re: Stock Watch Thread

I'm looking at IBM hard right now because it's a nice 10% discount at the moment. Anyone have opinions on this stock?

Finally got on the board with MMM at $140.40. Unfortunately I had to chase up because my order at 140 didn't fill. Neither did orders at .10, .25, and .30. I felt desperate to chase up because I was concerned it would gap up back to the ballpark of $140.90, and I needed to get in with enough for 13 shares before tomorrow's earnings call. That's one drawback of triple digit quotes - a PITA to use up all your available cash evenly.

Anyone like Google or Chipotle for a long term investment after they have come down some?

I have Google. While all they really market now is the Android, they are an innovation freak. Right now they are working on driverless cars, renewable energy, wiring cities with fiber optic cables with the goal of significantly lowering Internet service costs, and beginning to foray into regenerative medicine including cancer research. This is just a list of SOME things they are working on.

They have over $50 billion in cash reserves, and most analysts agree they will eventually begin a dividend. Why don't they have one now? They use profits to reinvest into the company to research, develop, and build more value-creating products and wealth -- raising your price per share. Eventually we will see more of these products hit shelves and not just news articles on what they are building.

An enormous company, with enormous money and ideas. Disclosure: I do own this as a long hold, and my opinion that they will be like the GE of the 21st century. Constantly inventing things...


"Once the 1.1 million square foot Bay View addition comes on line in 2015 the Googleplex will be the largest collection of Google buildings with 3.1 million square feet of space." To put it in perspective, 1 million SF is about the size of a typical shopping mall. This is just PART of their Silicon Valley headquarters called the Googleplex.:

I know MCD has been a pillar of the American economy, but I'm not really interested in fast food joints. The one exception may be YUM with their expansion plans into BRIC countries. I don't have YUM, and it's not on my short list for future companies to buy.

If NOLA-based Smoothie King ever went public I would buy the day the IPO came out. There are limitless amount of opportunities to put a franchise. There are what 700? stores now with so many (tens of thousands) of opportunities in America alone. Right now their plans are to double the company in the next year or two. I really really wish they'd go public. Not only that, but Americans are becoming more health conscience these days. Investing in Burger King just doesn't interest me.

Were you responding to me? Did I say anything about fast food recently?

I don't disagree, but if KO goes below $35 I'd have to consider it.
Let us know when that Smoothie King IPO is coming out

GM reports earnings tomorrow, and Ford reports on Friday. Should be fun.
MMM reports soon too right?

Any thoughts on RAI

Reynolds American, kinda thought good growth stock with good dividend

It is what it is. All major tobacco stocks are still near their 52 week high, and all of them pay a dividend of greater than 4%.

Most people choose PM or MO when it comes to long term holding. I don't know much about Reynolds foreign market. Do they have one? If they do, and it's good, I see no reason for RAI to be a bad choice.

As seen in some of the "stickied" threads, TheBigFella has made a living on PM dividends after 20 or so years of investing.

ETA: If you're wanting to buy into tobacco, I'd look at dividend increases over the past 20-30 years and payout ratio. Since you'll be long on the stock you'll want a company that can afford to continually increase dividends.

Honestly, right here. In February of this year I had not even heard of Vanguard, a Roth IRA, nor could I have named 3 companies on the Dow 30.

I'm totally new to stocks and investing. I just read about everything I could from March to August.

I read dividend blogs, some Seeking Alpha, yahoo finance links, some reddit forums...I've just picked up stuff here and there.

What about you?

Same. Honestly, I'd to know where people get their data to research to find things out like "the p/e ratio is at its highest in 3.5 years!!"

I want to be able to figure stuff like that too.