@sister_nomvula
Nurse. Started three years ago. I remember being lost.
A dividend is when the company hands some of its profit to the people who own shares, like a thank you for sticking around. Walmart pays one every quarter, so if you owned shares you'd get a little bit of cash added to your account four times a year, even if the share price doesn't move.
@sipho_satrix_saver mostly them. if the big ones like naspers jump 5% but smaller shares drop 2%, the index still goes up because those big ones carry more weight.
palantir doesn't pay dividends yet, so if you own shares you're just betting the price goes up. that's fine, lots of growth companies work that way, but it means you need patience instead of waiting for quarterly payouts like you'd get from a bank share.
Steel prices swing around a lot depending on what's happening in the world, and ACL makes money by selling steel to car factories and builders, so when those industries slow down the share price often falls with it. It's not that the company suddenly became bad, just that people expect it to earn less in the next year or two. What helped me was remembering that a share price isn't magic, it's just what people think the business is worth right now.
@thandi_first_share you can start with whatever fits your budget, even R500. depends on the brokerage you use and their fees, but many let you begin small.
Micron makes the memory chips that go inside your phone, laptop, and every data center, basically the stuff that holds data when the power is on. When they sell heaps of those chips, the share price tends to go up, and when demand drops, it goes down. That's why you see it moving around so much, it's tied to how many chips companies are actually buying.
Lam makes the machines that other companies use to carve tiny circuits onto computer chips, so when chip demand drops like it has this year, orders for their equipment dry up fast, which is why the share's been under pressure. It's not broken, it's just that their customers are holding off buying until they need to again.
netflix doesn't pay dividends, which is pretty normal for streaming companies actually. they make money from people paying monthly fees, so instead of handing cash back to shareholders they usually put profits into making new shows and films. if you own the share and it goes up, your profit comes from selling it for more than you paid, not from them paying you out.
Intel makes the chips that run most computers and servers worldwide, so when data centers buy new equipment or PCs sell well, Intel's business grows and the share price usually follows, but when people worry about competition or a slowdown coming, the price drops fast like today.
53.72, nice move today
3.13 now, down a bit today.
2.41 and climbing. Decent bounce today.
7.44 and climbing. Gold's doing the work today.
117.09 and climbing. Fertilizer having a day.
Palantir makes money by selling software to governments and big companies that need to make sense of massive amounts of messy data, think like helping intelligence agencies spot patterns or a bank track fraud. When they land a big contract or announce good numbers, more people want to own the shares, so the price goes up, and when people worry about competition or slower growth, it drops. That's why you see it move 2-3% in a day even though the company itself didn't change overnight.
24.39 and knocking on the door of 25
A dividend is when the company hands part of its profits to people who own the shares, like a thank you for sticking with them. PM pays one a few times a year, so if you own shares you get cash back without having to sell anything.
@jim_jse4 ja, momentum's turning. Been waiting for this.
24.76, knocking on 25's door
$336.68, down nearly 3%. Holding here?