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This Post is Not Investment Advice
May. 20th, 2011 05:37 pmThe investment advice I'm soliciting in this post is also not, technically, investment advice, as I have no reason to suspect any of you know what you're talking about, either.
So, I've got some money to invest freely. The last time I had some to spare, I made a bit of a "peak oil fund" for kicks, investing it in gold, silver, oil, and alternative energy. That fund gained about 20% in three years, so not terrible.
But it turns out maybe I should have invested it in Netflix (which went from ~$30 to ~$250) or Amazon (which went from ~$50 to ~$200). (Or Apple again. Not investing in Apple is apparently a mistake I make regularly. Though that doesn't make me confident that's a good idea now.)
Netflix I could have called,* but never thought about it, never realized they were publicly traded at that point. Amazon I would not have called: I'd expect Amazon to do well but wouldn't have expected the rise to be that meteoric at this time.
Netflix now has a price-to-earnings ratio of ~70, Amazon's stands at 86. Is it just me, or is there another bubble brewing in the "cool" tech companies?
I'm thinking I may invest a bit in Zipcar because their IPO was recent, I want them to do well, and I think it's reasonably likely that they will. Anything else I should look into?
LinkedIn had a recent IPO, but I'm not sure I'm excited enough about LinkedIn to want to invest. Groupon has an IPO coming up, too, evidently. (Look, this is serious business, I didn't have any money to waste in the 90s.)
* ETA: That's just hindsight bias, there are almost certainly other companies who I had just as much reason to assume would be successful three years ago whose stock has nonetheless not performed nearly as impressively. There's a reasons why most of my investments are in funds managed by people more qualified than I, investing in a variety of things.
So, I've got some money to invest freely. The last time I had some to spare, I made a bit of a "peak oil fund" for kicks, investing it in gold, silver, oil, and alternative energy. That fund gained about 20% in three years, so not terrible.
But it turns out maybe I should have invested it in Netflix (which went from ~$30 to ~$250) or Amazon (which went from ~$50 to ~$200). (Or Apple again. Not investing in Apple is apparently a mistake I make regularly. Though that doesn't make me confident that's a good idea now.)
Netflix I could have called,* but never thought about it, never realized they were publicly traded at that point. Amazon I would not have called: I'd expect Amazon to do well but wouldn't have expected the rise to be that meteoric at this time.
Netflix now has a price-to-earnings ratio of ~70, Amazon's stands at 86. Is it just me, or is there another bubble brewing in the "cool" tech companies?
I'm thinking I may invest a bit in Zipcar because their IPO was recent, I want them to do well, and I think it's reasonably likely that they will. Anything else I should look into?
LinkedIn had a recent IPO, but I'm not sure I'm excited enough about LinkedIn to want to invest. Groupon has an IPO coming up, too, evidently. (Look, this is serious business, I didn't have any money to waste in the 90s.)
* ETA: That's just hindsight bias, there are almost certainly other companies who I had just as much reason to assume would be successful three years ago whose stock has nonetheless not performed nearly as impressively. There's a reasons why most of my investments are in funds managed by people more qualified than I, investing in a variety of things.
