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Investing in Open Source?
echrist1 asks: "I'm in my school's investment club, and I'm in charge of investing $10,000 (real money) into technology equities. Clearly I want to make a profit, but I also want to do something to help the Open Source movement. Does anyone know of mutual funds that invest specifically in companies that further Open Source?"
I'm assuming two things that are implied but not clearly stated in your question: 1) The money that you are investing - or at least some of it - is not yours, and 2) You like open source, but the owners of the money have not specifically requested an open source preference. If either of these are false, please ignore my post.
Assuming those two to be true, you should not even be considering the issue. If you are playing with someone else's money - even as a learning exercise - you have an obligation to act in their best interests. Otherwise, you're just doing a Halliburton on a smaller scale. Save your good intentions for your own money.
BTW, Sorry to criticize. I like the idea of supporting open source. It's just not the legally or morally proper thing to do here.
limiting yourself just to tech stock.
Invest in something proven,opensource does not have a trackrecord that i know off.Put it in other equities based on financial research and ratios.
Maybe you've decided that open source will be the most profitable type of investment, but I think you chose open source for more ideological reasons. If your goal is simply to make as much money as possible, then pick your investments according to that goal.
Both of these companies invest heavily in open source, and are pushing Linux. I'd have recommended Novell as well, but I don't know what effect the Novell-Microsoft deal will have in the long term.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
You could always invest in Microsoft. Oh, I'm sorry, I can't even type that with a straight face.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
One approach to finding out which funds might meet your needs is to look at which institutional investors have large blocks in the open-source companies you consider worthwhile. For example, we can look at the data for Redhat (and, yes, I'm laughing too at who is providing that data) and see that there are large positions in the company held by Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, etc. From that, you can check out the various funds that company offers and see if you can find one that matches your requirements. Taking a glance at our host's ownership information shows a large Fidelity block as well, but no other overlap I noticed. From this limited look, I conclude you should be looking at Fidelity's funds. That approach should get you on the right path. You can do the rest of the legwork--you're the student here, after all; I already know how to invest.
You seem to be under the impression that if you buy $1,000 worth of Red Hat stock (for instance) that the money somehow goes to Red Hat. This is not correct.
The issuing company got their money at the IPO. When you buy that $1000 worth of stock, your $1000 goes to the previous stockholder, and *none* of it - not a dime - goes to the issuing company.
The only benefit the issuing company has - and it's an indirect benefit - is that if you buy that $1000 worth of stock you create a slight upward pressure on the stock price, which, in turn, will increase the "market capitalization" value of the company.
Frankly, if you want to help Open Source financially, your best bet is to take a percentage of the profits and donate it to your favorite non-profit Open Source entity.
-Maple Syrup
I have been watching it as well. In fact, I remember it from the late 80's. The simple answer is that if you are investing OTHER peoples money, you must pay attention to what will make money. In fact, if you are here asking, then you really MUST pay attention to what will make money shortly. Considering the world situation, tech can be blown out in 100 different ways.
Try energy. Oil is a good one. It is almost certain that W's tax cuts will be removed (and soon), but the simple answer is that China and India are are on a tear. They will be increasing demand on ALL oil resources. I would look heavily at any oil company. In addition, consider nukes AND alternatives. High Oil prices combined with Global warming will force us down this path. Wind energy companies are good ones. GE and westinghouse power are interesting.
Finally, consider looking more around the globe. America is heading towards a major slow down. W has ran up a major deficit like Reagan did. In addition, he is spending all sorts of money on funding the war, tearing apart EPA, buying the most expensive drugs for seniors, etc, and even cutting alternative energy research WHILE giving tax cuts to oil. Combine with moving core manufactuering to China, and you will soon see a collapse in our money policies. It is only a matter of time before the dollars starts to sink and we will be forced to raise interest rates AND taxes to keep foreign money flowing into America. This would normally induce a major global depression (think 1930s), but enough business is globalized as to allow the other markets to move forward without us.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Consider waiting till early next year and investing in the Spectra Green fund, a fund set up by Bill Clinton whose goal is to invest in, and actually make money using, environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuels. It's tech, it's a good cause, it will(hopefully) make money.
Monstar L
The reason is simple: Money represent opportunity. Opportunity to do something you couldn't do without. Stuff you do is, on average, productive. (if it wasn't humanity would be better off doing nothing, which is obvioulsy not the case).
Earthboxes produce something. Food. Pretty flowers. Spices. Whatever you want. They *contribute* to the wealth of humanity.
Precious metals sitting in a box or in a safe, however, don't produce anything. A single ounce of gold placed in a safe today will still be a single ounce of gold a decade or a century from now.
A earthbox (or any other productive thing) will in a decade produce stuff worth many times its initial cost.
Precious metals are only a positive investment if you believe humanity in sum will be poorer by the time you need the money than we are now. Not a good bet, honestly.
If you're convinced that we'll see global meltdown, go for it. But honestly, the odds are against the doomsday-scenarios by a very large margin.
Even the biggest crashes and disasters we've experienced (such as the 3oies depression or WW-2) didn't change the general trend. Humanity was better off in 1940 than in 1929 -- despite the depression. And better of in 1960 than in 1940 - despite WW2.
So, if you're convinced the next crash is near (I'm not, but I agree it'll happen), buy stuff of lasting value -- but stuff that is *useful* in the meantime, not stuff that is simply stored in a safe.
Storing gold in a safe is essentially a bet that doing *nothing* productive will give a better return than doing ones best to do something that *is* productive. And that is not a good bet.
Furthermore the amount of gold *grows* over time, more is found and dug out all the time, only small amounts of gold are lost or consumed. Land is a much better option; they don't make any more of that, and it can be *used* without the value sinking. You can *rent* out land, not many are all that interested in *renting* cold. (why would they want to?)
Land has *one* drawback: if you believe in total collapse of government, then the "ownership" of land can be completely worthless, you can't take your land with you if you have to flee the country, for example. (would be tricky with gold too, but atleast you could try) Hiding land is also not really doable.