What's a decent stock for under $10?
Hi friends!
Welcome to Better Have My Money, my weekly newsletter about stocks for those of us who are a lil terrified of the stock market.
I've been MIA for a few weeks, thank you for being patient. I was in Santa Fe, Texas, covering the awful school shooting there and then worked Memorial Day. Now I'm in California, having surprised one of my besties who was visiting from Oz, but I STILL got my newsletter done cause I knew I couldn't miss one more week (also yes screw stocks, you should blow all your money on flying across the country to surprise mates, it's great).
If you're a newbie here, welcome! Better Have My Money is a gif-filled rundown of thing I'm learning from my own tiny brand new stock portfolio (from how to buy a share, to being mad about how much CEOs get paid, to losing a bunch of money in weed stocks) and the things we're figuring out together. This week's is a big un, since it's been a while!
Recently I chatted with Gaby Dunn on her excellent podcast Bad With Money, all about stocks and embracing the bits of capitalism you're OK with (aka investing in companies you like or reframing how you view wealth). My mother's review was: "don't take this the wrong way, but you actually sounded like you knew what you were talking about." Thanks mum!!! You should subscribe to Gaby's podcast, cause it's great, and make sure you listen to our interview. Her producers told me I was "enthusiastic," lol.
Last newsletter I did a rundown of how buying individual stocks was the least responsible but most fun way to invest and therefore the way I do it. So I'm always excited (srsly) to read the fortnightly stock pick for the Motley Fool newsletter I pay for. The latest pick? Bookings Holdings (BKNG).
Bookings owns Kayak, Booking, Priceline and OpenTable (sometimes it makes me feel so stupid for me to think that I had assumed these were all separate companies when literally they are all the same thing, big business is such a scam). But I use all these products! Who doesn't love food, travel and the internet, this sounds like a stock I'd be into!
Except, then I realize one tiny thing when I scroll down to see the stock price. It's $2,128.94 (well it was last Friday, while I wrote these newsletter on the plane)!
Yes, that's over $2000 for ONE share.
Hahaha OK I guess I won't be buying any then.
It also reminded me why so many stock and financial publications make zero sense to me, cause they are written for people who are owning hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars worth of stock. Amazon (AMZN) stocks are $1610 each. Owning three would be my entire share portfolio. Although it's up 61% in a year (in contrast, Bookings is up 13%), so maybe I wish it was all I owned...
Anyway it made me want to create a list of STOCKS PEOPLE CAN AFFORD. These are all just ones I own or like or have seen recommended by Motley Fool or others and maybe want to buy in the future or just googled and found. Yes they are mainly retail or tech stocks, cause that's what I personally like/understand. What are your top $100, under $50 and under $10 stocks?
Under $100
PayPal (PYPL) — As soon as I realized PayPal owns Venmo, I wanted to buy PayPal. I haven't yet! One year ago it was in the $50s range. Now it's in the $80s. It's up 15% in the last month. It's on a bunch of lists for good long term stocks buys and honestly will prob next be my next buy.
Nike (NIKE) — Just a good, reliable classic, both shoes wise and stocks wise. Currently early $70s. This is also on Motley Fool's list of good buys for entry investors. In some ways I am torn, because Nike just fired a bunch of staffover sexual harassment — including the senior creative director — and fallout from the scandal. So while obviously frustrated that this company culture was allowed to grow and FLOURISH, also appreciate that major moves are being made to stamp it out. I dunno, I feel in two ways about it.
Starbucks (SBUX) — I have always loved to hate Starbucks (I'm from Melbourne, it's compulsory) but lately... it's been super useful when I've been traveling for work. Do I need a reliable place to work and eat a decent breakfast and have an OK coffee? Yes. Again, another company where there are major public issues, after two black men had police called on them. Stock price around $57.
Okta (OKTA) — have talked about this company before, it's a cloud computing software data management system, I think that's how you describe it? Basically means all my passwords and work links — newspaper subscriptions, access to databases etc — are kept in one spot. Since I bought stocks a month ago, it's up 16%! Current stock price is $56.
Under $50
Canopy Growth (CGC) — This is the marijuana company I should have invested in (instead, I bought Cronos, which is a much smaller, rocky and less successful company, and the shares have dropped over 25%). But Canopy only just launched in the US market! I got suckered by Cronos cause they were just the first and only option. Canopy is selling for just under $30. If I had my time over, I would buy Canopy not Cronos.
JetBlue (JBLU) — I'm on a JetBlue flight right now writing this. Most room in economy. The snackboxes are good. Stock price is under $20. Definitely a longterm stock but one that might do well in the second half of the year and you could get for a good price now.
Sunrun (RUN) — A solar company for residential properties, based in California. I'd never heard of this stock until a reader Bryan emailed me on March 23 and said he had invested and thought it was a good tip. Sunrun was selling for $8.33 then. It's now over $12. Just cause I'm an idiot, doesn't mean you should be. Another interesting long term one.
Under $10:
Zynga (ZNGA): I've never heard of this UNTIL people (aka you lovely readers) started using my Robinhood referral code (my weekly reminder that if you open a Robinhood account, which lets you buy and sell stocks with zero fees, use my referral code and we both get a free share). I got a bunch fo Zynga shares, and started googling it. It's a mobile video game company. It makes Words With Friends and FarmVille! There's talk it is "forever undervalued" (followed by immediately saying it's fully valued). Stock price is around $4. I sold some of my other free Robinhood stocks (about $30 worth) to buy some more Zynga stock.
Trivago (TRVG) — Can't afford Booking but believe in reserving travel online? Well, Trivago has had a crappy year, and it's saying it won't have any growth til the second half of the year, but that also means its stock price is hitting all time lows and hovering around the $5 mark.
Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc (HMNY) — this is maybe a TERRIBLE stock idea or maybe genius, we'll see. So this company owns MoviePass. This was a tip from reader Jess:
"After reading about the HMNY (the MoviePass company) stock plummeting I bought 20 shares am I doing this right...they were $.60-something when I bought them and there was a cap at 19 shares for some reason, so I figured worst case scenario I'd lose 12 bucks, best case they'd skyrocket at some point"
Yikes.... it has dropped now to around 40c. 40c!!!! I have MoviePass and I have only been to one movie so far. Considering how low it is, maybe worth dropping a tiny amount of money you're OK with losing?
Confusing term of the week: Limit order — When you set an max amount that you want to pay for a stock, so that when it drops and reaches your target price, your order immediately goes through. So if you wanna buy some stocks but you want to wait until it's cheaper, just set a price and wait.
Here's a check in of my stocks right now. I won't include all three weeks of graphs in the newsletter as that is not aesthetically pleasing, but you can see them here. This is this week's, as of around 3pm ET time.
Guys I'm 9.2% up overall, even including my weed stocks being down nearly 20%!!!!!!
My charity suggestion this week is for a man who served 21 years of a 35 year sentence for selling crack, and was then released and has found a new life — before being sent back to prison because he technically was released too early. This fund (tweeted by the journalist who wrote the story) will raise money for his legal fund.
Testimonials:
No tweets but shout out to the two people who told me to my face that were wondering why my newsletter hadn't been sent for two weeks, cause I really appreciated that.
Now I'm off to go invest in my taco portfolio.