Stock of the day: MMM

Just bought some this morning. It looks to me like this is an opportunity to pick up a great company at a pretty cheap price. It's near its 52-week low, for no reason I can discern (Perhaps because the CEO left for Boeing?). Trailing PE is under 20, forward PE is just over 15. 2% dividend, some debt but just as much cash.

Seriously, this is a great company that's had successful growth for a very long time. It should keep going steadily for the foreseeable future. This isn't one that'll double in a year, but right now seems like a very cheap entry point in a generally overvalued market.

[KaneKungFu123]

i just made my first investment and put 10k into this stock, for the reasons you outlined.

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Just bought some this morning. It looks to me like this is an opportunity to pick up a great company at a pretty cheap price. It's near its 52-week low, for no reason I can discern (Perhaps because the CEO left for Boeing?). Trailing PE is under 20, forward PE is just over 15. 2% dividend, some debt but just as much cash.

Seriously, this is a great company that's had successful growth for a very long time. It should keep going steadily for the foreseeable future. This isn't one that'll double in a year, but right now seems like a very cheap entry point in a generally overvalued market.

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[FishHooks]

I hope you did more research than just what he explained to make your first investment of 10k

[KaneKungFu123]

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I hope you did more research than just what he explained to make your first investment of 10k

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yeah. i did a good 5 mins of research. listed as low risk everywhere. pull the trigger.

[KaneKungFu123]

RALLY RALLY RALLY....

[kagame]

shoulda gone with shanda ;-)

[Sniper]

Buying a stock below its 200 and 50 day moving average is generally not a great idea, and the stock is under heavy distribution.

On a positive note, there has been some recent insider buying.

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Buying a stock below its 200 and 50 day moving average is generally not a great idea, and the stock is under heavy distribution.

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Why would people believe in that kind of technical analysis crap? There's a simple way to settle this. What happens if you compare the performance of all stocks below their 50 and 200 MAs to all stocks above their MAs? I'd guess they're almost exactly the same, or that the cheaper stocks do better.

In any case, I'm not particularly concerned with how it does in the next 6 months or year, except that if it tanks, I might buy more, and if it skyrockets I might sell. It's the same company, just a different price.

[Sniper]

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Why would people believe in that kind of technical analysis crap? There's a simple way to settle this. What happens if you compare the performance of all stocks below their 50 and 200 MAs to all stocks above their MAs? I'd guess they're almost exactly the same, or that the cheaper stocks do better.

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If you gave this some thought, you would understand that stocks above their 50 and 200 day moving averages by definition significantly outperform stocks under their 50 and 200 day moving averages.

These moving averages are significant to look at, because these are critical inflection points for the big institutions whose money pushes stocks up and down.

[Delphin]

Yeah I feel really sorry for anyone who bought this stock below it's 50 and 200 MA back in Q2 or Q3 2002

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=VLO&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=m50,m200&a=&c=

Or this one in Jan 2003:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=SBUX&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=m200,m50&a=&c=

Or this one in Q303

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=BMHC&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=m50,m200&a=&c=

Or this one in Q403 or Aug04

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=ANF&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=m50,m200&a=&c=

Or this one in Q103

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=LGF&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=m50,m200&a=&c=

Or this one in Q103

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=LLL&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=m50,m200&a=&c=

Comparing a stock price to it's moving average only tells you what has happened in the past. There are lots of reasons that stocks go down and not all of them indicate that the stock will continue to go down in the future.

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If you gave this some thought, you would understand that stocks above their 50 and 200 day moving averages by definition significantly outperform stocks under their 50 and 200 day moving averages.

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Umm, by definition they have in the past outperformed stocks under their MAs. There's no reason to think that will continue. If you flip a fair coin and get heads 5 times in a row, the odds of heads on the next flip are still 50/50.

Like I said, there's a simple way to settle this. Just compare the future performance of stocks above or below their MAs. Surely someone's done this, right?

[Sniper]

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Comparing a stock price to it's moving average only tells you what has happened in the past. There are lots of reasons that stocks go down and not all of them indicate that the stock will continue to go down in the future.

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No prediction necessary... and all the charts you selected prove my point.

Try this... buy everytime the stock goes above its 50 day MA, sell and go short everytime it drops below the 50 day MA, so that you will always have a position either long or short. Try this on ANY stock and you will find that this is a significant & simple winning strategy over the long term.