Free Financial Planning Advice » Investing

Your Basic Intraday Trading Tips

Chava — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:48:40 +0000

If you are considering stepping into the stock market and trading, intraday trading may be in your future. While most experts suggest that beginners get involved in long term trades rather than the pressure of day trading, eventually the intraday trade will probably catch you with its exciting allure. Intraday, “within the day,” is trading based on the fluctuation of security within a single trading day. It is unique. It requires skill. It requires certain specific intraday trading techniques.

For starters, look over these free intraday trading tips. You’ll get an idea as to whether or not intraday stock trading is even for you.

1. Don’t over trade. Always stay within (even far below) your trading capacity.

2. Don’t hurry to book profit. Just because the market is in your favor, learn to wait it out a little until the real ‘right time.’

3. Never put all your capital in one sector. Trading in two to four stocks at a time is most advisable.

4. Don’t be afraid to buy at high prices and sell at low prices. The rule is more like buy when there is bad news and sell when there is good news.

5. Don’t expect profit every day. As soon as you realize that you’re on the wrong side of a trade, get out. It doesn’t mean that you change your intraday trading strategies; simply cut losses early.

6. A wise trader will always take a portion of his profit and set it aside. This is a necessity for long term stability.

7. Keep a stop loss order to limit your losses.

8. Only trade in high volume stock so that your stop loss limit will have less risk of getting failed (you want there to be a buyer or seller at your stop loss level).

9. Prefer the short sell position to a long position; you have better chances that it will give back within a month.

10. Never follow rumors.

11. When figuring profits, remember to adjust for things like brokerage, telephone bills, internet charges, and computer maintenance.

For your own encouragement, remember some of the intraday trading system advantages. You pay less brokerage, you get to do fresh trading every day, nobody is able to predict the next day’s market opening, and you can trade good volume with low risk; that means higher chances of earning more.

Do realize that this is not a thorough guide on how to do intraday trading. These are some helpful tips that anyone can use. For more complete information, do your own thorough research. Speak to people who have been in the trade for a while, and people with both positive and negative experiences. Most of all, learn from your own trading expeditions.

How To Trade Shares Online

Chava — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:46:36 +0000

Once upon a time, the stock market was available exclusively to the very wealthy and very talented brokers of the business. The internet, however, has made the market open to virtually every no name around. Anyone with a computer, a decent financial history, and enough money to open a share trading account can join that glorious field: he can trade shares online.

Internet share trading is open to everyone. But that does not mean that it is no long replete with risks. The dream of gains are paralleled by nightmarish losses. Understanding the market and how to trade shares online is imperative in order to have even a chance at making regular profit. If this is to be a source of income, you need to know what you’re doing.

A somewhat safe option is to hire a broker. You won’t actually be involved in the excitement of internet share trading, but an experienced and tactful expert can do the potentially dirty work for you. Brokers don’t guarantee profit. But they do know how to avoid stupid mistakes.

For a bare skeleton of what you need to know, keep reading. This is not thorough advice, but rather a pretty basic “stock market for dummies” outline of what you need to learn about in order to take shares trading seriously.

What is share of stock? It is a tiny piece of a company or corporation. Depending on what a business does with its profit, shares may be considered income stocks or growth stocks. Both can be trade. If you are trading shares online, you are basically using an online broker. Instead of talking to a human broker about investments, you decide which stock to buy or sell, and you make the trade requests on your own. There are some online brokerages that may offer advice or tips throughout the process. If you are a beginner, choosing an online brokerage that offers this service is an excellent idea. More than excellent. Supremely advisable. Also, choose a brokerage whose site is simple, clear, and easy to use.

Pretty quickly, you’ll gain plenty of personal experience of how to trade in shares. You will definitely not always see profit, but in the long term you can hope for at the very least, that minimal 10% yearly gain. If you learn the strategies and stick to what you know, you may see much more than that.

Do your own research about which online brokerages are most advisable for beginners, intermediates, and experts. Take advice only from brokers and traders who have significant real time experience. Hopefully, you’ll be able to say, happy trading!

Are There Top Money Market Funds?

Chava — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:13:04 +0000

A money market, different from a money market account, is the trade in short term, low risk securities. These securities, such as certificates of deposits (CD’s) and U.S. Treasury notes. A money market fund is a mutual fund that trades it’s shares to purchase these securities. The income is then distributed to shareholders in the form of additional shares. It’s a fairly safe, conservative way to invest. Finding the top money market funds might be difficult, however.

Most investors are looking for quick ways to make big cash. Yet nowadays, even the top rated money market funds may not have a interest rate of 2%, or if you’re lucky, perhaps 2.5%. That might feel pretty depressing. Especially when some online savings accounts offer a 3.5% interest rate. Why use them at all?

One reason is that all of these funds, both low rated and top money market mutual funds, can be found in taxable and non taxable forms. While a savings account might offer a higher interest rate, the taxes you’ll pay might not bring you out any better at the end. A non taxable money market fund at a lower rate ultimately can sometimes bring in more cash.

Another thing to consider is the safety level. Since a money market fund is a security, if you buy through a firm covered by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), you’re covered even more than what the FDIC insures on a money market account. Even if your brokerage busts, you can be covered up to $500,000 in securities and up to $100,000 in cash. The FDIC insures only up to $100,000. Or perhaps $250,000 for retirement funds.

Some funds are bought through a mutual fund company. Others through retirement investment programs. When searching for the top money market fund, remember that depending on the program, there will be different qualifications in order to invest. Other funds allow deposits from individual investors. They are basically open to anyone. Also remember that funds come with investment management fees. Figure the fees into your calculation before deciding you’ve found the highest rate fund.

And good luck!

Investing After Retirement

Chava — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:00:50 +0000

For many people, retirement holds a mixture of feelings; relief, excitement, and apprehension being very common. Letting go of the 9 to 5 job is wonderful. But without a significant steady income, how do I ensure safe use of my money? Is there any way to make my savings grow? Is investing after retirement out of the question?

There are two things here that need to be addressed. First: keeping your money safe and secure. After that, you can think about investment options. Some tips for saving money include taking advantage of every senior discount possible, looking for part time jobs that won’t harm your social security, minimizing life insurance, and make sure you’re not paying unnecessary fees and charges on any bank accounts. One piece of very sound advice is to use your retirement funds and savings in a tax savvy way. For regular expenses, try to withdraw from non retirement savings (like CD’s and money market accounts), since you’ve already paid taxes on them. Rolling your IRA account and 401(k) into a single annuity will pay a monthly income, and when your other savings are depleted, you’ll have what to feed from.

The more exciting question is about investment after retirement. Don’t get your blood pressure up, however. Most financial advisors recommend conservative investing after retirement, since you don’t have the same luxury of making up lost money with a typical high paying job. Stable investments after retirement include bonds, certificates of deposit (CD’s) and money market accounts. They don’t offer high annual percentage yield (APY), but they are more secure. In retirement, this is more advisory than giving in to the temptation of putting a large retirement savings into a risky investment that might offer a high yield in a short time. Because it might not. You might lose it.

If you can’t fight the urge for something more speedily lucrative, you can consider things like blue chip stocks (investments that pay dividends), or conservative mutual funds. There is no guarantee that you’ll make money, and you might lose. But if there is growth, it will usually be larger.

The decision is yours. Enjoy the prospects!

Best Online Stock Trading For Beginners

Chava — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:36:17 +0000

Dipping your toes into stock trading can be either exciting or nerve racking. Nobody wants to lose, but many people do. If you are a beginner, the first thing you need to do is read up. Do homework. That means books and online information, like at investopedia.com. Getting involved in online stock trading is a good way for amateurs to trade from home with various levels of financial investment. Really, you want to find the best online stock trading site for beginners. What should you look for?

The best online trading sites should include at least these minimal factors:

1. Tutorial pages and learning tools. This means clear, helpful, and thorough information about stock trading in general and their site specifically. Demos are a big plus.
2. An easy to maneuver website. Someone with minimal trade experience should be able to look at the site pages and understand where to go in order to do what.
3. Up to date site maintenance. If there is no such thing as customer service or contacting a programmer, don’t go for it.
4. Low commission and deposit rates. As a beginner, you don’t want to be forced to deposit sums over $2,000. Make sure their rates are reasonable and comfortable for you. Big name brokers like Scottrade, Etrade, and Schwab are well known, and might call themselves the best online stock trading company on the block, but you will pay high commission rates to trade there.

There a number of beginners tips that will be helpful, as well, in determining what company is right for you. The best online stock trading website will make stocks with well known companies available. As a beginner, you don’t want penny stocks or unknown brands. You want a breadth of options; the best online stock trades should be readily open to your investment. You also want to be able to invest in a number of stocks, and monitor their status easily.

Additionally, realize that the shorter trade time means bigger risks and the bigger your experience has to be. So the best online stock trading for beginners is never, ever, with day trading. As a beginner, you want time. Time to learn, time to research, time to develop. It means patience and less excitement, but better success prospects.

As you confirm that the site and broker are offering you all of the above mentioned best online stock trading services, options, and possibilities, you can begin to take off your socks and test the water. Never trade on emotion. Trade on rational information. You do have a chance.

Finding The Right Futures Trading Seminars

Chava — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:17:10 +0000

If you’re looking to broaden your scope of trading knowledge, take the opportunity to join futures trading seminars. Standard trading is of commodities or financial instruments in the here and now. Trading futures, however, are agreements to make a future purchase (or sale). It requires certain technical and financial analyzing skills, as well as honed projection techniques that can be developed under the guidance and information readily available at a seminar.

There are dozens of courses available in this field. If you have serious time to dedicate, perhaps you’d like a thorough two week long seminar. Some of these longer seminars break into series to make information absorption easier. A one day seminar is an option for those short on time and who can soak in all the information on call. An online futures trading seminar can be done from anywhere in the world. You might be able to find something that fits perfectly into your work schedule.

Different seminars will focus have a different method of presenting their futures trading system. It is worthwhile to get a complete itinerary of the futures trading course before signing up; investing your money and time into a course whose method is in conflict with your financial techniques may be counterproductive if you are satisfied with your current techniques. Conversely, you might actually benefit from investigating various futures trading systems. You will have a greater breadth of analyzing techniques available to you, making your trading more successful under varying circumstances.

Even if you yourself are not planning to do trading, learning how to trade futures will make your more knowledgeable about how the financial advisors who deal with your stocks and commodities think, work, and make decisions. For some people, this will make them feel more secure about how their financial instruments are being used.

All in all, a quality seminar can be useful to a range of people from various education and employment backgrounds. Whatever your motivation for joining such a course, do be prepared for days chock full of information, techniques, methodologies, and financial philosophies. Choose a seminar whose curriculum is appealing, whose schedule is accommodating, and whose costs are reasonable. No reason to invest into financial trading education and get cheated out of your money in the process!