Is long term stock investing pretty much a guaranteed profit unless the company goes bankrupt?

Why would people sell a stock @ a losing price unless they NEEDED the money at the moment? I can understand if the business is about to close but yeah? How hard is it to sell a high stock!?!? I know to buy LOW and sell HIGH but is it EASY to sell HIGH?
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it's going to go up eventually unless if the company bankrupts

<<<Is long term stock investing pretty much a guaranteed profit unless the company goes bankrupt?>>>

For an individual company, no. For the market as a whole, or an adequately diversified portfolio, yes if the term is long enough. However, there is no guarantee the the profit will equal or exceed inflation.

The statement that "a stock will go up eventually unless the company goes bankrupt" is not always correct. One example I can cite off the top of my head is CompUSA. During much of 1999 the stock was trading between $15 and $25 per share. In 2000 the company was purchased for $10.10 cash per share. Everyone who bought the stock when it was trading for a higher price, and still owned it at that time, lost money.

<<<Why would people sell a stock @ a losing price unless they NEEDED the money at the moment?>>>

I firmly believe that the price you paid for a stock should not be a factor in determining if you should sell it. Factors that should be part of the decision include
(1) the amount of risk associated with the investment
(2) any change in your outlook for the company
(3) if there is a better use of the money available.

<<<How hard is it to sell a high stock!?!? I know to buy LOW and sell HIGH but is it EASY to sell HIGH?>>>

It can be hard to sell a stock when it is high, but there are some things you can do to make it easier. One the of the primary tools I use is risk management. Let's say I buy 1,000 shares of a stock at $10 per share. That means at that time I was willing to risk $10,000 on that company. Now assume that the stock is trading at $15 per share. I now have $15,000 at risk, $5,000 more than I was willing to risk when I first bought the stock. Unless I think something has changed with the operation of the company, as opposed to just its stock price, I probably should be thinking about reducing the risk I have associated with that company. I could do that by selling part of may position, maybe 200 or 300 shares, or I could do that by selling covered calls on some of all of the stock I owned. (If you do not know about covered calls you obviously would have to learn about them first.)

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Although you did not ask this explicitly, is sounds like you find it even harder to sell a stock when the price has gone down. That is pretty common. You have to admit you made a mistake, something most people are reluctant to do. Just rememer the mistake is there whether you admit it or not. If you are going to invest in the stock market you better get used to making mistakes because investors make a lot of them. What separates the successful investors from the unsuccessful investors is usually not how many mistakes they make, but how they react after the have made a mistake. JMHO

Yes, if you pick the right stocks, its pretty much guaranteed.

Make a list of really good, solid companies that are cheap and have gone down a lot since Sept 08. You are living in and experiencing a buying opportunity that you will never seen again in your lifetime!

Now you must be asking---if it's so easy, why hasn't anyone does this already? The reason is because many can't afford or don't want to be involved in long-term investing. They just want to make a quick buck.

But yes you are absolutely correct. If you pick good companies that have been oversold, and unless they go bankrupt, its guaranteed profit.

www.insidetradingstocks.com

when you say long term are you talking about 15 years. if that's it the principal will be there in 15 years. If you invest 120 thousand now in different long term bonds. When they mature they will be worth the 120 thousand. Until then they may show different values. The interest you draw will be higher than other investments some as much as 15%. You can save this or use it. The long term bonds are suppose to be safe, however nothing is safe all the time so be careful where you put it.

No.

Don't put all of your money in one stock.

Pick your companies carefully.

Pick them in different sectors (for example, one in basic materials, one in finance, and one in retail, one in technology)

Look at your investments regularly and decide which ones to sell. If there's a good reason to sell, or a reason not to buy something, sell it.

Good luck.

It's never easy to sell high, because that's when things look best. When things look really good for your company and it's gone up a lot... sell some.

No one ever went broke taking profits.

That paradigm is pretty much ended. With all these bailouts and takeovers, the original shareholder may be left with nothing. A lot of financial institutions didn't actual go bankrupt, but when they were taken over, the shareholders got practically nothing. Same is likely to happen to holders of auto company stocks even if the companies don't go under.

do short selling, you make WAY more money then long term investors. we are in a recession right now and guess who lost all the money.. LONG TERM INVESTORS, if you short sell you make in a week or 2 what a long term investor makes in a year. It is worth it, learn it... do it and you will be satisfied, just research the company before buying into it, and if you feel nervous about that... play around on a virtual stock market game. there is a good one at investopedia.com where you invest fake money but in the real stock market, try short selling and see how you like it.

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