"Fred Westendorf" <fcw[at]alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:1147135921.981315.67310[at]e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

My DRIPs have saved me enough over the last 6 years or so that I could
afford to pay an accountant for 20 or 30 hours of advice if necessary and
still have savings left over. But I will not need to because I do not plan
to sell anything in the near future, and if and when I do sell, I hope to
know enough about the technicalities to do the accounting myself. But,
seriously, I think many people do overestimate the paperwork involved in
DRIPs.

While DRIPs have inherent saving with regard to investing in stocks,
what is often forgotten is the requirement to commit to do the
recordkeeping required for calculating DRIP cost basis. If you are not
knowledgeable about how to handle the cost basis of stock splits
or spin-offs in addition to reinvested dividends you should not invest
in DRIPs.

As an AARP Tax-Aide counselor I've had to tell clients that they need
to go to a professional tax preparer when they didn't keep adequate
records about the cost basis of their DRIP investments. What they
saved up front on commissions may well be offset with additional tax
prep costs when a professional tax preparer has to spend several
hours figuring out the cost basis of DRIP investments when they are
sold.

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 14:10:39 -0500, "wprien[at]yahoo.com"
<wprien[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

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Invest in dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs). You can buy stocks
directly from a company without any brokerage commissions or sales
charges, and future dividends will be automatically invested in the
without charges. Do a Google search for DRIPs. Several books written
by Charles Carlson also are helpful. A large number of companies,
including many of the best-known blue chip companies have these plans.
They are a great way to save money if you buy individual stocks.

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 14:10:39 -0500, "wprien[at]yahoo.com" <wprien[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

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I hate to be the party pooper here but - the knowledge gap between
what a mutual fund investor needs to know and what someone who
buys individual stocks needs to know might be larger than you
think. You need to have some kind of plan before you go into the
market.

Basically there are two kinds of plans - value investing (see Peter
Lynch's books, "One Up on Wall Street" etc.) or trend following
(see Schwager's "Market Wizards" books, or William O'Neill's book
"How to Make Money in Stocks").

If you go in without a plan then you are asking for trouble. It
would be just like a newbie poker player sitting down at a table
with a bunch of seasoned players. And the result will be pretty
much the same...

wprien[at]yahoo.com wrote:
- quote -

Yes there is, try http://www.equiserve.com/, you can direct purchase
many large companies stock through EquiServe, now Computershare.

Abid

wprien[at]yahoo.com wrote:
- quote -

Open a brokerage account. One popular broker that people seem to have a
good experience with is Scottrade, each transaction is only $7. Other
discount brokers charge up to $15, which is still very cheap.

- quote -

You don't want to do that. I think the companies fees would be higher
than a discount brokerage. They'll probably charge to send you the
stock certificates. And then you have to worry about keeping track of
them. Just open an online brokerage account, it's nearly effortless.

"wprien[at]yahoo.com" <wprien[at]yahoo.com> writes:

- quote -

You open a brokerage account, deposit some money into it, and
then either through your broker's website or by calling your
broker, you place the order for the stock you want.

- quote -

Many companies (mainly ones that pay dividends) have direct
purchase programs. I don't know if they'll send you the
certificates, though.

--
Rich Carreiro rlcarr[at]animato.arlington.ma.us

After owning some shares in mutual funds for a while, I am considering
buying individual shares of some publicly traded companies. I just
wanted to know how exactly I go about this?
I don't currently have a brokerage account, but may at some point in
the future as my porfolio grows.
But for now, is there a way to buy stocks directly from a company? So
that I would hold the stock certificates?
Any advice would be appreciated.

William