Stocks Basics 202: What does Investing on Stocks mean?

By Mara Hernandez-Capili

Stocks are another form of investment that can make your money work for you or in other words, your money can grow in itself without you practically doing anything. More and more people are including stock trading on their investment portfolio along with their acquired assets. This article is written to provide you with the basics of investing on stocks.

What does investing on stocks mean and how is it different from investing your money in the bank? Investing on stocks is when you buy a share from a publicly listed company. This action will make you part-owner of that company and enjoy exclusive privileges such as voting rights. Your money will increase in percentage as the company enjoys higher profits at a given time. However, you may also lose a certain percentage or your money may have the possibility of not earning anything if the company suffers losses.

It differs from investing your cash at the bank because of several things, first is because: banks have taxes payment and little annual percentage returns and is affected by the market inflation. Because of these factors, you may be left with little or no growth value for your capital. Investing in banks guarantee you with maximum security for your money, but you are subjected to minimal returns because of this. There is little to no risk of losing your money that is invested in a bank.

Investing in stocks follow the simple rule that the more money you invest the higher the risks you may experience, that is why a lot of people are thinking twice on this kind of investment. If youre a beginner and would like to try your hand at stocks, it is advisable for you to start investing with an amount you are most comfortable in losing (if ever it happens).

When you have plans on investing in stocks it is advisable for young people to start now when they will have a lot of time to recover than start later (a few years before retirement), although there is another argument in here which I will discuss later. - 23222

About the Author:

Mara Hernandez-Capili is a writer and a researcher on Business and Finance. Learn more on how to increase your financial I.Q. by learning about emini trading today. Start earning extra income by making your money work for you through the emini trading system. "Start your journey to financial freedom not tomorrow, not next week, but today.

Tools For a Succesful Day Trading Activity

By Mara Hernandez-Capili

Day trading is defined as the act of rapidly buying and selling of stocks within one trading day. It is for the purpose to have huge profits within seconds or minutes that you own the stock. Nowadays there are a lot of day traders sprouting in the market because it is accessible. Why? Well you can be a day trader right at the comfort of your own home. This article is written to provide you with the tools needed to set-up your own trading engagement at home.

The internet and computer is a very powerful tool not only in day trading but in any types of online trading as well. These two mediums are the top two tools that you need to invest on should you want to be an online day trader at home.

First tool is the computer and a fast Internet connection. Day traders rely on the information gathered online. Online trading gives them a clear status of the market situation and it makes them possible to communicate with buyers, sellers or other traders as well. It is advisable to have a laptop computer and a wi-fi internet access so you could perform your tasks in any area and multi-tasking is possible. A large and high resolution screen is also recommended should you decide to be a casual day trader.

You will also need specialized trading software and charting software which represents the online account of the trader is also needed so as to have a track record of all trading activities. Since you may need the services of a broker, an interactive licensed broker is available for your perusal and hiring. You will need a phone and a telephone with back up internet access. Interactive brokers make use of market data, also from the internet to view the current situation and set-ups in the market.

These are just some of the tools you will need in order to be a successful day trader. - 23222

About the Author:

Mara Hernandez-Capili is a writer and a researcher on Business and Finance. Learn more on how to increase your financial intelligence by learning about emini trading today. Start earning extra income by making your money work for you through the emini trading system. "Start your journey to financial freedom not tomorrow, not next week, but today."

The Essentials of technical Analysis: Part II

By Jack Haddad

Charting:

The time frame used for forming a chart depends on the compression of the data: intraday, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual data. Traders usually concentrate on charts made up of daily and intraday data to forecast shorterm price movements.

The shorter the time frame and the less compressed data is, the more detail that is available. While long on detail, short term charts can be volatile and contain a lot of noise. Large sudden price movements, wide high-low ranges and price gaps can effect volatility, which can distort the overall picture. Long term charts care good for analyzing the large picture to get a broad perspective of the historical price action. Once the general picture is analyzed, a daily chart can be used to zoom in on the last few months. Four of the most popular methods of displaying price data are by the following charts: line bar, candlestick, and point & figure. The line chart is one of the simplest charts. It is formed by plotting one price point, usually the close. For that matter, I don't favor them because I personally consider the open, low, and high to be as important as the close in technical analysis. However, at times, only closing data are available for certain indices, thinly traded stocks and intraday prices. Bar charts are perhaps the most popular charting method. The high, low, and close are required to form the price plot for each period of a bar chart. The high and low are represented by the top and bottom of the vertical bar and the close is the short horizontal line crossing the vertical bar. On a daily chart, each bar represents the high, low, and close for a particular day. Weekly charts would have a bar for each week based on Friday's close and the high and low for that week. Bar charts can be effective for displaying a large amount of data.

Using candlesticks, 200 data points can take up a lot of room and look cluttered. Line charts show less clutter, but do not offer as much detail (no high-low range). The individual bars that make up the bar chart are relatively skinny, which allows users the ability to fit more bars before the chart gets cluttered. If you're not interested in the opening price, bar charts are an ideal method for analyzing the close relative to the high and low. In addition, bar charts that include the open will tend to get cluttered quicker. If you're interested in the opening price, candlestick charts probably offer a better alternative. The beauty of Point & Figure charts is their simplicity. Little or no price movement is deemed irrelevant and therefore not duplicated on the chart. Only price movements that exceed specified levels are recorded. This focus on price movement makes it easier to identify support and resistance levels, bullish breakouts and bearish breakdowns. Contrary to this methodology, Point & Figure charts are based solely on price movement and do not take time into consideration. The topic on candlestick charting is broad and beyond the scope of this article. This method of charting originated in Japan over 300 years ago, and have become quite popular in recent years. For a candlestick chart, the open, high, low, and close are all required. A daily candlestick is based on the open price, the intraday high and low, and the close. A weekly candlestick is based on Monday's open, the weekly high-low range, and Friday's close.

Trendlines:

Trendlines are an important tool in technical analysis for both trend identification and confirmation. The general rule in technical analysis is that it takes two points to draw a trendline and the third point confirms the validity. An up trendline is formed by connecting two of more low points. The second low must be higher than the first for the line to have a positive slope.

Up trendlines act as support and indicate that net-demand (demand less supply) is increasing even as the price rises. A downtrend is formed by connecting two or more high points. The second high must be lower than the first for the line to have a negative slope. Down trendlines act as a resistance and indicate that net-supply is increasing even as the price declines. - 23222

About the Author:

Dr. Jack Haddad, MD, MBA has been professionally trading the stock market since 1997 and had an annualized return of 39.4%. Dr. Haddad has recently launched MD Capital Management, an Investment Fund with Charles Schwab. The fund utilizes option hedging techniques to generate returns while minimizing risks. For more info, visit Jack's online group: MD Capital Management.

Where To Place Stop Losses?

By Hass67

The forex markets are highly volatile. There is so much noise in the intra day forex market; it becomes difficult for new retail forex traders to know where to put the stop loss. The prices in the intra day market keeps on jumping 10-20 pips for no apparent reason.

The noise in the intraday market keeps on frustrating new day traders. They constantly find their stop losses being tripped even when the rates are going in the anticipated direction.

Most of the new day traders use a static 10-20 pip stop loss. This is an arbitrary choice many traders make. How about using a trailing stop? If you place the trailing stop loss too close; you will find your stop hit too early. And if you place it too far; you will have to forgo potential profits if the price retraces later on.

Many professional forex traders do use stop loss but mostly place it on their computers hiding them from their brokers. Best way to place a stop loss is using a dynamic level.

Stop hunting is something the brokers are continuously doing. If a broker finds many stop losses at a particular price level on his price feed; he can easily trip them using a momentary blip in the price. You cant even complain. The momentary spike happened due to a sudden large transaction in the market.

More often than not, professional traders, trade with a stop loss at all, only keeping a mental stop loss. But you will need a lot of experience to trade this way.

Using dynamic stop losses such as Moving Averages, Bollinger Bands, SARs etc is a better way to reduce your risk while allowing the markets to do what it wants.

The more experience you will develop as a forex trader the more you are going to understand that placing fixed stop losses actually hurts more. Using fixed stop losses can hurt you more emotionally, psychologically and profit wise than help you.

Try not to trade just before or after a major economic news release. Try not to place stop loss close to/at round numbers. And try not trade in times of thin liquidity in the currency markets.

Stop hunting is something that you should know. Many forex brokers pry on new traders and keep on tripping their stop losses terming it market noise. - 23222

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading options and forex trading. Discover a revolutionary new broker buster Forex Robot. Learn Forex Trading!

No Load Mutual Funds Explained

By Terry K. Venova

We aren't born with the right knowledge to effectively invest in stocks and bonds. Fortunately, you don't have to be a finance expert to invest your money. Mutual funds is a way to invest in a variety of investments and you don't have to do it all on your own. In fact, you can get someone else to do it entirely.

Mutual funds work by having many people invest their money together. They pool their money together and a fund investor invests all the money into different investments that they choose. You don't have to worry about diversifying your investment because the fund manager does it all.

Not all mutual funds are created equally. Some have fees, and some don't. Load mutual funds charge you a fee because they feel they can earn you a higher than average return and that you should pay for it.

Load funds will normally charge a fee based on the rate of return. If the fund were able to earn a return of 12 percent and they charged 2 percent, you get end up with a total return of 10 percent.

You don't get charged any fees with no load funds. They have 'no load'. You get all that you earn because they don't subtract a fee. It's just that simple and not complicated to understand at all.

Are load mutual funds superior to no load funds because they charge a fee? Nobody can guarantee a higher return. The stock market is all up to chance and to say this is misleading. Honestly, even if they are able to earn a higher than average return, the fee will probably just cancel it out anyway.

With no load funds, because you don't have to pay a fee, all the money the investment returns goes to you. You can get every last bit out of your investment because you aren't paying any commission fees.

Don't let the load fund sell you into paying high fees just because they promise a high return and don't go for a load fund just to save a little on fees. Look for a concrete fund with something to offer. - 23222

About the Author:

When looking for mutual funds, choose the best fund and don't worry about investing in no load mutual funds vs load mutual funds.