Stock Investment Help

Stock market investment is a potential source of money for clever, ambitious and patient individuals. In the twenty first century, the era of financial boom and new technologies of running business, the stock market has been rapidly developing and growing. Nowadays, not only the biggest capitalists and large business owners have opportunities to invest in stocks, but any average citizen is able to do it.  Free stock investment is widely advertised in all types of mass media.

 
However, before making the first step, one should learn what a stock market is and how it functions. By becoming a shareholder of the company, you automatically gain a part owner status. The smallest element of ownership in a company is a share of stock. By owning a share of stock, you get the right to vote during the meetings of the board of directors and other important issues that are connected with the company existence and work. Stock investment company distributes its profit among shareholders and if you own a share, you will be paid as well. Stock investments exclude any risk, because even if the company loses a lawsuit and is forced to pay out a huge sum of money, the worst thing that may happen to your stocks is that they will lose their value. By no means, you can be asked to pay a part from the amount, set by the court.

By the way, online stock investment is a common practice today. Sitting in front of your computer, drinking coffee, listening to music and looking for a good stock investment broker online is a combination of business and pleasure. Of course, like before every important step in your life, you should devote time to sketching a stock investment strategy. What is vital to know, is that there are two types of stock. They are called common stock and preferred stock. Common stock is mostly owned by individuals. It gives voting rights and the right to receive proportional share. Every day we hear from the TV news that stocks went up or down, such information always refers to common stocks. Owners of preferred stock share have fewer rights, although companies that offer preferred stocks tend to pay dividends consistently. Besides, usually the owners of preferred stocks receive money ahead of common stock owners. Thus, it can be a good idea to start implementing your stock investment strategy by looking for a company that makes comparatively big profits and buy preferred stock to receive a share of those profits. Nevertheless there is one very important issue that is not relevant to preferred stocks, and can only be processed only by owning a common stock. The name for it is liquidity, as large companies trade on the every day basis, they allow buying and selling shares, and the common stock owners can take advantage of it. Stock trading investment is how some businessmen in Chicago, New York and London started their careers. Nowadays, with the opportunities of online stock investment, stock trading investment is available for everyone. You do not have to be a successful economist in order to reach success in making stock investments. Convenient and accessible stock investment software considerably simplifies your job. Besides, you can always get a stock investment help from your local stock investment broker.

On the day when Google was founded one share cost 50 cent, today it is worth more than 50 000 dollars. Investment in stocks is a good way of making your dreams come true

How to invest in the stock market

You've learned the basics about the stock market, but how do you open an account and starting buying stocks? The popularity boom of the internet has made investing in stocks online very easy. You can purchase stocks through a brokerage company or directly from the company who is offering the stock you would like to purchase.

Purchase stocks through a brokerage company

Purchasing stocks through a brokerage company is the most common way to buy stocks. So let's go through an example of opening an brokerage account with ABC Brokerage Company, then buying 250 shares of your favorite stock. For your convience we have a list of some of some of the brokerage companies that are available in our Stock market information page.

Opening a stock brokerage account

The first step is applying for an account and sending ABC Brokerage Company a check for how much you would like to open the account with. After receiving your approving your application ABC Brokerage would then open your account and deposit your check in your account. You can now logon to your account and see when your funds are available for you to start investing in the stock market.

Start investing in the stock market by purchasing your first stock

Once you are able to start investing you put an order in to buy 250 shares at the current price of your favorite stock, which is currently trading at $15.00 per share. ABC Brokerage would then send an order to buy 250 shares of your favorite stock at the current market price to the appropriate exchange that has that stock listed. Every stock is listed under some exchange or some like overseeing entity. The exchange then electronically matches your order to buy 250 shares of your favorite stock with someone who is willing to sell 250 shares of your favorite stock at the current market price. There are other behind the scenes processing steps that are invisible to the end users so we won't even mention them here. Once the match is done your account will send you some kind of confirmation that you bought 250 shares of your favorite stock at $15.00 per share. There you have officially started stock market investing.

Buy directly from the company

Dividend reinvestment plans or DRIPs is a way to invest in individual companies for a lower cost than through a traditional brokerage company. They allow investors to buy stock directly from the company. This is a nice way to invest if you have a small amount to invest and you would like to put additional money towards that stock at consistent intervals of time ($100 per month). For your conveniance we have also created a list of DRIP companies for you to

How to Build a Fortune in the Stock Market

Every investor’s investment strategy should adequately address the following five questions:
(1) What specific stocks will I buy?

(2) When should I buy these stocks?

(3) How should I buy these stocks?

(4) When should I sell these stocks?

(5) How should I sell these stocks?

In addition, the answers for questions #2, #3, #4, and #5 should vary depending upon the different components of an individual’s stock portfolio. If the answers for questions #2 , #3. #4, and #5 exhibit no variance, then the risk profile for all stocks in the portfolio will be the same, an undesirable trait.
There is a very good reason why people that try to mimic the portfolios of very wealthy successful investors never can achieve nearly the same success as the investors they mimic. The reason is that they can only answer one piece of the above 5-part investment puzzle– the question of what to buy. In fact, I could open up my portfolio to investment novices, show them all the stocks I own now, and out of 1,000 novices, all of them would have an extremely difficult time duplicating my future returns. In fact, it’s entirely plausible that investors would lose significant amounts of money on the very same stocks that would produce my largest gains.

Why? Again, understanding a complete investment system will determine portfolio returns, not just knowing what to buy. Why Most Investment Firms’ Strategies Fail to Adequately Address the 5 Questions

The evolution of job titles for investment professionals from broker to financial consultant to financial advisor is ironic, because the original title, for the great majority of employees in this industry, is by far the most accurate. Most financial consultants are nothing more than brokers that broker the money you give to them. They serve as middlemen between you and the money managers hired by the firm, and are so interchangeable with one another that a retail investor’s portfolio returns are not likely to vary significantly from one consultant to another at the same firm.

Back when I worked as a “broker” at a Wall Street firm, I remember hearing a story about a very successful (meaning high-income earner) financial consultant that bought nothing but exchange traded funds (ETFs) for his clients. His rational for doing so was four-fold.

(1) Mutual fund expenses were too high (true);

(2) Expenses on ETFs were low (true);

(3) The overwhelming majority of money managers can’t beat the performance of the major domestic indexes (true); and

(4) Therefore, ETFs were the best way to invest for his client (false).

Global investment firms never train their brokers how to be superior stock pickers. They train them how to be superior salespeople. So in concluding that allocating entire portfolios solely to ETFs was the absolute best possible strategy for his clients, this particular consultant’s logic was erroneous. The consultant drew this conclusion solely based upon his foundation of investment knowledge, one primarily filled with investment sales strategies. In fact, though I was never able confirm this, I heard many anecdotal stories that this particular financial consultant was able to outperform the vast majority of financial consultants at the firm with his “I will only buy ETFs” strategy.

Though I wouldn’t be surprised if this were true, the fact that this particular consultant was able to gather so many clients based on such a faulty strategy was a remarkable statement about the average investor’s knowledge of how to build wealth. To me, as unknowledgeable as financial consultants are about proper wealth building strategies (given their constant diet of investment sales strategies), this proves that the average retail investor, even those with millions of investable assets, are far less knowledgeable.
In conclusion, every retail investor should thus utilize the 5 questions of building wealth to determine if his or her investment strategy is faulty or strong. With any strong investment strategy, all 5 questions will be relevant. Own a faulty investment strategy and most likely, one or more of the 5 questions will be irrelevant. And the faultiness of the strategy no doubt will be manifested in weak returns. To illustrate how the 5 questions of building wealth will “out” any poor investment strategy, let’s take a look at a couple of examples. Let’s start with two different portfolios, one primarily built around ETFs; the other primarily built around Mutual Funds.

(1)What Specific Stocks Should I Buy?

Neither the Mutual Fund or ETF strategy can answer this question, so you don’t even need to ask the final four questions to know that neither of these strategies will help you build wealth. How about a portfolio that consists of all individual Chinese stocks? This portfolio passes question #1, the question of what specific stocks to buy. Next, if we drill down to see how this portfolio was constructed, the portfolio manager’s answers to questions #2 and #3 - “When were these stocks bought and why?” and “How were these stocks bought and why?” – will reveal whether or not the portfolio was indeed constructed solidly.
Finally the portfolio manager’s answers to questions #4 and #5 - “How will these stocks be sold and why?” and “When will these stocks be sold and why?” will reveal if strategies are in place to lock in profits or minimize potential losses. However, remember the earlier point I made in this article: “the answers for questions #2, #3, #4, and #5 should vary depending upon the different components of an individual’s stock portfolio.” Most likely for a portfolio built on stocks that trade in a frothy, emerging market, there will be little variance in the answers for questions #2, #3, #4 and #5. This lack of variance again would expose the weakness of this investment strategy.

Although just a rough guide, the 5 questions should provide you a quick way to establish the intelligence and strength of your current investment strategy.

By J.S. Kim

J.S. Kim is the founder and managing director of SmartKnowledgeU™, LLC, a unique investment education system. Please visit the SmartKnowledgeU™ website to learn the safest places to invest money and how to achieve financial freedom.

Stock Market History

The stock market system dates back more than 200 years. It started in colonial times when the colonial government used bonds and government notes in order the finance the war. These government bonds and notes were sold to the colonial people with the government promising that they would pay them back at a later date with a profit. Banks that were privately owned started to use a similar system. The banking industry began to raise money by selling shares of stocks of the bank in order to raise money for the bank. The rich started to use this new system began to become even more wealthy. By 1792, there were many more banks and individual companies involved in trading stocks. Also in 1792 twenty-four large merchants held a meeting in the New York area. These large merchants agreed to meet everyday on Wall Street to trade stocks and bonds from banks, individual companies and the government. This meeting of the merchants created a market that was later called the New York Stock Exchange.

From 1750 to 1900 the Industrial Revolution played a role in helping the stock market develop. New forms of investing started to emerge. Reselling of shares of stocks to others who wanted to own part of a company soon became very popular. This eventually created the beginning of a new market, which was the speculator’s market. In this new speculator’s market, a speculator could purchase large number of shares of stock in individual companies that they thought would grow. Once the company grew and the shares of that stock were in demand, the speculator would sell the shares of stock for the new higher price. This created a very volatile market which ran on speculation of growth, rather than a company’s growth.

The market that was created by the merchant’s represented a more stable market as compared to the speculator’s market. This merchant market traded established companies and was a safer place for investors to place their money.

During the mid-1800s, the United States was expanding West at a very fast pace. Companies needed additional funds to meet the demands of the quickly developing nation. Companies realized that investors would be interested in owning parts of the company and buying shares of stock. As a result, many companies made their stock public in order to keep up with demand, which allowed them to keep expanding into the West.

By the 1900’s, there was millions of dollars worth of stock traded in the stock market. The stock market thrived and experienced a major bull market in the 1920s until the fateful stock market crash of 1929. On October 29th, 1929, otherwise known as Black Tuesday, the NYSE experienced a record 12 percent loss. By the end of the following month, investors lost $100 billion in assets. This marked the start of the Great Depression and end of a bull market. In July of 1932 the market finally bottomed out.

In 1934, the government stepped in and decided that regulations on the stock market were needed to protect investors. Congress passed the Securities and Exchange Acts. This act formed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates trading in the American stock market. It also oversees the companies that issue shares of stocks for investors and in turn, oversees everyone who invests and provides companies with relevant information about the investors. The SEC also oversees the day to day actions of the stock market and exchanges.

With these new regulations, the stock market changed from something that only the rich did to a good investment opportunity for the average person. The rules and protection made it possible for the average person to make safer investments. People were beginning to see the value of stocks as compared to other investments such as houses or land.

For many years, the NYSE was the most stable and largest market in the United States. Currently there are many new markets that have appeared. The American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and NASDAQ are two of the largest newer markets in this ever evolving system.

Why Invest In Stocks?

In terms of an asset class, stocks are hard to beat. Over time, they have higher returns than bonds or real estate. There are a few reasons stocks are such a great asset class, but stocks do have a few drawbacks as well:

Benefits of Stocks:

Returns: Over time, stocks outperform bonds, CDs (and other cash investments), and real estate. Stocks on average return about 10% a year, whereas these other investments generally return at about 5-7%.

Taxes: If you hold a stock for more than a year, your profits (when you choose to sell your stock) are taxed at long-term capital gains rate of 15% instead of your standard tax rate. Money you make from interest in a savings account or CD is taxed at your regular tax rate, which can be as high as 35%.

Diversification: Unlike real estate, it is easy to diversify your stocks. In fact, you can buy whole indexes of stocks, such as the S&P 500 or Wilshire 5000, by investing in ETFs that track those indexes. When you buy real estate, your returns are largely the result of how popular that area becomes. If you buy a house in an area that goes downhill, you will lose a lot of money on that house. For stocks, you can own a stock that literally goes to zero, but it's not a big deal provided you invested in a wide variety of stocks.

Disadvantages of Stocks:

Risk: The stock market can vary wildly. If you invest in a stock, your investment can literally go to zero if that company goes out of business. However, if you are properly diversified, the risks associated with the stock market are not that bad. Over the long run, the stock market goes up. Nevertheless, the risks with stocks will always be higher than a guaranteed return with a CD or government treasury.

by http://www.stockinvestment123.com

Stock Investment Guide

Are You Looking For A Better Stock Investment Strategy That Is Tailored To Fit Your Stock Investment Style? Do You Need Information And Strategies That Can Help You Achieve Higher Returns With Less Risk?

Are you an investor, who wants to find a better investment strategy, but you're having trouble with the following:

	Figuring out what your stock investment style is?
	Understanding the differences of the stock investment strategies?
	Implementing a complete stock investment strategy?
	Doing a stock investment allocation checkup?
	Taking your financial future into your own hands?

There are so many different stock investment strategies and theories available. Choosing a stock investment strategy can be very confusing. From options to mutual funds, everyone has their favorite way of investing - but what will work best for you? Whether you are just getting started in investing and don't know what stock investment strategies to use or if your current strategy isn't working as well as it should, we have some great ideas on how to find a better stock investment strategy .

This stock investment guide provides you with the information, resources and ideas to help you find the best stock investment strategy for you and to lead you down the path to becoming wealthy using it.

Hi, I'm Keith Burbach.  I've developed this website to create a community that anyone who is looking for stock investment strategy information can go to, ask questions and learn the best stock investment strategies at their own pace.

I suggest you start by signing up to the FREE Stock Investment Guide Newsletter. In it you'll receive strategies, ideas, and know how to find that stock investment strategy that works for you and to invest smarter using it.

"Here Are Some Powerful and Unique Investment Strategy Ideas and Resources You'll Find On This Site..."

Don't forget to download my free report titled, "The Ten Rules For Successful Investing".  This free report has the ten most important rules that are required for successful investing.

Periodically we will have new Investment Articles to help you understand new strategies, recent trends in the industry and other hints, tips and tricks to increase your wealth.

For anyone who is just getting started in investing we have a How to invest in the stock market guide to help you in understanding topics such as: How the stock market works, How stocks are analyzed, Why you should invest in the stock market for a good return, The stock market gets out of line and Different ways to invest in the stock market.

Our Stock market information section has great links, financial calculators and other resources to make tracking, researching investments easier.

Don't make another stock investment purchase until you have checked out our Stock Market Trends. We developed this proprietary dynamic phase indicator to give you a glimpse of the future based off of overall market trends. Using this to time your purchase can save you thousands.

We will also have some of this information posted in our blog and forum. We also provide overviews, advantageous and disadvantageous of the most popular Stock trading systems that are available.

Do you have a stock investment strategy question?  Then visit the Millionaire Stock Investment Forum

Lastly, take a moment to read my Stock Investment Strategies Blog to see what the market is doing and how different stock investment strategies are performing. and interact with other investors.

To your wealth,

Keith Burbach
Stock Phases 

By http://www.stockphases.com/