MALORN!!, To show that i have been thinking about you...

Dave, it's not like you to be hallucinating so early in the morning. :shocked:

 

Is it April Fool's day already?

 

I think it might be Ford that gets the EESUs from EEStor first via a Magna/Zenn partnership. But if GM is in there too then good!

 

Are you being serious on this? Did you end up buying the soon to be worthless Motors Liquidation (MTLQQ.PK: Summary for MOTORS LIQUIDATION - Yahoo! Finance)?

Per GM - Investor Information - Home as of 8/8/09:

Apparently, quite a few people are confused about this and there's been a lot of press coverage on that topic, such as these below:
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/company-...tle=secfinra-warn-against-buying-old-gm-stock

http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowa...ss-gm-resumes-trading-under-scary-new-symbol/

 

I don't have much to say on this topic, just--you should be ok, since I'm not buying into this stock (for the record, ANY stock in which I invest is GUARANTEED to tank...can I make any money by selling promises NOT to buy?), and I just had to comment on a thread with "Malorn" in the title. I've been away for a while and nostalgia kicked in! :wave:

PS: to

hyo silver awaaay



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Malorn hasn't been around for nearly 2 months. I hope he hasn't had to move under a bridge, but time have to be tough for someone selling GM auto products.

 

So if the government got 51% ownership, and the old stock does not represent an ownership stake, who owns the other 49%???

(I don't buy individual stocks. I know enough about the market to know that I don't know enough about the market to invest in individual stocks. I own mutual funds instead.)

 

Google for "high frequency trading" or "flash trades" - most of that volume is automated. There was a New York Times article on it too. Any quants here? I'm sure they can explain

 

It's a little more complicated than that. Honestly you don't have a chance competing with the guys with servers co-located with those of the exchange itself (order placement time matters - think tens of milliseconds).

 

If I were you, I'd either set 2 stop limits: one around the price you paid and one w/a sizable gain above it so that you can get out as it falls. Since you're on TDAM, you could maybe do a triggered trade and do a limit sell at a pretty high price and a stop limit on the lower end to sell on the way down.

Since it seems have Motors Liquidation, I think you're playing w/fire.

The stop limits probably won't do squat when it's announced the shares will be canceled.

 

It's worse than that. Some of the biggest Wall Street banks have programmers whose sole job is to program their computers to game the other banks' computers into causing the price of a stock to move in a predictable way, and then to buy or sell in order to ride that wave. It's very sophisticated.

The existence of these gaming programs causes the prices of any targeted stock to swing wildly up and down as each program tries to ride the wave.

The ordinary Joe Schmoe investor is completely screwed. Prices will swing wildly for no reason other than that there was some sale activity that was then amplified - but the business media will be there, trying to invent a reason. GM stock will swing because there has been some activity and the programs try to follow it.

Incidentally I don't consider it 'investing' when all you're doing is buying out another stockholder. That allows greater liquidity in that the other holder may choose to invest in something else, but ultimately it does nothing for the company's bottom line. True investment is in buying up new stock issues, for which the company gets your money as new capital.

 

Yes, and no. Hardly anybody would buy stocks if they could not sell at some point (e.g. retirement) and so if it were not possible to trade stocks, companies would have to promise to redeem shares at some point, giving up the needed capital. Thus trading is an integral, if subsidiary part of investing.

The problem is speculation: People trying to extract money by buying and selling rapidly, as opposed to collecting dividends and realizing the long-term gains as the company grows.

My solution would be to tax the hell out of speculative profits: If you realize a profit by selling shares you bought less than, say, six months or a year earlier, that profit (not the sale price, but just the increase) would be taxed at 95%. This would make speculation unprofitable and would stabilize the market, while still allowing legitimate investors to place capital with companies and sell their shares when their long-term goals are reached or they need their money for retirement or other expenses. People who need their money unexpectedly could still sell their shares, they just would not be allowed to profit from a short-term rise in the price. The same principle could be applied to houses and other real property. Housing bubbles occur when people bid up the prices of homes in anticipation of selling them quickly for massive profits, but if that profit were taxed away, the speculators would be squeezed out of the market and speculative bubbles would be suppressed.

For commodities I'd take a slightly different approach: If you are a producer of a commodity, or if you actually take delivery of the commodity, you would not be regulated; but if you buy a contract and sell it without taking delivery you would be taxed 95% on any profit.

I would outlaw short-selling entirely: You could not sell a stock you did not own, or originate a futures contract on a commodity you did not produce. No legitimate purpose is served by short-selling.