Where to get share trading recommendations and advice?

calderg1 said:

I follow Cramer's advice. Yes, he does have quite the antics on his tv show, however look past that and you find someone who knows what he is doing. I have been investing following his "buy" calls for sometime. I have had many more winners than losers. I use the www.cramersez.com site as well. Not sure about design or anything else, but it is informative and am glad to see that I am not the only one who goes there.

Click to expand...

Do you buy all of his recommendations? That's about three or four new stocks a week!

This tracks his performance against a random stock picking monkey and so far he is losing.

back to the original post...when you rationalise things it is difficult to imagine that anyone with a potential audience of millions can add real value to your stock picking decisions.

read some investment books, read the financial press and then begin to read some of the earnings reports from quoted companies online (from their investor relations websites).

you do not have to spend hours disecting the report and accounts, but it is always illustrative to read the opening statement and then glance through the financial statements. you are unlikely to see anything here that no one else has, but you will, over time, generate an understanding of how the market views certain quoted companies and how it reacts to their results.

relying on second-hand tips and share recommendations is unlikely to deliver serious returns.

JohnBoy said:

back to the original post...when you rationalise things it is difficult to imagine that anyone with a potential audience of millions can add real value to your stock picking decisions..

Click to expand...

Not sure I agree with this - take Cramer as an example, the guy is a moron and has an audience of millions, many of those are morons that will follow his "advice". Stock picks then become self-fulfilling prophecies with some potential to boost non-Cramerite portfolios.

Ok this is true to an extent - following the crowd can be lucrative, but by the time an individual investor (who is probably not watching CNBC all day) finds out what the market monkey is recommending on any given day, the share price probably already reflects this new news. A trader in a hedge fund or bank can react to these recommendations in seconds so a regular retail/private investor will probably be the last to buy.

It is no accident that in the fund management community, it is rare to see a genuinely successful manager share their stock tips with the general public on a regular basis. The talking heads that populate the financial news programmes are best ignored.

Markjbloggs said:

Not sure I agree with this - take Cramer as an example, the guy is a moron and has an audience of millions, many of those are morons that will follow his "advice". Stock picks then become self-fulfilling prophecies with some potential to boost non-Cramerite portfolios.

Click to expand...

This appears not to be the case, as websites exist to show that Cramer's picks are losing money. Studies have shown that the short interest in Cramer's picks rises dramatically, with the stock enjoying a pop on announcement before being driven back down by shorts. Other studies have shown that stocks being featured on cnbc in general rise beforehand before giving up their gains in the following days.

Without getting caught up with Cramer too much, it's worth emphasising that every trader (and investor) of note will tell you that stock tipping is a losing game. The following is an excerpt from www.turtletrader.com, the author puts it well.

"We must all know by now how worthless stock tips are, but the general public still hungers for the likes of David Faber and his Faber Report delivered to millions on CNBC. Why would anyone think, for even a millisecond, that when David shares a stock tip with his guest, only three people are now in the know: David Faber, the guest, and the person watching. What about the millions of other people glued to their sets? Most of whom also believe David is giving them the stock tip. Ah, the intimacy of television combined with our ability to suspend our disbelief. Don't laugh. This has been going on every day since the mid-1990s equity market explosion.


We can only assume that everyone gets this great tip, calls their broker and buys? Actually this does happen. The market moves regularly when Faber speaks. However, the movement is always short term because Faber has no long term ability to move the market. Watching CNBC news in order to get the information needed to market decisions is useless. But since trading is a zero-sum game, we selfishly hope millions continue to watch David Faber. Their trading losses from useless tips go directly to the winners".

Newbies should consider that last sentence. That's the reality.

Colly,

I think other replies are correct when they say 4k is too little to build decent portfolio.

One strategy you might consider is to look at Merrion Stockbrokers website. They have a suggested basket of ISEQ shares which has consistently outperformed the index. You could purchase 2/3 lines of stock from different sectors of the economy. Continue saving say 200-300 euro p.m. and reinvest your dividends, purchasing new line of stock annually and you should do okay.

Buy Sunday Times, Business section doing article on Day Trading this coming Sunday, in response to demand. Jill Kerbys weekly analysis on various consumer issues, banks etc. cuts through all the crap

Just in case anyone follows or is tempted to follow Jim Cramer's advice. These two quotes are fairly indicative of his "buy high and sell low" philosophy.

Having recommended tech stocks right up to the point the bubble burst, Cramer continues to recommend to his followers they remain long tech stocks as the Nasdaq slides from 5000 to below 1500.

James J. Cramer said:

You know I have been adamant that this is a new bull market. You know that I went on record blasting those Nasdaq 1500 sirens. But there are still persistent emails from people asking me if this is just one more big bear spike. To which I say, give me a break. Tape this checklist to your forehead if you can't remember it and nail-gun it to the bears in your firms and households. It might put them out of their misery for good!

Click to expand...

Not sure what the catalyst was but having lost some 60% of its value from peak, Cramer turns bearish on the Nasdaq. He now frequently trumps about how he had the courage to be a Nasdaq bear when everyone else was bullish.

James J. Cramer said:

And unlike you, I have been pretty negative on tech for a long time. I have not been on television saying I would load the boat up with tech. At the beginning of the year, I frowned on a long QQQ strategy right in the face of a proponent of it on CNBC. I thought it foolish. I am not someone who has advocated riding tech all the way down from 5000 and am now telling you to get out. The opposite is true. I am a credentialed tech bear and I am not going to have it pinned on me that I just got bearish on tech, as so many others around me have. I made great money last year betting against tech and was vocal about it. I told you as late as yesterday to take those prices we had in the rally and reposition. Look, often it doesn't seem worth it to go through the aggravation or the heat I am getting for this negativity. I swear, unfortunately, that it is much easier to be Joe Battipaglia or Abby Joseph Cohen or Tom Galvin than it is to be me. They get credit every time it goes up and they look like white knights every time it goes down. They seem like the friend of capital. When I say sell I seem like the enemy. Objectively, in the real world of professional money, however, that is wrong. These people are, in the real world of big-time performance management, regarded as glad-handers who would have annihilated you if you listened to them. I am from the real world of big-time money management. I'd rather be right and make money than be wrong and make everybody feel happy.

Click to expand...

He not only manages to lose his followers a lot of money, he frequently lies about his positions and achievements as well.