Look at Toyota stock. 80+ a stock, and from the charting, it looks consistent over the past year. The lowest its been over the 3 year is around 55 per stock. The highest? Around 130. Now lets look at Ford, which is my favorite automaker. Their stock is cheap. Around 7 per stock. But look at the volume of it. Toyota only has around 400K shares. Ford has the market saturated. almost 50M (thats right, 50 million) shares. This isn't looking at avg. volume, this is just plain volume. The lowest Ford stock has dropped? 1 per share.
Lets do some math. Not including dividends or other earnings on the stock, and not considering buying the stock will raise the price.
If you invested in Toyota during the financial meltdown, say 2500 shares. 2500x55 = 137,500. Say you bought the same 2500 shares now. 2500x80 = 200,000. For one year, that is impressive.
Ford: lets do 10,000 shares. 10,000x1 = 10,000. 10,000x7 = 70,000.
Lets go ahead and do Ford @ 2500. 2500x1 = 2500. 2500 x 7 = 17,500.
Now, a little more math. 200,000 - 137,500 = 62,500. That is how much you would have earned on 2500 shares in Toyota.
Ford: 70,000 - 10,000 = 60,000.
Ford @ 2500: 17,500 - 2500 = 15000.
A 15,000 gain vs a 62,500 gain. Take your pick.
All in all, if you are a short term investor, I'd invest in Ford, but very little. If you are a seasoned stock market veteran or long term investor, Toyota would be you. It appears as if you would have to buy nearly 4 times as much Ford stock to make as much as Toyota stock.
+rep 01001010 for bringing up a very good point. - Never mind, gotta spread.
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