Tech Stocks
 

I have some money that's been sitting in a broker account and I need to invest it into some companies. Anybody here that pays attention to the market that might be able to make some suggestions?

Would be interested in tech companies but not limited to that if there are other areas I could play around with.

I messed around with oil companies a couple years ago but that didn't turn out well...

Really depends on what you're looking for? Big risk for the big money or more along the average lines of long term, stable growth that you want to retire on? If it's the first you might want to look into some start ups if you have any experience in building companies and sales. If you're looking long term there are the usual staples but I do think spotify is a great company going forward. Everything is becoming digital and spotify really began to pull away in music and it's a very young company.

Saw a big advert at a shopping centre (shopping mall to you Americans) for Spotify and its links to the BBC here - something to do with music playlists.

Didn't one of its rivals shut down recently?

All I know is I wish I had kept my google stock I had when it was $350 a share. I didnt have too many shares but that stocks up over 1k now. I made good money off it but I'll never be filthy rich at this rate =P (I'm a "take the money and run" kind of invester I dont like waiting to risk losing what I know I have "now")

Its not tech but I've been doing decent with a few mutual funds. My best performer to date has been SWSSX (lucky buy time) but I'm likely about to dump it.

If you had gotten in on the Twitter IPO you could have made out well. It's over $43 now. I wish I got in on it but I didn't trust it. I actually still don't but there's no denying I could have made money with the IPO.

I actually tried getting in on the Zynga IPO. It tanked at first but I stuck with it and then sold when it went positive again. I sold too early though.

Stayed far away from the Facebook IPO after that.

Just dump all your money into Amazon. It may be long term but between their cloud services, retail, and crazy innovations (drone delivery is pretty awesome conceptually) its only up from here.

Short term, higher risks .... no idea, too scared

In case you're at all still looking to try to give another go at oil companies, I'd recommend looking for smaller E&P companies that are moderate-to-big time players in localized hotspots for oil production. An example area would be the Bakken/Three Forks in North Dakota, where smaller companies with large presence would be, for example, Kodiak (who was really on a fast rise a while back), Continental, Whiting (WLL - I made out good on them, they're share price may have plateaued now, though), and potentially Brigham (BEXP). Brigham had been bought out by Statoil, when I made out well, but their non-competition should be running out soon and they are likely to renew operations in the near future.

Along with oil companies in North Dakota, there is also the need for increased infrastructure for transport/processing of the hydrocarbons, especially now that North Dakota has moved in to the number 2 spot behind Texas for oil production, so a decent pipeline or mid/downstream company that is active in the area could also be a place to look.

Of course this same thought process could be applied to almost any of the new shale oil hot-spots, like the Niobrara shale (hotspot: Wattenberg Field, big players being Noble and Anadarko) in Colorado, the Haynseville shale, the Eagleford shale (Texas, so there already exists a lot of infrastructure there), or more riskier plays like the Utica shale.

I also love to invest in companies with massive P/E ratios that are overvalued.

Seriously though, "investing" in the current market is more about what the Fed does than it is about actual research and company value. Look up a chart of fed balance sheet versus SAP500, pretty much overlay perfectly. Also anytime there is 'good' economic news markets start to drop because it means taper might start.

If you want to do short term 1-3 year investments you can probably ride this bull more. If you're concerned with 10+ year investments it's all about PMs, gold is criminally low now. And I don't mean paper gold, physically holding it in your hand and then reporting it lost in a boating accident so the government can't seize it like they did in 1933.

Take a look at some stocks in 3D printer companies. They just had a massive profit pull (sell off of stock to pull profit out and then reinvest) so stocks are cheaper than they have been right now. Average companies are seeing 80% growth (quick estimate based on the numbers I've seen) and with all of the publicity they are getting, they are getting even stronger. Plus with Military (printing replacement parts for warships onboard ships) healthcare (printing organs / tissue) automotive (printing car parts) and even construction (printing houses), a lot of markets are interested in 3D printing right now.

Good time to buy now before they balloon again. One company in particular that I've got money in went from $30 a share to $87 a share in I think a year and a half.