Toyota Stock

[MPC]

Since they dropped almost 25% in a week, would now be a good time to buy or do people expect it will drop further?

[Gydian]

I've been asking myself this same question, but I think we're going to see them drop at least another 10-15%.

[AceHigh Pino]

Agreed. The latest Prius recall announcement isn't gonna help their cause over the next few weeks either. I'd wait on it a little bit longer...such a big hit to em.

[Gydian]

Yup, if that Prius recall didn't happen, I'd be buying for sure, but I'm pretty sure that's going to cause at least another dip. But man, when that's all settled, should make some pretty good money short term off them.

[protosmarketing]

I've found that it is 100% impossible to time the market. Anyone who thinks they can is just plain fooling themselves. If you like Toyota stock your best bet is to buy a little bit at a time. If you are looking to pick up 1000 shares, then get 200 now to start a base and then pick up another 100-200 each time it drops by 5%. This way you aren't putting all your capitol to work at one time and it allows you to dollar cost average. If the stock never goes down then you own 200 shares and at least you've made some money.

Another option is to open a Sharebuilder account. It allows you to invest in companies weekly or monthly and really dollar cost average. I started an account there over 3 years ago and since then I haven't thought much about the market. I just buy stocks every week without stress. I'm up over 50% over that time and it allows me to focus on my business.

Mike J

[Zujo]

Their recovery will be a long and slow one. There will be plenty of time to buy. I'd wait until there has been no bad news for at least a month.

[Zujo]

I've found that it is 100% impossible to time the market.

O RLY?

The arrow is where I bought the following stocks.









As you can see, each has gained more than 100% in less than a year - MGM and BAC 300-400%+. With leverage, I have done pretty ok on these.

It may be impossible to time stocks under normal market conditions - but when extreme events occur that send a share price either way up or way down, you can absolutely make positive EV bets about where certain stocks will go from there.

That you personally have not found success doing so does not mean that it cannot be done. I think Toyota right now is a perfect example of a stock you can attempt to time. Attempting to time Wal-Mart, Microsoft or Proctor and Gamble right now would probably be futile.

I have been meaning to add AAPL (Apple) to my portfolio and I decided to time it just before the iPad announcement. The product underwhelmed everybody and the stock actually went down - but I still think it was good timing. If they had blown everybody away the stock would have surged. Apple usually blows people away.

Every time I add to my Google position I do it just before their earnings announcement. They usually blow away expectations and their stock surges. Analysts still haven't figured out they are getting played and Google understands their own game better than they do

[seopimp]

Damn Zujo, how did you time the market so well? When I look back to late February / early March 2009 I often ask myself why I didn't dump my entire net worth into the market. It looks so obvious now, I mean even if it wasn't the bottom you'd be damn sure you were within 10-15% of it, but at the time the sky was falling and it was hard to have a clear mind when dealing with the market. I still made a small fortune trading during the past year but all I can think about is if I had sunk every penny I had (and could borrow) into some financials back in March, I'd be set for life now (and I'm young/single/stupid enough to take the risk)

[Zujo]

When I look back to late February / early March 2009 I often ask myself why I didn't dump my entire net worth into the market.

Me too! LOL

how did you time the market so well?

Well, truth be told, it was mostly luck. I mean I figured it had to be close to the bottom because MGM and BAC were both $3.00 stocks and they were previously $50-100 stocks. Them possibly losing 2/3rds of their value down to $1.00 was not that big of a deal to me because I was betting on them eventually getting back to where they previously were and I was very confident none of the above stocks would go out of business - like many people were saying.

'Prosperity has always returned and will again' was the name of a blog post I did at that time. I believe that was a JD Rockefeller quote. 'When others are fearful be greedy, when others are greedy, be fearful'. Warren Buffet. I was not scared at all last March that the US was going to collapse and the dollar was going to be used for toilet paper etc etc etc. I wasn't sure that was the bottom but I was confident that we would recover and all of these stocks would rise again.

Turned out I was right a whole lot faster and a whole lot harder than I expected. I was not buying them for a quick trade - I was buying them to hold onto, probably forever. I thought it may take several years to get to where they were after just a couple of months. I subscribe to Warren Buffet's theory that goes something like 'you just need to get the what right, don't worry about the when, if you get the what right, the when will take care of itself'.

I was just very confident those stocks would one day get back to new highs. None of them has yet - but it seems a lot more likely today than it did last March. I still think there are a lot of bargains out there - though the quick easy money appears to be gone. Now if you want to make a profit off of the 'cheap' stocks you will need to hang onto them for 2,3,5+ years until the economy full recovers.

[Graham]

Wow, nice gains Zujo!