Playing the market
 

Since this whole downward spiral began, my mom has been pushing me to invest some money in the stock market since it's bound to rebound someday. I have $1000 at my disposal to do whatever I want with, but I am no economics major and only have a weak hunch at where I would spread it.

I will be doing some of my own research, but I would like some help from the NPF community also. I'm looking for some stocks that have fallen but are due to rise back up in both short and long terms. I will also donate 10% of any earnings I make to Nuklear Power. If I don't make enough to justify 10% I'll raise it.

Right now a safe bet looks to be silver as gold has been holding steady. And I know Google is planning on releasing an OS, but I don't think it would be worth it considering the already ridiculous price of their stock.

I don't really know anything about economics but "sin" stocks seem like a good idea (alcohol, cigarettes etc.)

Way back when we were doing that stock market game I invested in EA and made an absolute killing, so much in fact that about half a dozen others from this site followed me. If EA have recently fallen along with everything else you'll make even more, but I don't follow the stock market so I don't how anything is doing.

But I'd say EA is a safe bet.

Check out Transocean stock if you feel like playing the Oil market, they are bound to rise, as the biggest oil drilling company in the world, they will double their ocean fleet by february, and there stock is down now, but bound to go really high.

Also, Petrobras is a good bet for the same market.

Euro-based stocks seems to be a good bet too in the coming years i think. You could also make a case for High tech stuff or science related stocks if you're willing to bet on the Hadron Collider

I don't know what in hell we're going to use ten percent of your money to do but I'm sure we'll come up with something.

Far as I've read one of the better bets sounds like firms that are in the more troubled sectors, IE construction and banking. Which is to say, the firms that are currently sound, like Wells Fargo, cause those are gonna be the people who end up buying up all the marginal players who go under.

Diversify, that's something you really need to keep in mind. Don't put all your eggs in one basket because the market is still going to be unpredictable. You're going to look at it later and say "Man, I really should have just gone with investment A instead of all of these," but you are very likely not going to pick the right pony if you only pick 1.

Also, you can play the futures market instead of the stock market if you can find something cheap enough to use $1,000 dollars on. The futures market works differently than the stock market though, I suggest you read about it if you're considering it. I like the futures market a little more because you can actually profit from the economy going downhill if you play it right.

Was just going to shoot it to Brian via PayPal, maybe just a little help to the site's upkeep.

I was thinking of keeping it simple by choosing five stocks and putting $200 into each. Nothing too complex.

I'm gonna go with this permanent assurance company.

I have this nitpicky feeling that ford or GM would be good stocks to invest in. Moreso GM than Ford simply because they're the last two giant car manufacturers in the US and one of them is bound to go under (most likely ford) while the other becomes an extreme competitive force against the japanese.

Another tip for the current market is that although it seems that everything is going down, Repo companies typically do rather well in times like these. ;)

The advice of Warren Buffet:

The main thing here, while you want to diversify understand that you want to keep stocks for a long term and NO day trading. It kills all of your profits and is just ridiculous.

Two things:

Pick a few stocks and invest what you can afford to into a stock. If you can't afford to invest, don't. Be committed to what you decide on, however. As I would do, put maybe 25$ a month into a stock over 5 years. The way you're doing this, it seems as likely to grow as having a savings account. With inflation and taxes, it won't grow as well.
Best advice?

Get an investment book, read a few and understand, you won't make money on the stock market all the time. There's losses, there's gains. But there will probably be more gains than losses in the long term.

I won't recommend this... They're extremely volatile. But the things that everyone needs, ie, Food and Gas, are better bets. Exxon and Walmart have been huge for years now. I doubt that'll change for 5 years.