What are the best stocks to buy now that the market is tumbling?

Your best investment right now would prolly be lottery tickets. Odds are about the same. (Whether you buy tickets or not.)

My investment advisor told me I'd be better keeping my money in a sock drawer than investing in anything right now.

Kicky .... Great thread.

I'm staying clear of buying for a few days. But gonna be digging into some charts between now and Monday. I can tell you that I've got my eye on CSX. I bought it back in January when it closed over 45. Sold it in June. Looking to buy it again. But not right now. Fundamentally strong. Technically weak short term. Headed south like many stocks have since Monday. Playing your cards right on that one can net you a much better price than the market is offering today, IMO.

Some of the financials have turned into penny stocks. For good reason. I would be careful and do my homework if you decide to go that direction.

Brook, homework doesn't work right now. The stock market is a freight train heading for disaster, much like CSX. If you feel you MUST buy some stock, buy Chinese. Hold onto your hats folks! We're in for a ride!

Sit on your money for now; it's not a good time to buy anything. Right now, cash is king.

I expect the DOW to hit close to 9,000 before we see any basement buying, and that may take until late next year when the sub-prime mortgage lenders have cleaned out their books - but 9,000 is the magic number for me. I'm holding off until then, because I sold some funds when it was up at about 14,000 knowing we were headed for this bear.

Kicky..... When I purchased CSX, it was back in January. The stock market took a decent hit a few days before my purchase. International markets were getting the crap beat out of them. Everyone all over the streets were saying stay out of the stock market! Doom and gloom! The sky is falling .....the sky is falling! Doom and gloom, I tell ya!

While it's perfectly normal for the public to react in fear of the market when it's getting hammered (and yes even brokers) ..... the one thing they don't seem to grasp is that an individual stock is NOT the market! Remember that! It is NOT the market. Yes, it will ride the wave down when the market goes south. That's just the way it goes. This is when you start sniffing around.

Soooo......while I hate seeing people lose money when the market grows black, I take those times as being golden. But you can NOT throw your money in just any direction. You especially can't throw your money into stocks that have been big performers and grown many-a-millionaire, just because you see the price come down and you think it is now a bargain. It may be. There's just as good a chance that it won't be. Maybe even MORE of a chance that it won't be.

It doesn't surprise me to see the Dow rally @ the 38% tracement level. Be careful. I fully expect it to lose all gained ground and test the 50% mark. Who knows what the driving force will be. But you can bet that it will be! More hammered stocks. More bargains born in certain individual stocks. Fundamentally - technically sound stocks that get washed out and become the ones to seek out.

They are out there......they will always be out there. Takes a lot of work to find them. But the work can be extremely rewarding.

One last thing.....only risk money that you can afford to lose. You've heard that before, I'm sure. Practice it.

Thanks Brooke. Um...I don't even know what a tracement level is. I just know that Apple is a good solid stock, and I'm going to watch it like a hawk for the next few weeks. In March, when it was at about 125 I kept saying I should buy it, and then over the next six months it went up to about 180, which is where it was just about a week or so ago. I don't want to miss my chance again!

On a side note, I heard Paul Krugman talking about all this, and he said he thinks the financial crisis is probably going to continue for another year, and the housing crisis for another two years. Yikes. Don't worry, I'm not going to jump into anything, trust me. I never do.

Fertilizer stocks used to be good, and probably still are. POT (Potash) went
up almost 12 points yesterday alone. It more than doubled since I bought it last
year.

Another investment form I heard of only yesterday is "life settlement funds".
I guess Warren Buffet has stakes in these funds as well. LPHI which deals
in investments like life settlement funds reported 56 % earnings yesterday.
I am still reading up on it, so I cannot say if it is good or bad.

I'm buying, very selectively but I'm buying.

Warren Buffett's BRK-B shot up over eight percent yesterday. The guy's a genius in the investment field, and I'd recommend it to anybody with a few thousand to invest. Each share is now worth over $4 grand.

cicerone, he certainly is a investment genius. I wish I could buy 50 shares of
BRK-B, but that's out of my league.

me too.....now is the time if you have the extra cash imo

TTH, You are absolutely correct; cash is king.

Well, my investments so far aren't really that bad considering the stock market.

We're in the same "shoes," because our investments are conservative funds and bonds. Our swings aren't as volatile as the DOW or S&P. I consolidated most of our retirement investments into Vanguard and hired their financial consultants to recommend the mix of investments. We're pretty comfortable with it - even if the market drops to 9,000.

As a matter of fact, a friend at the coffee shop this past week said he's already lost about 20% of his retirement investments this year, and our max so far is about 7%.

I found this interesting:

"09/22/2008 10:27 AM EST

NYSE adds 30 stocks to SEC's short sale ban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The New York Stock Exchange has added 30 stocks of companies that engage in financial services to a temporary ban on short selling ordered last week by U.S. regulators.

The NYSE list, issued on Monday, includes shares of General Electric , M&T Bank Corp , Legg Mason and General Motors Corp .

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, besieged by complaints that its list of 799 stocks issued on Friday had missed companies with major financial operations, decided over the weekend to let exchanges add to its list.

The SEC emergency order against short sales in financial stocks will last through October 2. It may be extended further if the agency deems it necessary, but it can only last a total of 30 calendar days.

The SEC order followed similar action by the U.K. Financial Services Authority, which imposed a temporary four-month ban on short-selling of financial stocks.

Other companies on the NYSE list include Capital One Financial Corp , Discover Financial Services and U.S.-traded shares of several Canadian banks including Toronto Dominion Bank .

(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)"
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsNewsArticle?storyID=216761222093626&articleTime=10%3A27+AM+EST&articleDate=09%2F22%2F2008

Those are evidence of how bad the financial state of our economy; our government is reacting irrationally to events, because they just don't know how much damage they're doing for our economy for the long-term.

Buy aussie miners kicky.
Au bank stocks look a little rocky but are fundamentally sound.

dadpad, I never thought I'd ever say this in my lifetime, but buy gold. Sell when you've gained fifty or 100 percent or more; don't hang onto medal no matter how "precious." But do it after the congress approves the bailouts; the surest way to increase inflation like we've never seen it in our lifetime.