I'm no investment genius (yet), but what's deal with RIMM going down badly?

I have this investment game and taking investment class right now. I lost $2,000 worth of the shares of stock that I owned.

Any chance will RIMM go back up soon? $60 up to $70 would be a mad profit for this game, also applied to real life.

Discuss!

You're upset about losing $2,000 in a game, or real stock?

Lesson #1, the stock market is gambling, with some knowledge applied.

Anyone who teaches you any different is lying.

No, I'm not upset, lol.. But I'm disappointed I'm in the last place in the game. I just want to rack up any possible new information here.

New Blackberry will come in late quarter, MarketWatch reports, so with this prediction, it will help the stock go higher, right?

No, RIM has a lot of growth expectations built into the stock price so you can't just say it's going to go up because sales are going to go up. It hit $140 just over a year ago and sales were much lower than now.

It's all about the price being right. Think of all the great houses you could have bought the last few years at the completely wrong price. Those houses are still great, but they were overpriced.

RIM is still growing, but at $140 it really was predicting too much growth that didn't show up. Is it ok down at $58? I think they'll have a better holiday season than many analyst's expect, but they've been clumsy recently. They've confused and disappointed customers and they've missed sales forecasts the last couple quarters.

One big thing someone mentioned is that Verizon is their single largest customer and their marketing push is going toward the Droid, and likely to later Android models. Which leaves BB to push harder into other carriers. That means more discounting/marketing expenses. And they are also spending lots of R&D on new models, some of which don't make sense. 8520 - why? So they've had slowing growth and higher expenses. Not what you want to see.

However, I think they're now getting some good models out with a coherent lineup. Buying new models now is a trade up instead of maybe a trade off like Bold v 8900 was. I think at $58, you'll be able to sell for more within a year. But in time to win the contest? You're better off trying energy stocks, gold/mining stocks, healthcare stocks, and other industries which are really volatile right now.

I've recently been reading a book about irrational thinking. The book claims that, on average, financial advisers do worse than the markets in which they operate.

I'm way, way away from understanding the subject, and I'm inclined not to believe that an entire industry of financial folk are deceiving themselves, but I can definitely see a certain logic to the suggestion that those working within the financial sector are somewhat overconfident.

If anyone's interest the book is called "Irrationality", and it's written by Stuart Sutherland.