How To Buy The Best Stocks

Sunday, 7. February 2010


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Although it may seem obvious to most stock market swing traders there are a number of simple rules that you can follow which will ensure that you have more success when buying stocks:

In the USA stock market there are 3 major indexes which are each made up of a basket of stocks, they are the S and P 500 (also known as the S&P500), the DOW 30 and the Nadaq 100. These stock indexes generally only contain major blue chip stocks, as long as you buy from these 3 groups you will at least know that you are getting a well known solid stock.

For example the DOW 30 contains major industrials and large multinational stocks such as Home Depot (HD) and Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) whereas the Nasdaq 100 mainly contains techical companies such as Apple (AAPL) and Miscrosoft (MSFT).

Always buy a stock that is liquid, this means that it is a highly traded stock, this will enable you to quickly buy and sell at the price you want without having a delay. You will also get a lower spread, thats the difference between the BID and ASK price of the stock. For a stock to be considered highly liquid it should trade at least 500,000 shares per day, ideally even more.

It is best to aviod stocks that are bellow as this usually means the company is in trouble, although with the bear market of 2008/9 there have been a lot of good stocks at bargin prices between and . Avoid buying a stock below at anytime.

Another consideration is options, does the stock has options?, this will be important if you want to trade options around your stock, such as a covered call, or you may want to buy a PUT option in order to protect your stock.

Be very cautious about buying a stock just before it’s earnings release, stocks often drop significantly if you come out with a poor report. Earnings releases are 4 times a year with one of them being the annual report.

If you are going to trade options make sure that you learn how to trade by getting some good education. There are many swing trading strategies that work well with stocks in todays volatile markets.

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How To Trade Options Correctly

Sunday, 7. February 2010

There is a lot of hype surrounding options trading, and for good reason, it’s a good way make a lot of cash fast, or can be used to grow your capital consistently month after month.

There’s also a lot of hype about how complicated it is and why you need to spend thousands of dollars on options trading education before you get started. Needless to say this last statement usually comes from trading seminar companies trying to sell your their trading course on options.

Lets cover a few of the basics about options and set you straight about a few important points. Firstly yes it is true that you can make a lot of cash trading options, but of course you can also lose just as fast.

When trading stocks your leverage is 1:1, if you go on margin you can get get 1:2 leverage, but thats about it. With options it is not as straight forward to calculate the leverage but generally speaking you can get between 1:5 and 1:10 when you buy an option on a stock, or ETF.

So with 1:10 leverage, when the stock increases by 5% your option can increase by approx 50%, and this can happen in just a few days, this is why swing trading strategies using options on stocks is so popular.

However the downside is that a big loss can also happen, if the stock drops by 5% your option can also drop by 50%, at which point you may want to close the trade and save some of your option value, it really depends on what your stop loss and risk.

What I’ve just described is called directional option trading where you are betting on the getting the direction of the stock movement correct, this is highly speculative. Options can also be used in option strategies which are much more non-directional, such as covered call trades, credit spreads and Iron Condors. In these trades there is much less dependance on getting the stock direction correct, but it still matters.

So should you learn to trade options?, in my opinion you should not do directional option trades until you become an expert stock trader 1st. This is because you really need to be very precise with your entry and exit strategy and trading plan, and be very good at technical analysis.

Whereas if you want to do non-directional option trades you don’t need to be such an experianced stock trader to be successful, but of course it does not hurt either.

Learning how to trade options is a very useful skill you have, but don’t rush into it and blow out your account. Make sure that you get a good options trading education before you start, and also make sure that you have a very solid stock trading education as well, such one from Top Dog Trading Review.

Learn How To Trade Options

Thursday, 24. September 2009

Learn Options Trading

Trading options is both similar to and different from trading stocks. There are many ways to make money trading stocks from going long to day trading.In this regard,options and stock trading, are similar.

The starting point for learning options trading is knowing the difference between an option and a stock. An option is merely the right to purchase a particular stock at a specific price over a specific period of time.The price of the stock itself can fluctuate, as we all know,over the expiration interval so there’s the usual volatility factor in market prices.

Options, on the other hand, expire on a specific date, so you’ll need to exercise them on or before that date. And you don’t even have to exercise your option if you so choose. Plus, you can purchase an option for a fraction of the actual price of the stock.Options traders can leverage their investment by being able to trade more stocks.They can acquire the option to buy a $100 stock for only a fraction of that price.Hence, they can acquire options for more stocks than if they were actually purchasing the stocks outright.This ability to leverage your investment makes options very attrative.

There are different types of options,too. “American” options can be exercised any time before their expiration date, while ”European” options can only be exercised on the expiration date itself.And just to complicate matters, where you purchase the option has nothing to do with it’s being American or European.The European options tend to apply to indexes whereas American options apply mostly to stocks and bonds. And most options expire the Saturday after the third Friday each month. But U.S. markets are closed on weekends, so “American” options expire on the third Friday of the month and ”European” options the following day.

An option is a contract that gives you the right to sell (a put option)a stock or buy (a call option) a stock on or before its expiration date.There are several strategic choices when you purchase an option. You can exercise it any time either before or on the expiration date.Or you decide not to exercise it and try to sell the option before the expiration date and recoup a portion of your investment. If the option expires and you don’t exercise it, you lose your investment.Let’s look at these situations more closely:

Let’s say you buy an option for Acme Chemicals Corp.You can buy a $20 stock for only a $2 options cost. Now most options contracts require a minimum purchase of 100 shares, so you’d have to pay $200 (for 100 shares) for the contract.Acme’s stock price rises to $25 two weeks later and rather than waiting for the expiration date, you decide to take your profit and run. You exercise the option, acquire the stock for $20 and turn around and sell the stock right away for $25.After you deduct the $2 acquisition cost per share, you’re left with a $3 profit, or $300 less brokerage commissions.Pretty conservative, but you made money.And that’s good!

But consider the opposite scenario. What happens if the Acme’s share price doesn’t rise. What happens if the price of the stock falls below $20? If you sold your options for half of what they cost you, in this example,you’d only be out $100. Just remember that just because you own an option, you do not have to exercise it. So you can sell the option and recoup a portion of your investment. This is better than acquiring 100 shares of Acme’s stock outright. You can jump in and exercise the option when you know you will make a profit, or you could wait it out until the expiration date and make your decision then. I personally think the more conservative approach is more likely to result in consistently positive returns, albeit perhaps lower than a more aggressive strategy. But that’s just me. Higher risk, higher returns. Higher profits. And potentially greater losses.And like other investments.

This is just a simplified explanation of what trading options entails. It is more complicated than this and you should really educate yourself before you commit much of your capital to it. The best options trading trading tutorial I know is the one taught by David Vallieres, which you can review here and the video above from the free demo video series he provides. I think this course is the best because you’ll not only learn how to trade options, but you’ll also learn how to make money.

 

 

 

How to Make Money in a Down Stock Market

Thursday, 23. July 2009

 

One of the core questions my coaching clients have asked me over the past few months is: “Can I still make money in stocks with the market down like its been?” The answer is yes, or no, depending on the type of investments you have.

 

If you hold stocks, stock mutual funds, or your investment is in the standard asset allocation accounts the answer is probably no. This is because these investments are held in large, regulated accounts that don’t allow short stock positions. This means that if the stock market goes down over the next 3-5 years, the accounts will lose money every single year.

 

Short positions, however, will allow you to make money whether or not the market goes down. These types of investments are only available to companies and individuals who trade individual accounts.

 

If you trade through your individual account rather than a fund, it is possible to for you to take charge of your own investment and make money in the stock market almost every day. That way, despite whether a stock value increases or decreases, you can make money, buy buying or selling short, as applicable.

 

If it’s that easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? It does take an investment of about $25,000 to set up your individual account. Some people don’t have the funds, or are reluctant to risk it in an individual account. And, it is true that stock trading for a novice can be very challenging. You could lose all your investment fast if you aren’t sure what to do.

 

There are tactics to alleviate these two concerns of the novice trader.

 

First, find a trading program that gives you low risk trade picks. The system I and my students use has stock pickers with an average experience level of thirty one years. With such experienced pickers, a trader can follow their picks with a high probability that they will profit from the trade. And if you set your stops to tie in with your personal risk tolerance level, your loss over time will be minimal.

 

Secondly, it’s important to find a program that walks you through every step to success. For example, in my 9 day trading class the students learn every aspect of using a turnkey system that is both safe and profitable to buy and sell short stocks, so that you can make money even if the stock market goes down.

 

Regardless of the system you choose, if you make sure that it has experienced advisors and a program that walks you through every step of the way, you can be smiling all the way to the bank while everyone around you is moaning about the poor performing stock market.

 

To read about other lessons I learned in my fifteen years as a day trader and coach, as well as tips and techniques for becoming successful at stock trading, even in a bad economy, read my free report “From Video Junkie to Day Trader,” and learn more about how you could be trading stocks profitably in as little as two weeks.

Truths of Stock Trading

Wednesday, 22. July 2009

There are thousands of fallacies about the stock trading discipline that arouse fear in a new trader’s mind and prevent others from even trying their hand at it in the first place. As a successful trader for over 15 years, I prefer to take a more positive approach and deal with the prevailing truths that exist in the field of stock trading.  Here are just a few. 

 

1.You will be rewarded from stock trading by keeping your trades low risk on a regular basis. Sure, this attitude will result in you missing out on the occasional windfall that the movies have led us all to believe can happen all the time.But you will find that, over time, waiting and hoping for those godsend trades usually results in an insane loss that deteriorates the portfolio you worked so hard to build.Better to stay lower risk with steady profits over time if you are looking to make stock trading more than a hobby.

 

2.  You don’t have to spend all day trading to be extremely successful.  This does not have to be a full time job.  But please don’t misunderstand.I’m not implying that stock trading is another make money while you sleep angle.  It takes time and effort to learn the systems needed to achieve success at stock trading. But, by using GAP trading effectively, my trading day lasts between two and four hours, plus another hour of prep time.And, I earn a great living.  With the right system, you can too. 

 

3.Building on the knowledge and the experiences of other profitable traders can greatly accelerate your learning cycle.  Don’t start from scratch because it will take you 10 or more years and a lot of money to make all the mistakes others have already made.It is just resourceful business sense to build on the knowledge of others.  How many times do we hear “don’t reinvent the wheel”, then turn around and do just that?Instead, read works by successful traders, take courses, find advisors and coaches, and use the insights of others to make your journey more enjoyable and low risk. 

 

Stock trading is often portrayed as mysterious and hard for “regular guys” to understand.Take it from a “regular guy”, that is just not correct.  With the right systems in place and a working knowledge of the basic truths of stock trading, anyone can be successful. 

 

To read about other lessons I learned in my fifteen years as a day trader and coach, as well as tips and techniques for becoming successful at stock trading, read my free report “From Video Junkie to Day Trader,” and learn more about how you could be trading stocks profitably in as little as two weeks.