What stocks should I invest in for an online game?

Kate: What stocks should I invest in for an online game?
I’m in econ at school and we are playing a virtual stock game on the internet. Which stocks should I invest in? I’ve invested in the obvious stocks such as Google and Apple but I need to invest in more. I’m just not exactly sure what I should be investing in.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Judy
Visa
Delta
Expected to go up 50% in the next year.
TheStreet.com
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Answer by Kip
Use this yahoo link and change the symbol goog on the end with other symbols you are interested in. Look for companies where the green line (the stock) is higher than the blue line (the s&p 500 index) when you put them in. (Past performance does not indicate future returns, but this can give you an idea of how the company has been doing recently relative to the S&P 500 index)

^GSPC&t=1y&l=on&z=l&q=l&p=&a=&c=goog

finance.yahoo.com is a good place to read about different stocks that are in the news, etc.

Here is a current article about some blue chip stocks:
https://www.kiplinger.com/columns/value/archive/9-blue-chip-stocks-to-buy-now.html?si=1

Answer by John W
What’s your strategy?

Picking stocks isn’t a strategy and if you don’t have a strategy, you’re just putting the cart in front of the horse by picking stocks.

A very important decision is how much of your portfolio to keep as cash. Once you have your portfolio percentages decided upon, you need to keep them. For example, if you have 50% cash and the rest in one stock and the stock goes down, you buy stocks till you’re at 50/50 again, if it goes up, you sell stocks till you’re at 50/50 again. Always rebalance to the targets you decided on. That way, you can take advantage of a downturn as well as growth.

As to stocks, I’d stay away from airlines for a while, there’s the Continental United merger underway, first round of layoffs just occurred and regulations about the amount of rest the pilots need to have has just changed. I would estimate that the airlines will have to either double the number of pilots they have or cut their schedules by 30%. Continental and United will probably use the merger as an excuse to cut schedules so they’ll be the first out of the block in restructuring to the new regulations but that industry is a difficult one at the best of times.

When in doubt, you can go with ETF’s, the idea of ETF’s are that they are a blend of stocks so that it’s like buying a share in the entire S&P 500 index or some other index.

There’s a lot that may happen in the next few months, retail stores have their inventories at all time lows and are counting every dime which means they’re in survival mode and won’t be in a good position to take advantage of any increase in consumerism but online outlets like Amazon will benefit from that. Grocery stores are probably going to do well cause food is the last thing people want to skimp on. Oilfield services might be good now that the spill is over with so business can pick up again (slb is pretty good in that sector). Of course the October timeframe is usually when bad things happen so keep cash ready to take advantage of opportunities.