Help needed about this stock portfolio? bac,yhoo,c,pfe,aapl,cal?

Question

hi. i recently started investing .can you suggest if i have bought a wrong stock. i am new to investing and i knew it was very premature for me to start investing ( i m 23), but the excitement of playing in the market got me carried away. these are the stocks i have:

CAl - continental airlines

BAC- bank of america

C- citi group

pfe- pfizer inc

aapl- apple

yhoo- yahoo

i just have 10 stocks of each. i have just 3 apple shares. currently i have free trade of ameritrade, so i can trade free for 15 more days. thts the reason i have few stocks of different companies. but now i want to reduce to 2 or 3 companies only.

can anyone suggest if there are any wrong stock here and if i need to get rid of any.

moreover can you suggest what type of research does any1 need to do. means how can one predit if i stock will do well. i have free time on my hands this summer and i want to utilise it.

thanks a lot for ur help.

Answer 1

Never play airlines, historically they are a terrible industry and it looks to get a lot worse.

I disagree with some people about BAC and C, since I think they will survive and if you owned through all the selloffs you should probably just keep them as they will probably return higher as the market recovers. If you sell now you may be selling at a low.

Answer 2

10 shares of each. Starting with BAC and C, pick one, sell the other. BAC looks better at this moment, but the first shoe hasn't dropped for them, let alone the second.

CAI - I don't do airlines.

PFE - The dividend is good and is probably safe - hold it

Dump one bank. On the safe side, try NKE, UA, or utilities like DUK or SE. TSM and KEP are also good.

Yhoo is 50/50 - maybe you win, maybe you're left holding the bag. I say sell it on a good day.

AAPL: good stock - too expensive for me!

As for research, read everything available about the companies that interest you. And, don't believe everything you read or hear on TV. One good way to predict a stock's performance is to measure its foreign market exposure. One person suggested PG and someone suggested GE. Both companies are benefiting from overseas growth and both firms are diversified.

Answer 3

If you want just 2 or 3 stocks, I would keep Apple as my tech/growth stock and sell the rest.  Add Proctor & Gamble (PG) as they have thousands of products and sell the world over.  They have also increased their dividends for the past 51 years which tells me they are doing something right.  For the 3rd stock General Electric (GE).  They are well diversified being into financial, industrial (builds energy turbines, locomotives, etc), into solar energy, and much more.

Answer 4

you should get rid of the Airlines ones, they all are suffering from high gas prices, Apple, Yahoo and CITI have all been good rising stock and should continue, Pfizer is ok big drug co. , haven't heard much from Bank of America- check it's record and go from there, you got a good group, you could look at dividend paying stocks, i sugguest 10 - 15%, i can give you some for a small fee

Answer 5

I would dump them all. CAL for obvious reasons with oil. BAC, C are financials and clarity on their balance sheets is still lacking. YHOO because its in the middle of a merger speculation and no one can predict its outcome. AAPL, well maybe, but there are better new stories elsewhere.

The main reason however for dumping them all, is because the market is recently gone into a downtrend, broken its 200 day moving average and shows no leadership. When this happens, 3/4 of all stocks follow the market trend, which means you are battling some major headwinds and no likely to make any significant money with any of them. Wait until the market shows new leadership, rallies above the 200 day moving average, and then reenter positions of stocks you think will do well in the next market cycle.