Is engaging in stocks without researching unwise?
"If you don't want to do the deep research on each individual company, you might want to look at index funds and similar ""whole market"" investments." "Stock recommendations and price history are an unwise way to invest. People that recommend stocks are usually compensation for recommending it. They are paid directly by third parties, that can be paid in shares, they can simply own the stock themselves and if the stock goes up they can sell it to new investors at a higher price (or even a lower price, they may not actually care) Price history does not tell you a complete picture, what kind of price history are you even looking at: ""this stock went up, let me buy now at the very top and hope it goes higher, am I too late"" ""this stock went down let me avoid it"" if you don't know why, what, who, when, assets, debt, etc, you shouldn't be buying the stock." I don't see balance sheet in what you're looking at, and I'd definitely suggest learning how to read a balance sheet and looking at it, if you're going to buy stock in a company, unless you know that the recommendations you're buying on are already doing that and you're willing to take that risk.  Also, reading past balance sheets and statements can give you an idea about how accurate the company is with their predictions, or if they have a history of financial integrity. Now, if you're going the model portfolio route, which has become popular, the assumption that many of these stock buyers are making is that someone else is doing that for them.  I am not saying that this assumption is valid, just one that I've seen; you will definitely find a lot of skeptics, and rightly so, about model portfolios.  Likewise, people who trade based on what [Person X] does (like Warren Buffett or David Einhorn) are assuming that they're doing the research.  The downside to this is if you follow someone like this.  Yeah, oops. I should also point out that technical analysis, especially high probability TA, generally only looks at history.  Most would define it as high risk and there are many underlying assumptions with reading the price movements by high probability TA types.
No of course not, they are privately held, have no relationship with publicly held financial institutions, do not mine and sell your information to publicly held corporations, do not play revolving door of board members, the board members own no stocks, fired and retired board members will never get on another board, they never lobby congress on behalf of extracting more money from the public, and never engage in insider trading for sure.  Nothing at all to do with Wall Street. "If by saying you wish to invest ""for the long term 5-10 years"" I take it you mean to hold a stock for between 5-10 years. If this is the case, this is the fundamental flaw in your screening algorithm. No company stock price continues to go up without end for 5-10 years. The price of every company's stock goes down at some point. You have to decide on a company by company basis whether you want to ride out the downturn or sell and get out. This is a personal decision based on your own research. The list of screening criteria you list indicates you are looking for solid earnings companies. Try not to apply these rules rigidly because every company runs through a rough patch. At times past, GE (for example) met all of your criteria. However, in 2017, it would not and therefore would not meet your screening criteria. Would you sell GE if you owned it? Maybe, or maybe you would hold through the downturn. The same be said for MSFT in 2010 or AAPL pre-Jobs return. A rule you may want to add to your list: know the company business well; that is, don't invest in companies you have no understanding of their business model." What you're getting at is the same as investing with leverage. Usually this comes in the form in a margin account, which an investor uses to borrow money at a low interest rate, invest the money, and (hopefully!) beat the interest rate.  is this approach unwise? That completely depends on how your investments perform and how high your loan's interest rate is. The higher your loan's interest rate, the more risky your investments will have to be in order to beat the interest rate. If you can get a return which beats the interest rates of your loan then congratulations! You have come out ahead and made a profit. If you can keep it up you should make the minimum payment on your loan to maximize the amount of capital you can invest. If not, then it would be better to just use your extra cash to pay down the loan.  [are] there really are investments (aside from stocks and such) that I can try to use to my advantage? With interest rates as low as they are right now (at least in the US) you'll probably be hard-pressed to find a savings account or CD that will return a higher interest rate than your loan's. If you're nervous about the risk associated with investing in stocks and bonds (as is healthy!), then know that they come in a wide spectrum of risk. It's up to you to evaluate how much risk you're willing to take on to achieve a higher return. "I have money to invest. Where should I put it? Anyone who answers with ""Give it to me, I'll invest it for you, don't worry."" needs to be avoided. If your financial advisor gives you this line or equivalent, fire him/her and find another. Before you think about where you should put your money, learn about investing. Take courses, read books, consume blogs and videos on investing in stocks, businesses, real estate, and precious metals. Learn what the risks and rewards are for each, and make an informed decision based on what you learned. Find differing opinions on each type of investment and come to your own conclusions for each. I for example, do not understand stocks, and so do not seriously work the stock market.  Mutual funds make money for the folks selling them whether or not the price goes up or down. You assume all the risk while the mutual fund advisor gets the reward. If you find a mutual fund advisor who cannot recommend the purchase of a product he doesn't sell, he's not an advisor, he's a salesman. Investing in business requires you either to intimately understand businesses and how to fund them, or to hire someone who can make an objective evaluation for you. Again this requires training. I have no such training, and avoid investing in businesses. Investing in real estate also requires you to know what to look for in a property that produces cash flow or capital gains. I took a course, read some books, gained experience and have a knowledgeable team at my disposal so my wins are greater than my losses. Do not be fooled by people telling you that higher risk means higher reward. Risks that you understand and have a detailed plan to mitigate are not risks. It is possible to have higher reward without increasing risk. Again, do your own research. The richest people in the world do not own mutual funds or IRAs or RRSPs or TFSAs, they do their own research and invest in the things I mentioned above." "You're ""onto"" something. Investing in real estate was not a bad idea about 10-15 years ago, when stocks were high, and real estate was not. On the other hand, by about 2006, BOTH stocks and real estate were high, and should have been avoided. And around 1980, both were LOW, and should have been bought. I expand this construct to include gold and oil. Around 2005, these were relatively low, and should have been bought over stocks and real estate. On the other hand, ALL FOUR are high right now, and offer comparable dangers." "Step 2 is wrong. Leverage is NOT necessary. It increases possible gain, but increases risk of loss by essentially the same amount. Those two numbers are pretty tightly linked by market forces. See many, many other answers here showing that one can earn ""market rate"" -- 8% or so -- with far less risk and effort, if one is patient, and some evidence that one can do better with more effort and not too much more risk. And yes, investing for a longer time horizon is also safer." "My gut is to say that any time there seems to be easy money to be made, the opportunity would fade as everyone jumped on it. Let me ask you - why do you think these stocks are priced to yield 7-9%? The DVY yields 3.41% as of Aug 30,'12.  The high yielding stocks you discovered may very well be hidden gems. Or they may need to reduce their dividends and subsequently drop in price.  No, it's not 'safe.' If the stocks you choose drop by 20%, you'd lose 40% of your money, if you made the purchase on 50% margin. There's risk with any stock purchase, one can claim no stock is safe. Either way, your proposal juices the effect to creating twice the risk.  Edit - After the conversation with Victor, let me add these thoughts. The ""Risk-Free"" rate is generally defined to be the 1yr tbill (and of course the risk of Gov default is not zero). There's the S&P 500 index which has a beta of 1 and is generally viewed as a decent index for comparison. You propose to use margin, so your risk, if done with an S&P index is twice that of the 1X S&P investor. However, you won't buy S&P but stocks with such a high yield I question their safety. You don't mention the stocks, so I can't quantify my answer, but it's tbill, S&P, 2X S&P, then you." The benefit of a dividend reinvestment program is you, generally, don't pay transaction costs or commissions and you don't have to remember to do it.  Whether or not you may be able to eek out a little more by managing this yourself is a crapshoot and the equivalent of timing the market.   If you're so good at timing the market you shouldn't even be holding the stock, you should be buying and selling as the price fluctuates.