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Greetings, to quote a certain 2008 movie you're viewing, a "social experiment". What is this experiment? with the economy of many countries doing badly and a world "crisis" going on, I'm interested in seeing how an amateur investor (myself) would do in this current economic climate.

Let me explain more, the contest/experiment is each participant receives a lump sum of USD ($150,000). With this the participant/me, is going to do hypothetical investing. For simplicity's sake I will keep the investments to mainly something with a solid price that can rise or fall.

For example here is what you could do to start:

Investments of Subject A:
Starting Total: $150,000

Exchange to British Pound: $25,000-roughly 15,400 British pounds. (Wed, Nov. 5th 08, exchange rate is 1.68 dollars to 1 pound.)
Total left: $125,000, 15,400 British pounds

$4996.9 in Tata Motors stock, ($4.67 as of Nov. 5th 08) roughly 1070 shares.
Total left: $123,003.1, 15,400 British Pounds, 1070 shares of (TTM)

and so on and so on. In a moment I will give my entire investment start, I will try my best to update this daily, with a grand-total counter in my signature. If anyone would like to participate in this venture please do so, I would be eager to see if this starts anything mildly interesting.

Starting total assets: $150,000.

Conversion to British Pound, $25000, converted to 15679.8 British Pounds
(exchange rate of 1.5944 USD to 1 British Pound as of November 5th 2008 1:35PM Central

Assets so far: 125,000USD, 15679.8 GBP

24983.9USD into Wal-Mart Stores Stock. (458 shares at 54.55USD per share)

Assets so far: 100,016.1 USD, 458 shares of Wal-Mart Stores, 15,679.8 GBP

4984.8USD into General Electric stock, (248 shares at 20.10USD per share)

Assets so far: 95,031.2USD, 248 shares of General Electric, 458 shares of Wal-Mart Stores, 15,679.8 GBP.

19999.44USD into General Motors stock, (3456 shares at 5.64USD per share)

Assets so far: 75,031.8USD, 248 shares of General Electric, 458 shares of Wal-Mart stores, 3456 shares of General Motors, 15,679.8GBP

Heh, that does sound interesting. Do keep us informed. : )

lol..yeah I love this idea, I have always wanted to do something like it myself, but I am too unconcerned with the world from my 'happy' existence to bother for now.

I think I would do the investments a little differently though, but then again I study business as a degree and you have thus far ONLY given an example....

good idea appy! paypal me tha 150 grand (prefferably in mothly instalments, let's say $1000 each), and we can start!!

no, seriously.. good idea.
(can ya do it with, like €3000????)

Stocks/Markets invested in and why:

Wal-Mart Stores: Wal-mart is one of the largest corporations on earth, with food prices rising they stand to lose money if they want to keep their low prices. However overall it is a safe bet, Wal-Mart will have a bad quarter possibly, but it will come back up, it's a safe bet company.

General Electric: Once again a safer investment, It's a well run company with a huge amount of savings at it's disposal during years where people may start to use less of their products and cut into profit.. However as I said it's incredibly well run, enough for Warren Buffet to invest several billion, (Warren Buffet does not invest in companies he feels are not run well.)

General Motors: To be honest with you, General Motors stock is at a price where it cant be ignored, it's been having some of the worst years of it's life the last five years, however there is definite talks of mergers with Chrysler, cutting off some of the older, smaller selling brands, and government loans in the billions.

Great Britain Pound: The pound dropped from 1.68 to 1.59 to the USD. This isn't a very encouraging trend but I have a feeling that the USD will fall again during the various attempts to fix the economy is under words, the Pound could rise to as much as 2:1 quickly and there is a decent profit in that.

I've kept the 75,000 as just cash for anything that catches my eye, Gold is at an all time low which definitely beckons further investigation. However at the moment these investments are what I will keep for the moment.

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Monday April 20th
Starting Assets:
$124,944.42 In Cash
Buying Orders for the day:
$15,000 into 20,199,500 KRW
Sell all assets at end of day.

End of Day Sale:
20,199,500 KRW sold for 15,043.5905 Gain of $43.59
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btw: how d'ya pick stocks? are your picks based on fundamentals or rather tachnical analysis?

thanks for all the kind words guys, I hope you guys enjoy the coming weeks and hopefully dont see me going hypothetically bankrupt.

For your stock question: Mainly it's a variety of how I feel the company is run, how i feel the sector of business it is in for growth and how I feel it will weather out the crisis (which is why I have chosen mainly businesses on a global to national level and have the savings to survive the coming problems.)

Hypothetical? I am sure we could make it a real 'race', Appy.
That said, nice idea.
You're not bound to make a lot of profit though.. but if your goal is not to go bankrupt, you're likely to succeed.




So, since I have this open invitation.
Just to be sure, we can't raise funds through alternate means, can we? Just the slow day market? No hedgefunds, etc? Just asking, since I would go high-stakes in part.
I'll use MarketWatch (http://www.marketwatch.com) as an 'information' source. Apologies if I make mistakes, and please do correct me, Appy. Normally this isn't my own job to do. It's what we hire people for. Anyway.. here's my take on it.

Starting total assets: $150,000

Buy 500 shares of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc @ $87.43, Sum $43,715

Assets so far: $106,285, 500 shares of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Buy 1,000 shares of Gold Fields Ltd New. @ $6.85, Sum $6,850

Assets so far: $99,435, 500 shares of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, 1,000 shares of Gold Fields Ltd New.

Buy 500 shares of Boeing Co.. @ $49,55, Sum $24,775

Assets so far: $74,660, 500 shares of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, 1,000 shares of Gold Fields Ltd New., 500 shares of Boeing Co..


Explanation (and yes, you'll want one) to follow.

ok. so let's make it a bit more interesting.

i'm gonna use 150 grand and invest random amounts in 5 stocks picked randomly from all us listed issues on the nyse website and keep the rest of the money safely in a sock hidden under my bed.

let's see how it goes.



here's the portfolio:

C. R. Bard, Inc. 212 @ $ 84.81 = $17979.72

Korn Ferry International 1008 @ $ 13.17 = $13275.36

GameStop Corp. 180 @ $ 23.75 = $4275.00

iShares MSCI Japan Small Cap Index Fund 726 @ $ 34.49 = $25039.74

The Buckle, Inc. 814 @ $ 24.93 = $20293.02

money in a sock: $69137.16

glad to see you guys participating
EDIT: if you want I would be glad to update your stocks daily as well.
Thursday November 6th update
Starting assets: 150,000USD value

General motors fell 0.76 to 4.80
General Electric fell 1.59 to 18.34
Wal-mart stores fell 0.64 to 53.49
The pound fell against the dollar from 1.5944 to 1.562

Asset Worth:
General Electric Shares worth: 4548.32
General Motors Shares worth: 16588.8
Wal-Mart Stores Shares worth: 24956.42
15,679.8 GBP worth 24491.8
75,031.8USD
Total Assets: $145,617.14
Loss of 4382.86

Good point buying now safe shares...just wait the market gets back to a more stable situation and then you'll see how much you made..probably ALOT.

Cash: $74,655.15
Total Equity: $144,045.15
Long Positions: $69,390.00
Short Positions: $0.00
Today's Return: -3.97%



Comment:
Primary: Stupid market's being silly. Anyway, would've been too much of a dead giveaway if I'd started making profitz so soon.
Secondary: I was going to inform you of my choices.
BA- Boeing: Why? New Government, new rules. New rules, new ways of fighting wars and stimulating the economy. What is the best, cheapest and fastest way of stimulating the economy? Selling aeroplanes. And while we're in crisis? Acquire partners in suffering, only to see them blossom into full-grown businesses again (yes, sellable ones) once things pick up again.
GFI- Gold = good. That, and this particular one is a penny fund.
GS- Goldman Sachs: Banks are good investment.. especially this one. It has weathered most storms so far, and has come out the stronger. The lessons of history are that people learn nothing from history, so this group will soon reach full adulthood again and flower into a shining stack of money.
Tertiary: This is going to take a while, cuties.



Oh, this just in:
1000.00 shares of NDAQ, Nasdaq Omx Group Inc. @ $28.56, Sum $28,560.00

Asset update in 11 hours.

C. R. Bard, Inc. 212 @ $85.79 = $18,187.48
Korn Ferry International 1008 @ $12.84 = $12,942.72
GameStop Corp. 180 @ $25.00 = $4,500.00
iShares MSCI Japan Small Cap Index Fund 726 @ $35.88 = $26,048.88
The Buckle, Inc. 814 @ $23.67 = $19,267.38
money in a sock $69,137.16
TOTAL ASSETS $150,083.62


+83.62 made my wages today

Friday November 6th update
Starting assets: $145,617.14 USD

General motors fell 0.44 to 4.36
General Electric rose 0.52 to 18.86
Wal-mart stores rose 0.90 to 54.39
The pound rose against the dollar from 1.562 to 1.564

Asset Worth:
248 General Electric Shares worth: 4677.28 +128.96
3456 General Motors Shares worth: 15068.16 - 1520.64
458 Wal-Mart Stores Shares worth: 24910.62 + 45.8
15,679.8 GBP worth 24523.20 + 31.40
75,031.8USD

Final Assets: 144211.06
Loss of: -1406.08