Penny stocks?

[Wingshooter]

Does anyone here dabble in penny stocks? I did years ago (2010-2011 :( ). I was doing well with it until I got out.

I'd like to start playing with a LITTLE bit of money again to see if I can double it. $500-$1000..... double it... sell.... repeat. I'm not looking to get rich on this, just generate a little spending money. It's super risky, so I'm not willing to throw large amounts at it. I watched a couple of stocks over the last week that went from about $0.50 to $2.00 in three-four days before settling back down. Not sure why I watched and didn't buy :shrug:

The problem is, I just don't have time to do research and my due diligence on all the available stocks. Does anyone use a particular website that's good at picking/recommending good penny stocks?

Just curious if anyone has been successful at this and can share a little advice.

[MacGyver]

They may be more manipulated right now than they were back in '98 and '99.  They're basically a blind roulette spin without significant data and inside information.

[CommsNBombs]

I used TD for my day-trading but data available is slim.

Analysts do not spend time on small places - a lot of the FININT/HUMINT gathering will have to be done the old way.

When I dabbled in penny stocks I went for mining companies - then did all sorts of GEOINT and personnel/equipment research.

Start up marijuana companies are also pretty funny - have to frequent pothead boards/High Times for that stuff

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

[East_TN_Patriot]

I thought about it at one point, but talked to a co-worker of mine who did it and realized it was about as wise as playing the lottery.  He'd lost thousands of dollars investing in the "next sure thing."

[tennesseetiger]

I stay away from them...get rich quick and easy money stuff usually doesn't work. I played around with some in the past and learned a lot of the do's and dont's but its not worth it honestly.

You are better off creating an account with Loyal3 and just buying in to an IPO before its released to the market and making money that way...just my 2cent. No pun intended.

Edited October 16, 2015 by tennesseetiger

[GlockSpock]

I've thought about it. I currently invest with Betterment.com. No reason not to like them. It's very heavily diversified, but at the same time it is automated.

 

That being said, I've been sort of tempted to open another E*Trade account or the like and invest in individual companies for building short term wealth. Betterment.com is what I'm using for Roth IRA. If I convince myself for an E*Trade account, it would be moreso for just "playing". Maybe $100 a month into some random diversified company I've heard of that interested me. It'd be money that I would consider "gone". Maybe "Penny Stocks", maybe startups, maybe just some random tech company. Just hold on to it for a decade or potentially forever. If something shot up then sell it. If it never did anything just hold it because I considered that $100 "gone" and who cares if I got $4.36 of the $100 back?

 

That being said, I feel like investing more into something like Betterment.com or something would be the smarter thing to do, but that's just me.

[gregintenn]

Why not invest them in Tennessee lottery tickets? Pretty much the same thing, and my oldest son starts college in a couple of years. He could use the contribution. :D

[swim615]

I bought when I should have sold. Its a emotional/greed thing and instead of making $4000 on several 100,000 shares of a stock I know own about 6 shares of a .0001 stock after all the reverse splits. Its just not something I can do.

 

 

I also had allot of shares of ford when it was well under $1 and sold them to buy the above shares.  :surrender:

[Wingshooter]

I know back in the day when I messed with them it was easy to turn $100 into $200. I wouldn't dare "invest" much into them. I have safer funds for that. I'm just wanting a way to generate a little extra spending money. I have an optionsXpress.com account ($8.95 commission, no fees and no minimum account balance). There are penny stocks doubling all the time. There are also penny stocks hitting rock bottom all the time, too :nervous: I was just curious if anyone had a favorite site that consistantly suggested good picks. That's a good point made though that the penny stocks are not really analyzed very much.

[Jonnin]

I wanted to do it with a small amount of money too but the trades eat the profits unless you buy a LOT of stock per buy.   When the stock is less than a buck a share, and the trade costs you 10, 15 or whatever it is now,  and you make 10, 15 cents on a profitable share,  it takes too much to make a profit worth mentioning.

 

The best thing I ever got was ford at under 3 bucks a share during the auto bailout crisis.   I made 5X my money on that one.   Wish  I had had more to sink into it, that was sadly just a few hundred bucks. 

[Wingshooter]

I used TD for my day-trading but data available is slim.
Analysts do not spend time on small places - a lot of the FININT/HUMINT gathering will have to be done the old way.
When I dabbled in penny stocks I went for mining companies - then did all sorts of GEOINT and personnel/equipment research.
Start up marijuana companies are also pretty funny - have to frequent pothead boards/High Times for that stuff
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

  
Marijuana companies... Lol. Sad, but you're probably right. Good point about the analysts

I stay away from them...get rich quick and easy money stuff usually doesn't work. I played around with some in the past and learned a lot of the do's and dont's but its not worth it honestly.
You are better off creating an account with Loyal3 and just buying in to an IPO before its released to the market and making money that way...just my 2cent. No pun intended.

I'll have to check out Loyal3. I'd be great to in on a good IPO

  

I've thought about it. I currently invest with Betterment.com. No reason not to like them. It's very heavily diversified, but at the same time it is automated.
 
That being said, I've been sort of tempted to open another E*Trade account or the like and invest in individual companies for building short term wealth. Betterment.com is what I'm using for Roth IRA. If I convince myself for an E*Trade account, it would be moreso for just "playing". Maybe $100 a month into some random diversified company I've heard of that interested me. It'd be money that I would consider "gone". Maybe "Penny Stocks", maybe startups, maybe just some random tech company. Just hold on to it for a decade or potentially forever. If something shot up then sell it. If it never did anything just hold it because I considered that $100 "gone" and who cares if I got $4.36 of the $100 back?
 
That being said, I feel like investing more into something like Betterment.com or something would be the smarter thing to do, but that's just me.

I'll have to check out Betterment.com.

"Playing" is what I have in mind for the penny stocks. Throw a little in. If it takes off... cha-ching. If it flops... no great loss

[GlockSpock]

Even though it isn't stock it would have been an investment, but i remember somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 years ago discovering Bitcoin. I was thinking about mining it with my computer but discovered ATI graphics cards were better than Nvidia for this purpose. Guess which one I had? That and coupled with the fact that I think the question back then was "how many bitcoins to make a single dollar". Trust me, it was a lot of bitcoins = $1. Had I simply purchased $100 worth of them I would have very close to have been a millionaire a few months ago when they were topping $600. 

 

Just goes to show that a bit of money thrown away could benefit you greatly a decade from now. I didn't do a thing with bitcoin because I figured it would never go anywhere. Personally, with penny stocks I guess I'd be most drawn towards pharmaceutical companies, tech companies, etc. Something that might not be worth a penny now might jump up to hundreds a share after some sort of deal, invention, etc.

 

That being said, as a whole penny stocks are probably a loss. It's just a different form of gambling I suppose. I would consider it much more interesting though that buying a lottery ticket.With a lottery ticket you may win or lose, that's it. With a  penny stock, your $100 investment may jump up and down a bit and then for a few hours be worth $500. Do you sell it then or do you hold it in hopes that it goes up 1000% and pays even more?

 

I probably won't do what I wrote above in the foreseeable future. For serious wealth building and investing I would suggest the more traditional way of doing so: Diversification in stable stocks and bonds.

[Jonnin]

another thing about playtime investments is your taxes become a nightmare.    If you are trying to day-trade them to flip for a profit a few times a day, you can quickly be looking at 200, 500 transactions to manage come tax time.   You then get to total your losses and gains.  And then you get to deal with the foreign investment rules if you went there.   And so on.   Its not hard, but it can be a lot to keep track of and deal with. 

[gregintenn]

another thing about playtime investments is your taxes become a nightmare.    If you are trying to day-trade them to flip for a profit a few times a day, you can quickly be looking at 200, 500 transactions to manage come tax time.   You then get to total your losses and gains.  And then you get to deal with the foreign investment rules if you went there.   And so on.   Its not hard, but it can be a lot to keep track of and deal with. 

...and you don't get to claim your losses unless you itemize.

[Jonnin]

Yea.   You can see where I ended up... I let some actuary do all the work and pick and choose the stocks in a fund.  I buy the fund, someone who has the time and training picks the actual stocks, and we all make money.    The penny stuff was fun but  after 5 years I still had the same couple hundred bucks I started with (not counting the once in a lifetime ford thing I mentioned -- those things happen once a decade, where the outside world has a direct and predictable influence on prices make it easy to figure out).

[gregintenn]

Yea.   You can see where I ended up... I let some actuary do all the work and pick and choose the stocks in a fund.  I buy the fund, someone who has the time and training picks the actual stocks, and we all make money.    The penny stuff was fun but  after 5 years I still had the same couple hundred bucks I started with (not counting the once in a lifetime ford thing I mentioned -- those things happen once a decade, where the outside world has a direct and predictable influence on prices make it easy to figure out).

My wife once worked for HCA. She was able to buy stocks at 15% below market price, and had to hold them for one year if I remember correctly. Because of her job, I also had inside information of upcoming events that would cause a drastic change in stock price. We made some good money at this.

 

The year I got completely out of this stock, I mailed in my tax return in a shoe box! :shake:

 

That was my only foray into single stocks. I simply do not have the knowledge of any single business to reliably make money form the trading of their stock. I also do not have the interest or inclination to track down and acquire this information. This is the job of a fund manager. I can make money easier elsewhere, and let him grow my money for a nominal fee.

Edited October 17, 2015 by gregintenn

[Hershmeister]

Penny stocks are that way for a reason. Steer clear.

[Jonnin]

Penny stocks are that way for a reason. Steer clear.

 

pretty much.   Its effectively gambling... for every guy that picks the right one and makes 100X his money, there are a lot of people that lost their bet. 

[gregintenn]

pretty much.   Its effectively gambling... for every guy that picks the right one and makes 100X his money, there are a lot of people that lost their bet. 

Yep. A yearly trip to Vegas would be much more entertaining.

[tennesseetiger]

I bought when I should have sold. Its a emotional/greed thing and instead of making $4000 on several 100,000 shares of a stock I know own about 6 shares of a .0001 stock after all the reverse splits. Its just not something I can do.

 

 

I also had allot of shares of ford when it was well under $1 and sold them to buy the above shares.  :surrender:

That is called chasing money lol dont do that. As the old saying goes...be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy.