Motley Fools Stock Advice

[Anonymous]

I am interested in buying some individual stocks. Anyone recommend a good book or service that gives recommendations and gives advice on how to buy good stocks.

[Anonymous]

What do your other investments look like?

[Anonymous]

Why? That will guide the kind of advice you need/want.

By the way, it's proven this isn't a good investment strategy. But if you want to gamble, it's easier than going to the boats.

[Anonymous]

In general, people that come up with good stock picks keep it to themselves. People that guess sell books. Or they buy a stock, then tell people to buy it (giving them a profit).

In my 30 years of investing, I have mostly stuck with real estate and index funds; I only bought individual stocks twice: once was the company I worked for when they offered me 2-1 options so that if it goes up I get 3x the profit at 1x the risk. (I did very well on that, parlyaing 10K into about 130K after taxes; that money then went into real estate -- 3 houses, 200k each, 40K down each. rental income more than covered the mortgages (my cash flow goal). Sold them as tear downs for 550K each a couple of years ago.

The next time, I identified a company which I thought was making good decisions and going in the right direction, and through some money at apple -- about 100K in 2003.

I also guessed wrong right before the recession, and lost 80K on a real estate trust that folded in 2009.

[Anonymous]

Read "the intelligent investor" by Benjamin Graham. That will show you the work you need to do and should scare you off from this project.