up an account at www.charlesschwab.com or www.tdameritrade.com or www.scotttrade.com or some other brokerage firm.

It couldn't be easier. You wire them or send them a check - I don't know what the minimum is - $500? $1,000?

You then go to your account to buy individual stocks or mutual funds or ETFs. The commission you pay for a stock trade is roughly $8-$13 per trade - regardless of the size of the trade.

Extremely simple process. PM me if you have questions.