We went to our friends’ house this weekend for dinner. The conversation turned to individual stocks– Turkish shipping, water indexes, profiting from beleaguered financials, Yahoo.

I was mostly a listener, mind you. I have little extra money to throw at the slots, I mean stocks. And I doubt I have the time or dedication to monitor individual companies in order to make smart bets.

But I must admit that I was intrigued by the conversation. Both friends said how much they learned from their small brokerage accounts about industries and global trends.

Plus I recently interviewed a financial adviser who suggested that people my age place too much emphasis on long term savings, forgetting about the need for flexibility a la a short-term taxable account.

Should I buy some stocks? Stockpickers out there, share your tips.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 1:44 pm and is filed under stock market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.