I was about to jump in and talk about defining your investment philosophy, goals, risk tolerance, etc. Echo the recommendation for www.fool.com (taken with a grain of salt...) and ask if there is anything in Switzerland comparable to sharebuilder.com (reinvestment of dividends & capital gains at no cost)?

Then I noticed the OP started this thread in '07...

Hopefully, he's in his first two-seater by now, though with this economy he might be washing someone else's two-seater...

read.. read some more and then keep reading the financial news. I am an amateur & I have been investing for 8 Years now. Everyone has their own opinions and there are no golden rules.There will be many people who will disagree with my approach, but it generally works for me.

a) Never put your eggs in one basket. If your starting with 5k, then buy 5 different stocks in 1k block. Less then that and the fees etc take a bigger percentage.
b) Look at the dividends. I don't know global stock markets but in the UK, companies like RSA may not shine in terms of growth but the divs can be great
c) Catching the downturn. Dangerous but interesting game. My approach is if you are chasing a downturn in a sector, select several stocks. eg Housing stocks in the UK in the last year. 1 may drop a 50% one may stagnate or increase by 20% and one may fly with 150% + gains (Eg Barratts, TW & Redrow)... again its back to the eggs in one basket and your attitude to risk
d) chasing stocks that are doing well. Not really my game. The market always knows more then you, and knows everything before you and they have their own rules which can affect the price... By the time you jump on the band wagon... they may be ready to cash in.
e) If you lose money... think carefully about selling off.. is it a short term market drop, is the company really financially screwed or is this a Buffet like opportunity to top up your investment.
f) were human.. you will hold on to stocks longer then you should .. and that's half the fun of fighting you emotions.
g) Pennystocks and internet trading .... Beware.. if things go south... it can be really hard to place a sell trade

Oh.. and did I say.. the market knows more than and well before you.... It can be frustrating.. but it should not put you off.

Good luck

Now that you have those CHF 5000 maybe you could buy that bike you lusted upon.... life is short

Yep, I don't want (initially) to gamble on currencies as well as stocks. CHF looks like it has more future than the euro.

i would say forget reading all the mainstream investment tips and commentators. the only guy that actually stands out as having called it right was peter schiff. watch this video:



right now, things are in really interesting times and there is plenty of money to be made, but you need to keep your eyes open.

i'm really amazed by how SLOWLY things are moving. i used to take part in a small forum of like-minded investors and some of the things we looked at back in 2005/2006 are only just being considered now!

for example, back then we looked at the impact of the coming housing crash while everyone was still in boom mode. not just the sub-prime which hit a few years later, but also the big tranches of option-arms which will reset around 2011 (these are only just getting some attention now!)

the problem is that investments tend to get hyped in the mainstream press at the sucker end of a boom. here's a list of a few things that we made money on:

- interest rates (predicting the loosening monetary response prior to the crisis)
- gold (i was late in the game at $600/oz. other members got in a $300)
- shorting UK banks prior to NRK collapse (literally a few days before - i missed out as at the time I worked for the firm auditing NRK and was prevented from dealing for independence reasons)
- short sterling

then there were other items where we had differing opinions:

- JPY pile in to catch the unwinding of the carry trade (some made money on this) - or too much of a risk due to demographics and pension ponzi coming to crisis?
- CHF/NOK - obviously i went with the CHF camp and switched my earnings here, but there is a big and real risk of swiss banking collapse and also political risk around tax avoidance as govts scramble for tax revenue
- CAD/AUD - secure currencies backed by mineral wealth? or is oz just a few years behind and have their own property bubble waiting to be popped?
- USD - the big one! how long can USD ride it out as a safe haven while the US continues with massive debts?
- agricultural commodities - another contentious one. perhaps the next boom area, but i was sceptical of this. bio-fuels add another factor to the mix
- commodities (oil, mining) - how does decreased demand from recession play off against rise of the BRICs?

but the biggest gains can be if you put a bit of work in. the biggest gains i made were from completely random opportunities i saw. e.g. govt scrapped a certain project and the equipment went to an IT recycler - i bought the units at a super-low price and re-sold for 20x - 40x gain.

another example is the vuvuzela - some people have made a fair bit of money on this.

if you keep an entrepreneurial mindset, you'll see opportunities everywhere.

my philosophy is to think small and try to be cash-flow positive/profitable ASAP. forget the trappings of business.

the first company i started was a disaster, i wasted money on starting a ltd company, getting letterhead printed etc. etc. waste of time and money. focus on the cash end of the business and the rest will sort itself out.

Given the state of the world economy - and that the financial markets are teetering on collapse (some would say have collapsed and are holding on for a while longer due to the massive interventions) , think twice before investing in the stock market --- how about gold - it holds its value in either depression or inflationary times!

if you want one area to look at, then take a look at greece: it IS going to default on its debts and will take down its banks with it. but the mainstream view seems to be that it might somehow muddle through.

Perhaps you need to ask yourself if you want to be an "investor" or a "trader"?

This is all opinion, of course, but:

A) If you sell stock(s) because the market is "down", you're a trader. If you buy because the market is "going up", you're a trader. If you try to "time" profits on a commodity or currency or the state of the(an) economy, you're a trader.

B) If you buy a stock because it's a "good company at a good price" regardless of whether the market is "up" or "down", you're an investor. If you sell a stock because a "good company" turned into a "bad company", you're an investor. The definition of "good" of course is based on careful analysis of a company, where it stands within its industry and the future you predict for that company.

Again, purely my opinion and I'm vastly oversimplifying this but once you've decided whether you're A or B (tough to be both, I think), that determines the information you should analyze, the tools you should use, your timeframe(s) and more.

The trader needs a LOT more screen-time than the investor... Admittedly, my primary goal is retirement and I'm happy with slow, steady profits (though the occasional overnight success is a happy surprise...)

HTH