I’m actually bizarrely good at this. Sometimes these things just stick out like a sore thumb and I wonder what I’m missing that everybody else is seeing.
And, yes, I bought a thousand shares last week. Buy low, sell high, baby! 
Kudos to you. I also remembered your post as I read about Buffett’s purchase.
Thanks, everybody.
And just because Buffet bought it:
- Doesn’t mean it’s a sure-fire winner (though I like the vote of confidence), and
- Doesn’t mean that its now fairly-valued merely because it had a small bump this morning.
Looking at old threads, I saw this one and did some research.
Here’s what happened to some of the suggestions:
Gold: http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/gold/5-year/
(Went from $1,800 to $1,300 per ounce. OUCH!)
Bank of America: Bank of America Corporation (BAC) Stock Historical Prices & Data - Yahoo Finance
(Went from $6.50 to $16.50/share. YAY!)
Farmland: “The average acre of Iowa farm real estate rose 20% in value to $8,400 in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s up from $3,850 in 2009…” Good call, Sunspace.
ATT: Went from $27/share to $36/share. Good call Edward the Head!
To keep it in perspective, though, the Dow is up 55% and the NASDAQ +88%, with S&P in the middle at +74%. ATT wasn’t such a good bet by comparison, but hey, it’s better than the “mattress return.”
True, that. However, any of those investments, even the mattress return, would have served one better than buying gold in August, 2012.
Flag on the play. ATT pays a great 5% dividend. That means you have to add 5% compounded quarterly (5%/4 compounded quarterly technically) to get real return.
I’ve been a big fan of index funds ever since I read The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle (founder of Vanguard). He says, “the only way to beat the average is to aim for average.”
I keep more than half my portfolio in index funds - but I keep some of it in individual stocks (including the aforementioned AT&T - for the aforementioned dividend - AT&T isn’t a growth stock, but its a nice income stock.) In part because I enjoy collecting stock the way some people collect stamps - or jewelry - or shoes - or comic books, and individual stocks are more fun to collect. In part because tracking the financials of the twenty or so individual stocks in my portfolio is good practice. And a minor reason - one of those stocks is Berkshire Hathaway (just some B shares) - it gets me passes into the Annual Meeting to see the Warren and Charlie show.
At this point, it’s really gotten tough. Everything is expensive.
Fortunately, I already put almost everything I have available for investment a while ago. But I would like to incrementally put a bit more in here and there, but at this point everything seems to be priced too high.
Paying down your credit card debt is an excellent investment. Low risk, high return.
Setting aside buying a house and deducting mortgage payments on your taxes, tax-advantaged saving vehicle such as 401-Ks and the benefits of a regular and disciplined savings program, the 3 main investment categories - bonds, stocks and cash - all are pretty bad at present. Whatdya expect, we’re coming off of the worst financial crisis since WWII.
Cash pays at most 1%: https://www.smartypig.com/
Treasury bond rates are low and when the Fed tightens bond rates will rise and bond prices will therefore fall. I’m leery of long term bonds. Which implies that a balanced fund - typically a good idea - isn’t so hot right now.
The stock market is frothy, but I’d still set aside some share into an S&P 500 fund. If you haven’t secured that cornerstone, I wouldn’t bother with picking individual stocks. That’s for hobbyists. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0040&FundIntExt=INT
or eventually Vanguard Mutual Fund Profile | Vanguard
This is what I’m doing. Paying down the principal on my house. It’s a fairly good loan at 5.25%, but I figure that it would be hard to guarantee that in any investment. It’s not worth a re-fi, as I only have 3 years left. With a recent raise, I should be able to cut that back to 1.5 years. Then I’ll probably put some more money in home improvements, and the rest in a 457.
(The feel good factor of ACTUALLY owning my home is part of this I’m sure)