Stocks and Trading Thread - Channeling your inner Mono

[Monoriu]

I've never seen the market as flat as it is today.  Nothing in my portfolio is budging.  It's like every single investor out there is waiting for some big news.

I'm too lazy to follow the day-to-day movements.  I just buy it and wait to collect my dividends 

[Admiral Yi]

I don't check my stocks as a work thing; it's like watching gold fish. 

[MadImmortalMan]

Kraft and Heinz merge. The combined company will be 51% owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Kraft up 40% after hours.

Get ready for synergies, shareholder value.

Employees--
Kraft: 23000
Heinz: 32000

My guess is 5k minimum cuts, maybe 10.

[Admiral Yi]

Do their product lines overlap that much?  I'll take the under for funsies.

[Admiral Yi]

Moved a bunch of my mom's money she had sitting in zero interest CDs into AT&T right before the quarterly earning report; jumped a buck this morning.

[Caliga]

Nice, I have T in my portfolio.

[Admiral Yi]

Now up $1.41 on the day. 

[Admiral Yi]

Just got an email from E*Trade informing me they are shutting down global markets access.  I have until July something to close out my positions and move my balances.  Commission-free, thankfully.

[Monoriu]

I am far too lazy to check the latest stock prices.  I just buy and forget.  I have absolutely no idea what US stocks I own now and what the prices are 

[Admiral Yi]

How much work does it take you?

I just have to log in to a site, then click the mouse twice to shuffle through my accounts.

[Monoriu]

How much work does it take you?

I just have to log in to a site, then click the mouse twice to shuffle through my accounts.

For some reason my bank requires a code from a security device before I can access information on US stocks.  It is a mini-keypad thing.  I need to input a password before the keypad will display a number.  Then I need to input the number into the bank's website to access information on anything related to US stocks.  This is in addition to the typical user name and password of the website.  No such restrictions exist for HK stocks.

An additional issue is that I have bought shares in like 35 individual companies and I tend to forget which is which 

[Monoriu]

Just got an email from E*Trade informing me they are shutting down global markets access.  I have until July something to close out my positions and move my balances.  Commission-free, thankfully.

Yi and others: do you put your stocks in stock brokerage firms and not banks?  What happens if the firm becomes insolvent, for whatever reason?  There have been several stock brokerage failures in Hong Kong and in all the cases, the customers don't get much back.  There is a fund that compensates customers in these situations, but there is a compensation cap of US$20k per person. 

So I only trade with banks, and banks that are too big to fail only. 

[Caliga]

  My brokerage firm is TD Ameritrade which is a bank (Toronto Dominion).

[Admiral Yi]

My brokerage is not holding my money, they're maintaining a record of what stocks I own.

Well, they are holding a little bit of money in my sweep account, but that is an FDIC insured deposit.

In order to get my money they would have to pretend to buy stocks that they didn't, then run off with the money.

[Monoriu]

My brokerage is not holding my money, they're maintaining a record of what stocks I own.

Well, they are holding a little bit of money in my sweep account, but that is an FDIC insured deposit.

In order to get my money they would have to pretend to buy stocks that they didn't, then run off with the money.

I am not talking about the money.  I mean your stocks.  In HK, the stocks are normally held in "nominee accounts".  I don't directly own my stocks.  They are actually held in my bank's name.  My name doesn't even appear on the company's register or whatever it is called.  The voting rights and dividends first go to the bank, which then passes them to me.  In the event that the bank fails, I won't be able to get my stocks back.  In theory it is possible to get an actual stock certificate and put my name on it, and a lot of people have done that.  The downside is that it takes a few days if I want to sell it.  If I hold it in nominee accounts, I can sell them with a few clicks.

I have no idea how it works in the US.