I'm 42. I have no money in the market now. I dont have much money either, never did BUT now I have a couple grand to invest. The market is way low I figure, it will eventually go back up to its former self. What are the best buys if I get in?

If you've only got a couple grand and you're wanting to try and make a nice little pile of money I'd probably buy into telecom. Lucent Technologies is down around $.60 from a high of over $100 and I think it's a good buy while gambling that they can stay solvent enough for the market to turn.

Honestly $2000 won't get you a ton of money unless you take a gamble that could cost you the whole sum. If you just want something that's going to get some type of return without much risk I'd look into something like WalMart. You'll take the risk out, but you'll also lose the chance of making a big score.

I'm a gambler. I want the gigantic return. I buy some risky stocks. Maybe some will hit, maybe they won't. But if I can get it right on 20% of em I'll be sitting pretty.

It all depends on what you want to do with your money and how much risk you're willing to accept.

I thought this was going to be:

A1,A2 or pinned M4 type of question...

I will vote A1


[:D]

Egads, are you crazy, man? $.60 from a high of $100 means that stock has lost 99.4% of it's value for its shareholders!!  WHY IN GOD'S NAME WOULD YOU WANT A PIECE OF THAT?

Lucent's management is notoriously bad, they're drowning in debt, they pay no dividend.  Of all the sectors out there, telecom is perhaps THE sickest.

The market won't be back to what it was for a long time.  The NASDAQ, probably never.  

If you're going to invest, invest for dividends.  Find some stocks that yield more percent-wise than bonds, and make sure you know what that company's debt picture is like.  Debt taken on by the massive technology capital boom of the late 90's is a killer and is really going to hamper the future growth of a lot of companies. Lucent could be a poster child for that problem.

I was thinking about some former blue chips like Nortel that are way low now but may return to their former glory several years from now.
I would like to spread the cash around amongst several of these and continue to put money in.
Any others like Nortel?

If you've only got $2000 to invest and you want a chance at making big money what else can you go for?

You're exactly right that telecom is the sickest sector. It is so beaten down that if you can find the right company to invest in you will be able to make a fortune. They can't all go bankrupt and one of them will have to come out a winner from this mess. If you can pick the winner then you'll find a pot of gold.

Lucent might not have the best management and they might have a large debt ratio but the one big thing they do have going for them is the infrastructure and that means a lot.

If it crashes, then you lose a little money. So what? If it comes out a winner then you'll be cussing yourself over not investing everything you had in it.

It's all a big gamble and I'm in it for the occasional big payout. Some people like being safe and responsible. That's boring. Live a little dangerously, buy some Lucent. [;)]

Take a look at BBI and K.

Sun Micro Systems would be my pick. Stock has been dragged to below $2.50 by the hedgefund short traders (may they burn in hell), Sun made a statement today that they have millions of dollars in cash and low debt, and that the stock price is at a ridiculous level. Just don't panic if it goes down, ride it out, and in a year or so it should be up to $15.

If i were you, i would not bother buying anything until it bottoms at 4000.If you are going to buy anything right now, I would be buying gold in ingots or coin and hold on to them until you see the stock market stabilize.Then sell and take you'r profit and if you dare,invest in stocks.

I personally would invest in unhedged gold stocks.  After a 22 year bear market, most of these are very efficient operations, they carry little or no debt, and pay big dividends.

However, in our little stock-picking game, I am dead last and my portfolio is 100% gold stocks.

These stocks used to rise as the market fell, but in early June that changed.  They now rise when the market rises, sell off when the market sells.  They haven't acted as a safe haven, which irks a lot of people and has not attracted a lot of new money.

Still, in a world and economy that seems to be unravelling worse each week, they'd be the only thing I would buy. They're still technically in a bull market, while everything else except homebuilders are in the toilet.

Index fund (designed to track the overall market) with low managment fees.  Buy the fund and add some to it every chance you get. Picking individual stocks is pretty much a crap shoot, and you'll have high variability.

Tech probably won't come back until late 2003, and even then it will probably be different things than were popular last time. The software industry has given the PC buyers no compelling reason to upgrade past 1 GHz machines; the average age of PCs is going to go way up, which means lower growth for chip makers and PC makers. Telcom is going to be in a glut for years; lots of telcom companies have gone through chapter 11 and had their debt wiped out, which gives them very low operating costs when competing against the majors.

Long term (several years) I like web services software companies. BEA Systems is one of the few pure-ish plays in that.

I would go with General Electric.

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