Trading Stocks Online - the Lowdown for Beginners

Stock Tips for Beginners?

2012-01-26T09:37:00.000-08:00

Stock Tips for Beginners

Self-styled stock trading master Lance Jepsen just made 450% on a trade, which made him a profit of $4K in 4 days - hats off ! In truth he got a bit lucky when Roche made a hostile takeover bid for Illumina but he does point out that genome mapping is a hot sector to be in at the moment. After his Illumina success he has moved into Life Sciences (LIFE) - buying options. Options are not exactly what you could call stock tips for beginners but it is worth taking a good look at Life Sciences nevertheless as they are making breakthroughs in genome mapping, so it could turn out to be one of the best stocks to trade given that the sector is currently hot. Stock trading master's video is over at youtube here - http://youtu.be/5nIlat1RxG4 -

I know nothing about genomes but here is a picture of an artist's impression of one !

What is a genome?

They will be big in both a scientific and business sense - so there is money to be made.
Of more interest in a general sense to beginners to online trading is 'old school chartist's' latest video about where the markets might be headed. Basically he says we are in a 'rising wedge' pattern and that this is usually bearish so we could be headed for a pullback, but we might get up to the top of the wedge around 1340 on the S+P.

Lots of useful info. on how to analyse stock charts again. If you are a beginner to stock trading then you really need to understand at least a minimum about stock charting

For information on basic investing using stock charts see the most basic tip in - Basic Investing in Stocks for Beginners

Stock Markets Next Week

2012-01-22T18:47:00.000-08:00

Stock Market Trading Strategies for Next Week

Fascinating insights into what the stock markets may do this week and how the stock market works, in 'stock trading master' stock market report in his video (scroll down for the video). Lots of uptrends and strong uptrends for the first time in months. Lots of 'resurrection crosses' (a good sign - and also known as 'golden crosses') - when a shorter moving average crosses over a longer moving average on the way up.

Whether you're a total beginner to stocks and shares or an experienced online stock trading professional the 'master' is a good mentor and his videos are always full of useful information and an indication of which stocks, commodities or indices to buy.

The major stock market indices have broken out above their October 2011 highs. The S&P 500 has a Resurrection Cross with the 50 day moving average moving above the 200 day moving average.

Institutional traders were buying across all sectors last week, - this can be seen by the TICK closing at 835 (explained in the video).

The strongest sectors for institutional traders were Energy +2.28% and Technology +2.17%

So hats off to the stock trading master for all the priceless information he shares, there are many online stock trading courses that don't do such a good job of teaching beginners what to look out for when trading stocks. If you are looking to learn about the stock market and stock charts then you would do well to check out his videos.

Don't forget also our old friend Warren Buffett - his stock trading strategies are somewhat different and in fact he is not a stock trader as such, but a long-term investor and it was in this capacity that he was busy buying $750 million worth of the UK firm Tesco last week, after the share price slumped 20% in one day. Tesco is the largest retailer in the UK and always makes money, so Warren Buffett helped himself to a chunk at knock-down prices. The price could fall another 6 or 7% but even at current prices it looks like a bargain.

See also - One East Strategy for How to Trade Stocks

Warren Buffett Buys Tesco Shares

2012-01-20T05:23:00.000-08:00

Warren Buffett Likes Tesco

Tesco is the UK's biggest retailer with around 30% of the market, but surprisingly it has just had its worst Christmas for decades. As a result the share price slumped 19% on January 12. This raised eyebrows, as many people thought the fall was overdone. One of those who sniffed a bargain was billionaire long-term stocks investor Warren Buffett. Many people watch Warren Buffett's stocks and shares dealings very closely and indulge in what is referred to as coat-tailing i.e. buying what Buffett buys.

Tesco 10 Year Chart with 200 day moving average

Tesco 1 Year Chart with 50 and 200 day moving averages

After the shock announcement from Tesco, Mr Buffett decided to invest a further 480 million UKP in the company (750 million USD), increasing his stake from 3.21% to 5.08%. He made the move on January 13 the day after Tesco's anouncement.

Mr Buffett is of course a long-term investor and is notorious for not trying to time the market, so there is nothing to say that Tesco won't fall further, but if it does then it is quite possible that Mr Buffett will merely buy some more. He loves stable companies that make a profit and pay dividends. He also likes to hang on to his buys for a very long-time.

Some of the directors of Tesco have also been buying. Ken Hydon, Non Executive Director, bought 30,000 shares on 18 January at 320p per share. The Director now holds 60,093 shares representing 0.00% of the shares in issue.

Richard Broadbent, Chairman, bought 30,149 shares on 12 January at 330p.

Not big buys but better than nothing.

Basic Tips on Trading Stock Charts

2011-11-18T03:47:00.000-08:00

The Basics of Stock Charts for Beginners

Take a look at this excellent video on stock charts by the Old School Chartist. It is aimed at the very beginners amongst us, so if you are not a beginner then you may wish to skip it. In the video he gives a very good and easily understood explanation of the wedge pattern and the difference between logarithmic charts and arithmetic charts and why it is very important to use logarithmic charts when looking at stocks. Any charting package (whether free or paid for) will allow you to switch between the two diferent charting methods just by clicking on a button.
In the video he mentions a book about charting which he recommends by Robert Edwards and John Magee Technical Analysis of Stock Trends
it costs around $60 but is well worth it, alternatively there is a cheaper charting book on the right-hand side of this page.

If you are more of a long-term investor rather than a short-term trader then you might want to take a look at what stocks Warren Buffett has been buying - Warren Buffett's Latest Stock Buys

For more about charting see - How to Trade Stocks Online

Stock Market for Beginners - Charts

2011-11-17T04:50:00.000-08:00

Stock Market for Beginners - Stock Chart Analysis Video

Check out this video on the SnP market charts from the Old School Chartist

Basically OSC has been saying for a while now that if the SnP breaks down below a certain line around 1245 then it will be heading down another 75 - 80 points. Well, that support of around 1245 was broker yesterday (Wednesday) and it loks like we are heading for another down day today (the FTSE is down around 100 points so far today and the DOW futures are also pointing down).

For beginners to stock trading and stock charts it is very useful to see how traders with more experience interpret stock charts. Stock charts are not infallible of course, and neither are the interpretations of them, but there is a widely held belief that the news comes out in the charts first. Primarily because people in the know - generally institutional traders - place their positions before everyone else gets to join in.

This institutional trading can be seen in the charts and when the rest of the traders join in this merely accentuates a trend that was already there.

For a slightly more detailed look at charts and why professional stock and forex traders use them, check out - stock charts for beginners

For a VERY detailed explanation of charting for beginners and not-so beginners then you can download this 272-page ebook from Amazon Getting Started in Candlestick Charting

Charting for Beginners? Support-Resistance

2011-10-31T05:41:00.000-07:00

How to Trade Stocks using Charts - Support and Resistance for Beginners

Actually, support and resistance levels are not just for beginners to stock trading. Many professional stock traders time their shares buying and selling on nothing more complicated than support and resistance levels.

Take a look at this excellent video by 'old school chartist' for a detailed explanation on what support and resistance levels and why they work.

Basically stock charts are not just random lines on a screen, they work as a trading strategy because they reflect the behavior of crowds. When traders expect something to happen, they make it happen by behaving in a certain way and so the charts become self-fulfilling prophecies.

For more information on support and resistance check out this earlier post - how to trade stocks - one easy strategy

Time to Buy Stocks Finally?

2011-10-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading - Time to Buy Stocks At Last?

Investment institutions have been buying stocks over the last month for the long-term. Could it be that we have seen the bottom in the recent downturn? It's beginning to look that way, although this week could be volatile given the news everyone is waiting for out of Europe on Wednesday, which is quite likely to disappoint, as usual.

Timing is money when it comes to stock trading

So we might see a pull back of around 5% or so in which case I might finally decide it's time to get back into the stock market by actually buying some stocks !

See the video from 'stock trading master' in which he explains everything in detail and in a very graphic manner, that is easy to understand.

Plus don't forget that the 4th quarter of the year is usually the best for buying stocks.

See also - popular posts - stock charting for beginners

Stock Trading Video Insights

2011-09-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

How to Trade Stocks Using Charts

For the absolute basics about how to trade stocks click here - how to trade stocks online

Stock trading master is an interesting guy, his analysis of stock charts is easy to follow and a genuine education.He also tells you why you can't trust stock trading subscription newsletters (fairly obvious really but it bears repeating). Here are his ideas for the next week's trading. The markets are still in a downtrend and fell a lot last week ! So much so they made the news again.

Personally I have been waiting for the markets to drop back for a long time and maybe finally we will get it. One trader on CNCB said 1080 on the S+P is a key level and he expects us to see it soon. So keep an eye out for 1080 and then decide what to do next.

The markets in Europe appear to be bouncing yet again, but fo rhow long, Greek is finally well on its way to defaulting so just what effect will that have on the markets? We shall see, but bear in mind that European politicians are totally hopeless, they haven't got a clue what to do and are just hoping their bank accounts will be OK and they might still be in a job when this whole mess finally works itself out.

How to Trade Stocks One Easy Strategy

2011-09-17T02:51:00.000-07:00

How to Trade Stocks - Make Money using just Support and Resistance - a Video

For the absolute basics for beginners on trading stocks see - how to trade stocks online . If you are looking to make money from the stock market using the easiest stock trading strategy then remember that many professional traders use nothing more complicated than the notions of support and resistance.

The video below is very clear but basically you just need to identify a stock that is trading in a channel - see when it hits its support level then buy it and wait till it moves back up and hits its resistance level, at which point you sell it. This applies to stocks but it also applies to the market as a whole if you just want to trade the indices.

Stock trading info. for beginners and experts

A trend can be up, down or sideways but as long as you can correctly identify the channel then you can trade by buying at support and selling at resistance. This is clearly a short-term trading method but if you get it right then it can be highly profitable and also easy to follow. Lots of professional traders just use this as their basic method. Remember though that you need to have 'stop losses' in place i.e. you need to ensure that if the stock continues tof all after you have bought it then you get out of the trade if it falls 5% or so. You make a loss but you don't get wiped out. In stock trading it is important that you only lose battles not the war.

Trading stocks is all about calculating the risk reward ratio, you can't possibly win every time, but you must make sure that your winners make you more money than you lose on your losers.

If you want to make your trading slightly more complicated then you can combine support and resistance with moving averages. In short-term trading it is not a good idea to buy a stock that is below its 200 day moving average and it is also not a good idea to by a stock when its 5 day moving average is pointing down - for details see this video on moving averages.

Stock Charts for Beginners Video

2011-08-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

Stock Charts for Beginners - See video below

NB : For the absolute basics on how to trade stocks for beginners - click here for the no-nonsense no frills lowdown ---> how to trade stocks online

Hurricane Irene has been and gone leaving a lot of damage in its wake. The damage is expected to total around $10 billion and some say it will negatively affect insurance companies, but in fact, allegedly, it is just the opposite. Large events like this one actually allow insurance companies to increase their premiums ! So long-term people see them as good. That's money for you.

Stock trading master's videos at guerillastocktrading.com and youtube are really good as an introduction to stock charts for beginners, not because they are basic stuff but because they are videos from a guy who clearly knows about stock trading and the significance of the various charts and indicators. He also explains it all in a way that beginners to stock trading can understand and follow.

He says we are still in a downtrend in the stock markets, which is good because I agree with him. We have had a slight bounce in recent days but I expect the downtrend to resume, especially given the mess that is Europe at the moment, I can't see that being cleared up anytime soon.

Bernanke is also going to speak which could spook the markets even further.

One stock that I think could do well in the long-term is Amazon, because of the rapid rise in ebook sales - want to be a best-selling author and millionaire ? Then self-publish an ebook on Amazon - here's how it is done - ebook best-sellers

Stock charts for beginners video

For further info. on how to interpret stock charts see - stock charting basics and how to trade stocks

Stock Market Heading Down or Up ?

2011-08-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

Stock Charts for Beginners - How Far Can the Stock Market Drop?

The DOW is down another 430 points to 11,011 after being at 12,600 just a few days ago. But how far can the markets fall? Some traders think we might be heading back to the lows of March 2009 whereas others think this recent fall represents a good buying opportunity. So what's a trader to do?

First of all if you are a beginner this is a very dangerous time to be considering buying stocks. It is not a good time to be a hero, or as Art Cashin likes to put it "it is usually the second mouse that gets the cheese". So don't stick your neck out unless you are absolutely certain what is going to happen next. Don't forget that Standard and Poors have just downgraded US debt for the first time since 1917 !

For one take on what may happen take a look at Oscar in the following video (if you are in a hurry you can skip the first five minutes). He is not convinced that the markets are as bad they appear to be, and points out that we may in fact be at a crucial support level, if this level holds then we may soon recover from this recent drop.

Professional traders themselves don't know which way these markets are headed - some saying we might rocket back up and some saying we plunge even further today. So very risky trading times!

For another opinion on what may be happening check out this video by Lance Jepsen - stock trading ?

Personally I am rather pessimistic and am waiting for the markets to fall even further - but Oscar makes an interesting argument and I will be watching market developments with interest over the next few hours and days.

How to Trade Inverted Hammer Candlestick

2011-07-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Trading the Inverted Hammer and the Shooting Star Candlesticks

NB : For the basics on how to trade stocks - click here for the no-nonsense info. ---> how to trade stocks online

If you are a beginner to stock trading this video gives a very good description of how to trade both the inverted hammer and the shooting star candlesticks

For more detailed information on the inverted hammer pattern see - inverted hammer candlestick for the shooting star pattern see - shooting star candlestick - for the basics of stock trading online for beginners see - how to trade stocks

Investing for Beginners - One Trading Strategy

2011-05-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

Investing for Beginners - Trading Moving Averages

As we have said before - stock charts for beginners - it is important for beginners to stock trading to understand the basics of stock charts. Why is it important ? Because professional traders use charts and if you don't understand them you will be at a disadvantage.

One of the basic concepts involved in stock charting is the 'moving average'. This is the average of a stock price over a given period of time - often 50, 10 or 200 days. Any financial site such as Yahoo will show you the moving averages, there's no need to work them out for yourself.

The aim as can be seen from this video from informedtrades is to buy a stock when it moves above a given moving average and to stick with it until it drops back down below the moving average again. This can be quite profitable if the stock is in an uptrend.

Another strategy is to track two moving averages such as the 50 and the 200 day - and to buy the stock when the shorter time frame average crosses over the longer time frame average while they are moving up. Some people refer to this event as a 'golden cross'.

If you are beginner to stock trading then these concepts may seem fairly alien, but a look at the video will show what is meant.

Moving averages are very basic indicators in stock charting but very widely followed by professional traders. Many traders for example will not buy a stock if its stock price is below its 200 day moving average, but once it crosses back over again then that could be a good time to start buying.

Swing traders also do not like buying a stock if its 5 day moving average is pointing down, so that's worth checking out too before wasting your cash on a risky gamble.

Apart from moving averages, another basic indicators that many stock traders use is that of support and resistance - see here basic stock trading strategies

Basic Investing in Stocks for Beginners

2011-02-18T12:49:00.000-08:00

Investing in Stocks for Beginners - Buy Low Sell High

How to trade stocks when you are a total beginner to the stock market?

Well, first things first, you need a trading account with an online stockbroker. They are all pretty much the same so go for one that provides news, charts and trading, no advice. Personally I can't recommend TDWaterhouse but apart from that any one of the online brokers will do the job.

Next you need to pick some stocks, which is where it gets tricky. As a beginner you need to keep it simple and not risk too much money. You need to decide if you are an investor or a trader. Investors invest for the long-term (years) - stock traders trade for the short-term (hours,days,weeks or sometimes months). If you prefer long-term investing then check out someone like Warren Buffett. This site, however, is for short-term trading strategies.

For short-term trading you need to understand something about stock charts. You need to buy when a stock hits a bottom and sell after it has moved up (usually you are looking for a gain of between 5 and 10%). With small gains like that, you can see that you need to make trades fairly frequently.

So how do you know when a stock has hit a bottom ? You need to follow the stock charts, find a stock that has been trading in a channel (i.e. bouncing around between a support level and a resistance level - see - support and resistance) and buy when it hits its support level and sell when it hits its resistance level.

This is a very simple stock trading strategy to follow, but some traders do very well out of the stock market using only this. There is a danger when trying to trade stocks that you end up overcomplicating things. But basically stock trading is not difficult to understand, you buy some stock wait for it to go up then sell it back to your stockbroker. For slightly less basic charts, check out candlestick charts

Another basic element to understand is that you can't get it right all the time. You will inevitably make losses, but you need to make sure that your gains are more frequent (or more significant) than your losses.

If a stock drops more than 5% after you have bought it, then sell it and move on. You can do this automatically by setting what is known as a stop-loss when you buy the stock. That way if the stock drops then it is automatically sold out of your account. You have lost the battle but not the war.

The video below gives a good explanation of what support and resistance levels are and how to spot them - if you are impatient you can fast forward through the first 45 seconds

Further reading : Investing in stocks for beginners
Home : Investing in Stocks for Beginners

Stock Market for Beginners Charting

2010-09-23T04:21:00.000-07:00

Stock Market for Beginners - Basic Stock Trading Strategies

If you are a beginner to the stock market my word of advice is to take care ! The stock market is not a level playing field, it is highly tilted in favor of the insiders. As a stock market beginner there are some basics that you need to understand before parting with your money.

Firstly, you need to understand that the stock market and therefore stock prices are driven higher or lower by professional traders for reasons of their own. It may even be the case that there are certain stock market insiders who drive the stock market up or down based on nothing more than a whim or a desire to cause everyone else to lose money.

As a beginner you can only hope to compete if you have a basic understanding of stock charts. Professional traders use them all the time so you need to understand what they are seeing when they look at them.

Stock Market Charts Support and Resistance

So, where to start with charting ? The most basic aspect of a stock chart apart from whether the price is heading up or down is the concept of support and resistance. Some people trade shares on the stock market using nothing more complicated than this basic notion.

How to make money on the stock market using support and resistance levels
Stock prices will often move down to a certain point on the charts before turning round and moving back up again, if you knew when it was going to turn round then you could make some money by buying the stock at that point. This low price is known as the support level. The high point is called the resistance level. Stock prices often bounce around between this support level and the resistance level - if you can spot this in the stock charts then you can take advantage of the situation.

When a stock bounces around between the resistance level and the support level it is said to be in a trend. The aim is to buy it when it reaches the bottom of the trend and sell it at the top. This stock trading stragey does not bring in enormous profits in one go, the aim is to make around 7 - 10% profit over and over again. Once you have made a profit you sell the stock and look for another one that is following a similar trend.

It is very basic, but the aim of the stock market is to make money not to devise complicated strategies for trading stocks. The trick of course is to find a stock that is following a predictable trend.

You must also limit your losses. If the stock you buy starts heading down instead of up then at some point you need to get out. You do this by setting a 'stop loss' - i.e. a price at which you automatically sell. Your 'stop loss' should be around 3-4% below your buying price. This way you have the possibility of making a 10% profit but are only risking a 4% loss. The stock market, whether for beginners or experts, is all about risk/reward ratios. If the risk is too great then you don't do the trade. Above all a stop loss is designed to make sure that you don't lose all your capital in one trade !

So to apply this basic stock trading strategy you need to look at the stock charts and find a stock that is following an upward trend and where you can make a minimum 7% profit. Then identify the support level and buy the stock when it falls back to at or near the support level. Don't buy all your stock in one go, buy half of what you intend to spend then watch the stock to see if it starts moving up. If it does start moving up then buy the other half.

If it starts to move down then sell up when you have lost around 4% of your money - in stock trading it is all right to lose battles as long as you don't lose the war.

For further reading on basic stock charting see - online stock investing
Home : Stock Market for Beginners

Investing in Stocks for Beginners Charts

2010-09-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Investing in Stocks for Beginners - Understanding Stock Charts

If you want to make money on the stock market by trading stocks and shares and you want to do it fairly quickly then you are going to have to learn at least the basics of stock charting. Fortunately this is not too difficult to do given the many online stock charting videos that exists for free to teach beginners how to interpret stock charts. Videos are a lot easier to follow generally than books or written explanations of charting, but they do not always contain a great deal of useful information.

The following 2 videos provide an excellent introduction to investing in stocks for beginners using stock charts. They are also very easy to listen to and very clear, which cannot always be said of videos that people put on youtube ! If you are not an absolute beginner to stock charts then you may find these videos rather too easy, but for those who know very little about charting they will provide a good introduction to the basic concepts.

Basic Stock Chart Reading - An Explanation of Stock Chart Terminology

The Basics of Stock Charts - Difference between Line Charts, Bar Charts and Candlestick Charts

For slightly less basic information on charts such as how to spot chart breakouts and how to trade them see this excellent video - stock market for beginners

Home : Investing in Shares for Beginners

Stock Charts Hindenburg Omen

2010-08-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

Online Stock Trading -
What is the Hindenburg Omen ?

UPDATE to the Hindenburg Omen sightings - the first Hindenburg Omen was mentioned on August 12 and since then the markets have dropped around 3% - although so far today (1 Sept.) they are up, with the DOW up 138 points at 10,152). The predictions around the Hindenburg Omen seem to vary from a wimplike 5% to 15 or 20%. A 5% drop to me doesn't seem like much and hardly worthy of an omen !

The Zero Hedge website which was one of the firs to mention the Hindenburg Omen, it appears that, unlike in 2009, the market's "downside potential is finally starting to be appreciated". So we will see - personally I expect the DOW to drop down to around 9700 before putting in a bottom. But as stock market guesses go that is pretty lame too.

So just what is the Hindenburg Omen anyway ?

Apparently the five factors required for the Hindenburg Omen on the stock market are in place.

It appears that this particular stock market configuration is an early warning of a crash, although it also appears that this signal is not always valid, i.e. it does not always lead to a crash.

However Jim Miekka,the mathematician who discovered it said it is now predicting a market meltdown in September and he is out of the market. He also says that although it is not guaranteed he will be "dancing close to the door".

For a full definition see Hindenburg Omen

Home : Stock Charts for Beginners

Stock Trading Breakouts for Beginners

2010-07-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Stock Charts for Beginners - Making Money from Breakouts - an Excellent Video

In online stock trading people often like to trade breakouts. So what are breakouts ? Well simply put, a breakout occurs when a stock price breaks out above or below its previous trading range based on support and resistance levels - see stock trading for beginners. You can make money trading breakouts but how is it done ?

This excellent video from Lance at yourtradingcoach.com shows a way of trading breakouts that reduces risk. It should be required viewing for all beginners to the stock market. It's a pity I didn't see it before I decided that trading breakouts was a good idea ! My strategy for trading breakouts turned out to be very painful but that is because I combined it with the strategy of not applying stop losses. A very sad story which I will not relate here.

However, in this video Lance expains how he trades breakouts by reducing the risk first. His thinking is that breakouts in fact generally represent too much risk for too little reward, so if he is going to trade a breakout then he likes to get in early to put the odds in his favor, which is very sensible avice whether you are trading stocks or first edition books on Ebay and he also gives very useful advice on how to spot when a breakout in the charts may be about to occur so that you can get in early and thus put the odds more in your favor.

The usual way of trading breakouts is to wait until a breakout has occurred and then to jump in and to place a stop loss below the previous low. Unfortunately this can mean that the stock price can fall back quite a long way before you actually get stopped out and you can lose even more if you ignore the need for stop losses. My free advice for trading stocks online, whether you are trading breakouts or even just swing trading, make sure you have a stop loss set and stick to it !

By following the breakout trading advice given in the video you can still trade breakouts but you get to reduce your risk, so that you will get out with either a large gain, a small gain or you will break even. Take a look it's quite simple really.

See also the basics of stock trading and two excellent videos about the absolute basics of stock charting stock market for beginners
Home : Stocks and Shares for Beginners

Candlesticks for Beginners Hammer Pattern

2010-06-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners Hammer and Inverted Hammer Candlestick Charts

In candlestick charts there are around twelve basic candlestick patterns which it is important for beginners to stock trading to know how to recognize and the strategies to adopt. In this post we will be dealing with the Hammer and the Inverted Hammer. The Hammer is a bullish reversal pattern. It consists of a single candlestick with the body at the top and the shadow below (it looks in fact the same as the Hanging Man - the difference being that you see the Hammer after a downward trend and it represents a bullish reversal i.e. the stockwill start heading up again - the Hanging Man comes after an upward trend and is a bearish reversal, the stock will start heading down). The body of the Hammer candlestick can be either red or green but green is slightly more bullish.

It has to be confirmed by a gap up and move upwards to trade above the hammer.

The shadow underneath the body needs to be at least twice the size of the Hammer's body.

Aggressive traders will make their the trade as soon as the price starts trading above the hammer high, traders who are not quite so aggressive and beginners to stock trading would be well-advised to wait for the closing price to finish above the high of the body.

See this excellent video from yourtradingcoach.com for more details.

The Inverted Hammer Candlestick Pattern.

The inverted hammer candlestick is what is known as "a bullish single candle reversal pattern". The body is either red or green or black or white (green or white is more bullish). The shadow above the body is at least twice the size of the body and the trend needs to be heading down before the inverted hammer pattern is created.

Ideally there should be a gap down leading to the inverted hammer. Trading above the candlestick pattern is seen as confirmation. The inverted hammer has a lower probability than the shooting star or hanging man and needs good confirmation before a long trade can be entered.

If the price trades above the high of the inverted hammer then shorters will get stopped out, which will help the price move higher. There is however no guarantee, only a probability. The inverted hammer is considered less bullish than the hammer.

This video on the Inverted hammer Candlestick pattern gives more details

For how to trade the inverted see video - inverted hammer candlestick

Home : Stock Trading for Beginners

Stock Market Beginners Fantasy Game

2010-05-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Fantasy Stock Market Game

Interested in investing in the stock market with no risk ? Well the Daily Telegraph and J P Morgan are organizing a Fantasy Fund Manager game - you can check it out here Fantasy Stock Market Game . It's free to enter and you get to play with 100,000 fantasy pounds (around $150,000) that you can invest in a selection of funds in a no-risk way of testing your investing skills and knowledge. If you are a beginner to stock trading it could be a good way to get to know something about the ins and outs of stock market investing or trading without risking your own money.

They have increased the stakes and changed the rules from last year, and have added new games and new prizes.

In the words of the organizers you can use "your ability and intuition to build a winning portfolio and learn new skills". You get to pick investments from a range of fund management companies, including J.P. Morgan Asset Management. They say it's very easy to get started so we will take their word for that. And you don't need to be an expert to win.

If you are a total beginner to the world of investing, you can just go for the ''Lucky Dip'' option which will randomly create a balanced portfolio for you to start with which you can then modify and trade as you gain more knowledge and confidence and as the game progresses. There is also the option of referring a friend who might also be interested in investing and your name will be entered into a cash prize draw.

There is a monthly prize for the best performing team, so you can create a mini league and compete with friends and family as well as against other teams to advance to the top of the overall league.

Whatever your investing strategy it is useful to know something about stock market charts, what they mean and how to use them - click here to read my free introduction to investing using stock market charts

Home : Stock Trading for Beginners

One Stock Trading Tip for Beginners

2010-02-19T10:48:00.000-08:00

Stock Trading Tips for Beginners

Lots of beginners to stock trading and the stock market feel that there is something basic they need to know to ensure they make the right decisions. Well, apart from the obvious answers like use your common sense, don't believe snake oil salesmen, a mine owner is a liar standing next to a hole in the ground etc... there is one basic thing you can do for yourself. Learn how to understand basic stock charts signals. For example one basic signal if you intend being a swing trader not a long-term buy and hold investor is "don't buy a stock if the 5 day moving average is pointing down". If you don't understand what that means then you really need to find out.

The moving average is just the average of a stock price over a given period of time e.g. 5 days and it moves i.e. each new day is added to the end of the sequence and the first day is taken off the front. So if the price of a stock over five days is 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 then the 5-day average is 12 so a 12 is plotted on the graph/chart. If the next day the price moves up to 15 then the 5 day average is now 11 - 12 - 13 -14 -15 divided by 5 i.e. 13

Here is the chart for Microsoft showing the 5-day moving average (in green) and the 200-day moving average (in blue)

at the moment the 5-day moving average is pointing up (but as this chart updates itself automatically it may not be pointing up when you look at it) and the stock price is above the 200 day moving average.

So it seems a fair enough short-term trade based on the moving averages. Another basic point is never buy a stock that is below its 200-day moving average, wait until it gets back above it.

There is a lot more to charts and online stock investing than this of course, but it is important to realize that the stock market professional traders use charts and if the charts seem to them to be saying it is time to sell then it would be foolish for you to start buying, there would be too many sellers selling and this would force the price down. It is therefore doubly important as a beginner to the stock market to know when the professionals are likely to be buying and selling, which means understanding a minimum about stock market charts.

This seems to me to be the one basic point that beginners need to understand i.e. that it may all seem random but there may be some method to the madness and you as a beginner need to get to grips with the basics of stock market charts.

See these related posts for more information on charts - Stock Charts for Beginners or Stock Charting for Beginners

Home : Stock Trading Tips for Beginners

Key Candlestick Chart Patterns Reversals

2010-02-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

The Power of Understanding Candlestick Reversal Patterns

By Mark Deaton

Traders claim that 'the trend is your friend'. That's true - until the trend reverses unexpectedly. This is why it's critical for you to understand candlestick reversal patterns. A surprise change in trend is likely to be triggered by news. There will almost always be hints or rumors before the information comes out publicly. For example, news from one company may cause speculation about what is happening to competitors in the same or related industries.
Markets will react or prepare for that anticipated news based on speculation. Buyer and Seller behavior actually becomes somewhat predictable at this point. Traders often 'buy on the rumor and sell on the news', in an attempt to beat the crowd.
Clear evidence that lots of people are "in the know" shows up as patterns within multiple trading sessions. Candlestick charts can help you be nimble enough to stay one step ahead of whatever major move is about to occur. You just have to know which candlestick reversal patterns to look for.
Stars - Trend Exhaustion Signals
The Morning Star and Evening Star are two opposite-meaning candlestick patterns. Both indicate a possible change in trend - one up and the other down. They tend to be reliable signals when the trend has been strong for an extended period. There is already a sense that it is time for a market correction.
For example you might have a long candle with very little shadow the first day followed by a Doji (a candle that is all shadow with no body) formed on the second day. A gap in trading appears between the first and second trading sessions. The Doji indicates indecision where the bulls and bears equalize or cancel each other out. The opening and closing the second day are the same price.
The third day gaps again with a long candlestick in the opposite direction from that of the first day. It provides confirmation that a new trend has begun. This single description actually fits both the Morning and Evening Star candlestick reversal patterns. Each predicts a reversal in the opposite direction - but for similar reasons.
In the case of a Morning Star, the bulls have taken control of the market and prices continue upward. In the case of an Evening Star, the bears are firmly in control and prices continue lower on the third day. The old trend is clearly broken as the price closes beyond the midpoint of the first day candle. Why does this move happen?
Value Adjustments
Price trends usually change for reasons that are based on perceived future value. Extreme price movements need to be justified by fundamentals and estimates of true worth. If an upward trending stock suddenly issues an earnings warning, perception of future worth abruptly changes. This explains the diverging pattern associated with the Kicker where trading shifts dramatically in the opposite direction of the former trend. Other, more subtle candlestick reversal patterns occur when the market needs time to evaluate news.
Breakaway Candlestick - This 5 day reversal pattern starts out similar to an Abandoned Baby, except there is slightly more indecision before the major move. In a downtrend, a long black candle forms. The 2nd day gaps down to form a black short day called a star. The next 2 days are consecutively lower candles with the 4th day closing lower than the 2nd. The 5th day opens lower still but trades up and closes within the gap of the 1st and 2nd days. The bearish form of the Breakaway Candlestick starts with the prior trend being bullish instead. The candle formation is flipped and features colors that are the opposite of those described above.
Ladder Bottom - 5 day pattern. Three Black crows form during a downtrend. On the 4th day a short black body forms as an Inverted Hammer. The 5th day is a long white candle that opens above the 4th day body and closes above the opening of the 3rd day.
Three Stars to the South - 3 consecutive black candles in downtrend (paradoxically bullish because shorts in the market have failed to create a new low). The 1st day has a long shadow on the bottom. The 2nd day is a smaller version of the 1st and trades completely within the body and shadow of it. The 3rd day is short and black with no shadows but trades within the complete trading range of the 2nd.
Tri-Stars - 3 Doji in a row indicate a reversal of the current trend because of the extended and extreme nature of the indecision. Tri-Stars can be bullish or bearish candlestick reversal patterns.
If you want to master the craft of identifying and profiting from candlestick patterns visit our site for flashcards, our FREE candlestick pattern asters kit and much more. http://www.candlestickgenius.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Deaton

http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Power-of-Understanding-Candlestick-Reversal-Patterns&id=3435809

Charts for Beginners Shooting Star

2010-01-29T14:46:00.000-08:00

Stock Market Charts for Beginners - Shooting Star Candlestick Bearish Reversal Pattern

For the basics for beginners on how to trade stocks online - click here for the no frills lowdown ---> how to trade stocks online

Understanding stock market charts is important for beginners to stock trading or investing. It is not necessary to understand the meaning of every tiny move but a knowledge of the basics that professional investors use will help in interpreting what is happening to a stock price, and more importantly, what it might do next.

As explained in a previous post - see candlestick stock charts for beginners - Japanese candlesticks are commonly used as they provide a lot of information in an easyily understood graphic format.

The pattern known as the shooting star is one of the more important candlestick patterns. It has a small body (which can be either white, black, green or red depending on the trading software you use) and a long upper shadow with a very small or even non-existent lower shadow.

The upper shadow needs to be at least double the length of the body and the difference between the high point and and the low point should be significant. The low/high range needs to be wide compared to the range for the last 10 to 20 days.

A candlestick is called a shooting star if it gaps up from the previous day. This is not a hard-and-fast rule however, particularly in so far as concerns trading indices and stocks, as it is not unusual for these to open near the close of the previous day. If there is a gap up this indicates a stronger shooting star, but even if there is no gap up the reversal still holds true.

A bearish reversal must also be confirmed. A reversal means that there are less buyers than sellers for one or more days, but there is no guarantee that it will continue. Confirmation is needed. This confirmation is provided if there are further moves to the downside, such as a gap down, major decline in volume or a long black candlestick. Bearish confirmation should be clear within 1 to 3 days.
This video from yourtradingcoach.com gives a more detailed explanation

Further reading : Investing in Stocks for Beginners

For how to trade the shooting star video - shooting star candlestick

Stock Market Training Trading Courses

2010-01-22T12:32:00.000-08:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Internet Stock Market Trading Training Courses

Are stock market trading courses and seminars worth the money?

Well, if they're free then sure, why not! The Internet is full of free information about all aspects of the stock market and online marketing . Some people even put up stock market trading videos on sites like youtube so it is clearly a good idea to take a look at them, particularly if you are a beginner to stock trading.

But what about the trading courses that are not free and that in fact are pretty expensive - usually costing several hundred to several thousand dollars ? The philosophy behind these stock investing courses and seminars seems to be that the more expensive they are the better they must be. Although from the sites I have looked at it is very difficult to see how much they actually cost before you give them your details, they seem to like to stress how much information they are including for free ! Personally I can't see how that can be the case.

Let me first add that I have never tried any of these stock market training courses so I can't judge on the merits or otherwise of any particular course. However, it seems to me pretty obvious (as is the case with all schemes and courses designed to make you lots of money once you have paid the sign-up fee) that if the people selling these courses had a sure fire way of making regular returns of 10%, 20% or 50% and more, then they wouldn't need to be selling stock market training courses to make a living.

It makes no sense to me to be putting a lot of effort into selling your 'secrets' or your 'system' or even just plain old charting information, when all you need to do is to apply your system to get rich. It is clear therefore that these stock trading courses are designed first and foremost to make money for the people selling them, not the people buying them.

The same is true of course for all such get rich schemes. It is apparently possible to make money online from blogs, but the vast majority of sites that I have seen that purport to tell you how it is done seem more interested in selling you their e-book first, which contains the 'secret' method you need to buy so that you too can join them in their online money making endeavours.

The Internet of course also has some people that give away information for free such as here - make money online for free .

So are stock market trading courses worth the investment ? Well, I won't be taking up any offers. But take a look at some of the links I have put up to see if you are impressed by what is available. Once you have waded through the hype and promises of a bright future after you have parted with your cash, then go back to youtube and watch the free videos or use this site and get the information you need for free !

For free information on stock market charting take a look here - stock charts for beginners

Home : Stock Trading

Newspaper Share Tips Tuesday

2009-12-15T05:42:00.000-08:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Tuesday Newspaper Share Tips

FINANCIAL TIMES

BG Group jumps in US natural gas 'land grab'
Investor unrest at D1 Oils faces
Former CEO John Heathcote appears to be getting ready to sell down his holding in Pursuit Dynamics

THE TIMES
Tempus Share Tips

Hold Whitbread
Pass on Spice
Buy RWS Group

Comment

Credit Suisse says CSR is a potential takeover target
Deal of the day: Sylvania Resources
Tiddler to watch - Great Eastern Energy

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor Stock Picks

Hold Mouchel for now
Buy Bunzl

Comment:
Exxon betting $41 bn on low-carbon gas
Jeremy Warner: Crash in bond prices is surest bet in town

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment Share Tips

Buy Whitbread
Hold Great Portland
Hold RWS Group

Outlook:
Tullett Prebon staff won't go far

Comment:
Standard Chartered soars in advance of rate rises

DAILY EXPRESS

Rumors of Frontera Resources positive drilling update

Home : Stock Trading for Beginners
Stock Charts for Beginners

Sunday Newspaper Share Tips Dec13

2009-12-13T05:06:00.000-08:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Sunday Newspaper Share Tips

[Investor's Chronicle and Friday newspaper Share tips see - Friday Newspaper share Tips]

SUNDAY TIMES
Petrofac at high point, time to take profits
Hold Chrysalis

Share watch: Southern Cross Healthcare

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Questor Share Tips

Buy Antofagasta at 915p
Buy Centamin Egypt at 115.5p

MAIL ON SUNDAY

Midas Share Tips

Buy Debenhams at 83p
Hold 50% of your Shanks's shares at least

THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Rents for commercial properties in London are almost £1,000 per square foot for parts of select shops on Old Bond Street

Globespan, Scotland's biggest airline on verge of collapse
Carnival expected to announce good full-year results next Thursday

Further reading : Investing in Stocks for Beginners
Home : Stock Trading for Beginners

Saturday Newspaper Share Tips

2009-12-12T18:15:00.000-08:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Saturday Newspaper Share Tips and Rumours

[For the Investor's Chronicle and Friday newspaper Share tips see - Investors Chronicle Tips]

FINANCIAL TIMES
Afer being propped up by cheap money, day of reckoning has arrived or for Greece, Ireland and Spain. [What about the UK don't we get a day of reckoning before the election ?]

Bankers' bonus tax -- fight over the detail begins [don't hold your breath]
Boeing -- 2 years behind schedule, the 787 Dreamliner takes off next week.

Lombard

Bonus tax will not curb City's self-interest

Comment:

Storm clouds ahead for UK banks

THE TIMES
Tempus:

High street to exorcize ghost of Christmas past (M&Sr, Next, Debenhams, Kesa Electricals)

Other comment:

Poll says UK shoppers will cut spending on Christmas presents sharply for 2nd year, back to beginning of decade levels

Bet of the day: JJB Sports
Deal of the Day: Bango
Tiddler to watch - Imperial Innovations

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Darling's fiction gets shoppers splashing imaginary cash

DAILY EXPRESS

Bid talk boosts International Power
Smith & Nephew up on revvied Johnson & Johnson bid hopes

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Stock Charts for Beginners

Newspaper Share Tips Friday

2009-12-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Friday Newspaper Share Tips

INVESTORS CHRONICLE

Share Tips of the week:

Sell C&C at 284 cents
Sell Rio Tinto at £32.59
Sell ASOS at 479p

Buy Huntsworth at 66p
Buy Falkland Island Holdings at 393p
Buy McKay Securities at 156p

Updates:
Buy Ashley House
Sell Kingfisher -- Carluccio's -- Anite
Abbey high enough

Company Results:
Buy Bango -- Wichford -- Clyde Processors -- Opsec Security -- IS Pharma -- Hogg Robinson

Sell Marston's -- Ashtead

FINANCIAL TIMES

War on greedy bankers -- France follows UK example of a windfall tax on bonuses
Inditex -- has replaced Gap of the US as the world's largest fashion retailer by sales
Drinks companies - recovery seems likely next year .

Comment:
Smith & Nephew takeover rumours again

THE TIMES
Tempus Share Tips

Hold Premier Farnell
Hold David S Smith Chance

Comment
BSkyB upgraded on sales growth prospects
Talk that PartyGaming may be looking at Bwin
Deal of the day: Hunting
Bet of the day: HMV/Mama Group

Tiddler to watch - Firestone Diamonds

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor Share Tips

Hold IG Group
Buy Standard Chartered

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment Share Tips

Hold Premier Farnell
Buy Begbies Traynor
Hold International Greetings

Comment:
Wellstream falls as takeover hopes fade

DAILY MAIL
Cadbury waits sweeter suitor
Rumors of imminent bid for Coffeeheaven International grows

Home : Stock Trading for Beginners

Alternatives to Investing in Stocks

2009-12-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

Alternatives to Stock Market Trading - Signed Books and Illustrations

Investing in Stocks for Beginners is all well and good, but you may be looking for something a bit less volatile or a bit more tangible that stocks and shares. Books and illustrations can be very interesting if you can buy them at the right price - to paraphrase Warren Buffett - It's far better to buy a wonderful investment at a fair price than a fair investment at a wonderful price.

(Rare Maurice Sendak Where the Wild Things Are up for Auction)

With that in mind there may be some 'fair investments' on offer at the auction being organised by Bloomsbury auctions - on Wednesday 9th December at 2 p.m. - at 6 West 48th Street, New York for Original Illustrations and Fine Illustrated Books. The auction includes works by Dr Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Tom Feelings, A A Milne (Winnie the Pooh), Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl and many others. Estimated prices range from a few hundred dollars to $40,000, so there should be something for everyone.

You don't have to go to New York of course, you can bid online (you need to register first, see the link above), but if you are in New York you can view the works on offer on Saturday December 5, 10 am- 3 pm - Monday December 7, 10 am- 5 pm - Tuesday December 8, 10 am- 5 pm - Wednesday December 9, 10 am- 1 pm - Or by private appointment

In Bloomsbury's own words "The sale will showcase important works from the Golden Age of Illustration to the present day. It will commence with the artistic estate of award winning African American artist Tom Feelings (who) worked as a freelance illustrator of children’s books for over thirty years. ... Among the highlights of the sale is the entire collection of Feelings’ seminal 1996 work The Middle Passage ($250,000-$350,000).

Also offered for auction are Maurice Sendak’s original designs for the Wild Things Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon ($40,000-$50,000) and watercolors by William Steig for the original Shrek! ($15,000-$20,000)

Fine illustrated books include rare Oz titles, Winne the Pooh by A. A. Milne and a privately printed edition of The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter, plus limited edition Rackhams and numerous autographed picture books. Books and letters signed by Roadl Dahl. A 1957 first edition of the Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss with the dust jacket and the price of 200/200 plus a second edition (est. $5000 to $8000)

Plus plenty more - there are 365 lots in all and if you want to bid online you will need to register first. Signed and first edition books can be a good long-term investment.

Alternatively you might want to have a look through your old books to see if you've got the original edition of Dr Seuss's Cat in the Hat as described above - it will be worth a few thousand dollars.

Property is also a wise investment and France is a god place to consider as property tens to be not quite so expensive as in some other countries, especially if you get outside of Paris, in places such as the Loire Valley for example, which is famous for its chateaux but which also has some fine houses on offer.

Home : Stock Trading for Beginners

Lords of Finance Business Book Award Winner

2009-10-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - The Lords of Finance wins prestigious Business Book of the Year Award

Want a break from stocks and shares and online stock trading? Looking for a good book idea for Christmas? Then look no further than The Lords of Finance by hedge-fund manager Liaquat Ahamed. 'The Lords of Finance : 1929, The great Depression, and the Bankers Who Broke the World' has just been awarded the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2009. As the title says, it is a history of how four central bankers brought about the Great Depression.

Peter Mandelson, UK Eminence Grise par excellence, and currently Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills (but who knows where he will end up?), was the keynote speaker at the event (nice work if you can get it - or maybe it's all part of his job?).

Lionel Barber presenting the award said of the Lords of Finance "A brilliant book, which brings to life the 1920s and the role of its great public servants in trying, but ultimately failing, to manage the world financial system. A must for anyone who wants to understand economics.”

The Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World is published by Heinemann/Penguin Press and traces the role played by four central bankers once named the World’s Most Exclusive Club -- Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank and Emile Moreau of the Banque de France.

These four most powerful financiers on the planet attempted after the First World War to fix global finances but ended up destroying it instead. When it was too late to stop what they had done Montagu Norman concluded that they had achieved “absolutely nothing.”

Liaquat Ahamed argues that “The Great Depression was not some act of God or the result of some deep-rooted contradictions of capitalism but the direct result of a series of misjudgments by economic policymakers, some made back in the 1920s, others after the first crises set in -- by any measure the most dramatic sequence of collective blunders ever made by financial officials.”

The book is not as dry as it sounds and is in fact highly readable and all the more relevant given the current financial turmoil so a fine Christmas present for anyone interested in the murky world of high finance - The Lords of Finance
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Stock Market Crash Imminent?

2009-10-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Stock Market Crash Imminent?

There are quite a few people who are expecting the stock market to slump back down to the lows seen in March and even lower. I have seen a number of videos with just that scenario, but of course so far it hasn't happened and this market seems to be stubbornly determine dto prove all the doom and gloom merchants wrong. Nevertheless it is worth taking their warnings on board. The following video - Crash Alert is by Tony Cherniawski, from the practicalinvestor.com - he envisages the possibility of the DOW back at 6000 and the S&P at 600 - Mr Cherniawski's video has the merit at least of being clear and easy to understand. For other indications that the market may be topping out and preparing to crash back down see - stock charting for beginners

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Thursday Newspaper Share Tips

2009-10-08T04:28:00.000-07:00

Online Stock Trading for Beginners - Thursday Shares Magazine and Newspaper Share Tips

SHARES MAGAZINE
Plays:

Buy Kiwara

Updates:

Hold EasyJet
Hold ZincOx

Life Insurance

Buy Legal & General
Buy Prudential
Sell Standard Life

FINANCIAL TIMES

Falklands oil rumours around Rockhopper and Desire Petroleum

THE TIMES

Tempus Share Tips

Buy JP Morgan Private Equity
Hold Cranswick
Hold Sportingbet

Comment:
Rumour of the day

RBS shortlist of six European major cos. likely to make a large acquisition in the next 12 months include Diageo and Xstrata.

Bet of the day

Australia is the first G20 nation to raise interest rates, from 3% to 3.25%. The BofE has kept UK rates at 0.5%. Spreadex has a December-based UK short sterling quote of 99.41-99.45.

Tiddler to watch
Intercede reported sales up 40% on last year, its share price rose nearly 10% to 45p. FinnCap says they are making good progress outside its Western European core market and has the potential for further outperformance.

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Questor Share Tips

Buy Petropavlovsk
Buy Cranswick

Amazon takes the Kindle Ebook Reader global as sales soar
Amazon cancels Royal Mail contract

Comment:

Smith & Nephew falls despite talk of break-up

THE INDEPENDENT

Investment Share Tips

Buy Nighthawk Energy
Hold United Drug
Buy Shepherd Neame

DAILY MAIL

Circle Oil up on rumours of huge oil discovery in Egypt

Homte : Online Stock Trading for Beginners

Online Trading Tuesday Newspaper Tips

2009-10-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

Online Stock Trading for Beginners - Tuesday Newspaper Share Tips

FINANCIAL TIMES

Britvic supported by Pepsico bid rumours

THE TIMES
Tempus:

Speculative buy - Lonmin
Solid hold - PZ Cussons
Immunodiagnostic Systems - Pass

Comment:

Price of govt/ help for RBS and Lloyds could be to get rid of 10% of customers

Talk that Innovation Group has rejected a bid from EXL Service Holdings of New York

Rumours that Matalan may be up for sale

Bet of the day: Sainsbury

Tiddler to watch - Animalcare

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor Share Tips

Buy CVS Group
Buy Standard Chartered

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment Share Tips

Buy Tesco
Sell Wolfson Microelectronics
Buy Eros International

DAILY MAIL

Punters betting on a 139p/share bid for 888 Holdings by Ladbrokes
Britvic up on Diageo bid speculation
Gulf Keystone Petroleum excited by Chinese bid speculation

DAILY EXPRESS

Rumours that Russian and Chinese predators are looking at Gulf Keystone Petroleum

****
Related posts - Stock charts trend lines at critical juncture -

Stock Markets at Crtiical Juncture

2009-10-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

Online Stock Trading for Beginners - Stock Charting for Beginners

The stock market appears to be at a critical juncture right now. There are many people expecting a significant correction or possibly even a crash back to the March lows. The reason being that the markets have bounced around 50% since and that is exactly what happened back in 1929. In 1929 the bear market lasted 34 months, this time round from October 2007 to March 2009 was only 17 months if we add the 6 month since march then there could be still another 11 months to go to make it 34 months of a bear market.

Not everyone is convinced this is going to happen of course, but most people believe this month is critical and in particular this week. If the markets don't sell off and fall below important support levels then the markets could continue on upwards, if they do fall through those critical levels then things could get very ugly. Today was a positie day with the DOW up 112 points and the S&P up 15 to 1040 but tomorrow is another day. So beginners to stock market investing in particular should take care. In this video June from www.tplinvestment.com explains where this support level is

Weekend Newspaper Share Tips Oct3

2009-10-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

Online Stock Trading for Beginners - Weekend Newspaper Share Tips

SUNDAY TIMES

Tesco to announce like-for-like sales slowing down in the UK

SFO's phoney war with BAE Systems will end in a settlement

BAE Systems rejected a £300 million settlement on advice that they could be taken to court for misuse of shareholders' funds

A secret run on RBS almost causd the bank to collapse in each of the last 4 trading days before the government bailed it out

Sharewatch: Wolseley

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Questor Share Tips

Avoid Smith & Nephew at 553p
Avoid ASOS at 325p
Buy May Gurney at 218p

Comment:

BAE Systems to admit bribe guilt

MAIL ON SUNDAY

Midas Share Tips

Buy Chesnara at 170p

Update:

Buy Coal of Africa at 108p

Other comment:

Scottish & Southern Energy profits set to double

Breweries see profits dry up

Tesco plans to increase sales of plasma TVs and laptops this Xmas

SUNDAY EXPRESS

Goldman Sachs gets nearly £4 million from taxpayers after advising Northern Rock
Emirates airline says recession is lifting

SATURDAY

FINANCIAL TIMES
Lex

US non-farm payrolls report made depressing reading

Anite benefits from Bluesky Travel System's collapse

Renewable Energy blows away its debt -- Carillion misses out on rally

THE TIMES

Tempus:

Renewable Energy shares - good wind from Copenhagen behind them
Bet of the day: Tesco
Tiddler to watch - Arteon
Review of portfolio - 10 share tips back from the brink

Sage, Workspace, 3i Group, Vodafone, AB Foods, Tesco, AstraZeneca, National Grid, Reed Elsevier

DAILY MAIL

Intec Telecom benefits from revived takeover rumours and talk that trading is strong

Kiwara rumoured to have started pre-feasibility study for Zambia copper project

DAILY EXPRESS

Property Investments worth a look at 78.5p
Tuck some Ceres Power away at 191p - potential for growth

Comment:

Britvic up on Diageo bid hopes
Avacta Group - speculation that they are about to announce second order for its Optim product
South African company rumoured to looking to buy large chunk of Mwana Africa's Bindura Nickel holdings
Hopes of Lesotho main pipe stake sale boost Kopang Diamond Developments

What is High Frequency Trading?

2009-10-01T05:10:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - What is High Frequency Trading?

High frequency trading, also called arbitrage trading or HFT, is a form of automated trading employed by professional institutional investors using powerful computers to carry out millions of orders on multiple stock markets in just a few seconds. This gives the institutions that use high frequency trading a significant advantage.

This method of stock trading is of course not for beginners ! The institutions that use it, however, can spot new trends in a fraction of a second. By anticipating these trends institutions that make use of high frequency trading can realize significant profits on their trades as a result of the bid-ask spread.

Although the spreads only provide a fraction of 1% profit per trade, high profits are nevertheless achievable due to the extremely high volume of trades involved.

High frequency trading is seen by many to offer large firms an unfair advantage over smaller institutions and ordinary investors. Basically what these institutions do is use their speed advantage to buy a stock before others notice that it is moving, then when the rest of the pack start buying and the price moves up further they sell the stock back at the higher price. This is of course what happens all the time in stock markets, the difference this time is that the whole transaction takes only a fraction of a millisecond. The gains are small but repeated millions or even billions of a times a day the profits add up. This is the beauty of high frequency trading. It may all sound rather mechanical and boring but when millions are at stake then you can see why people would want to do it.

Andrew M. Brooks at mutual fund and investment company T. Rowe Price, a says “we’re moving toward a two-tiered marketplace of the high-frequency arbitrage guys, and everyone else. People want to know they have a legitimate shot at getting a fair deal. Otherwise, the markets lose their integrity.”

It seems to me that it was ever thus, the guy who gets the information first has an advantage.

Tim Worstall at the Examiner.com says the real question should be not "what is high frequency trading?" but "what is the problem with high frequency trading?" to which, he argues, the answer is "nothing".

According to Worstall the problem is not high frequency trading, but "flash trading", and unfortunately even people who ought to know better confuse the two.

Flash trading allows a trader to get a "peek" at the orders of other traders. It is, says Worstall, this flash trading that is the problem as it allows "front-running" a form of insider knowledge that can give you an advantage and that ought to be illegal.

Flash trading, however, is not high frequency trading or arbitrage trading.

High speed trading is just another form of arbitrage (buying something cheap in one place and selling it for more in another place). With high speed trading the trades are carried out so fast that the actual physical proximity of the computers involved to the computers on the stock exchange is a factor. Firms with computers right next door to the stock exchange can trade faster than firms with computers further away.

You would think that the Securities and Exchange Commission would know the difference between high frequency trading and flash trading but apparently they don't as the ban they have proposed covers both high frequency and flash trading. Ah well it's nice to know that idiots can make money too, there's hope for me yet !

Weekend Newspaper Share Tips Sep27

2009-09-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

Online Stock Trading - Weekend Newspaper Share Tips

September 27

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Questor - Share Tips:
Buy Vodafone at 141.75p
Buy Songbird at 3.15p on news of further improvement - it owns the majority of the company running London's Canary Wharf, - after an enormous emergency cash call it is now debt-free - Hold the shares for now and be prepared to buy on news of further improvement.

Buy LSE - shares trade on 14.5 times earnings, cheaper than other exchanges at 18-19 times. Downside is limited due to the fact that if LSE does not deliver, it will soon be a T/O target.

Buy BAE Systems

MAIL ON SUNDAY

Midas - Share Tips:

Buy Indigo Vision at 617.5p

Update: Buy Primary Health Properties new shares

Andy Brough of Schroders:

"I'm putting away the housebuilders for now"

Other comment:

Sainsbury to start voucher challenge to Tesco

Dash for cash might mean end of the rally

THE TIMES

Share Tips
BUY S&U - West Midlands doorstep lender, they are worth a buy for the dividend alone,
Hold Group NBT, formerly NetBenefit, it is one of the dot-com survivors. Biggest business involves managing corporate domain names — buying, registering and renewing corporate web addresses.

Rumour of the day - Mobistar shares get a boost after France Telecoms chief says consolidation activity in Belgium, Switzerland and Portugal is possible

Bet of the day

Tuesday’s trading statement by M&S will test its ability to generate like-for-like sales growth of 4% or more. Its shares have risen from 280p in April to 367p. Cantor Index is offering a December contract-related spread of 367p-368.4p.

Tiddler to watch

Transense Technologies' unit Translogik has signed a deal with Goodyear to supply its tyre tread pressure and depth field inspection kit - to be launched in Q4 and across the rest of Europe next year. It is seen as proof of management’s transformation of the company. The share price rose 13% to 13p.

INDEPENDENT

Investment - Share Tips
Buy M&C Saatchi's - pe ratio of 8 times 2009 is not demanding, and the company is well placed for when the recovery begins.

SUNDAY EXPRESS

Asda fears it may lose Andy Bond to M&S

Microsoft to agree to settle dispute with EU Commission
*******

Stock Charts for Beginners

Best Online Stock Brokers

2009-09-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

Online Stock Trading - Best Online Stock Brokers

Which are the Best Online Brokers?

If you are intending trading stocks online then you will need to sign up with an online stock broker. The following is a list of some of the current best online stockbrokers and discount brokers - but in no particular order, you will notice there is no mention of TDWaterhouse or any TDAmeritrade related companies, you may even wonder why, well in my experience they are useless ! So I haven't mentioned them.

1) Charles Schwab has just been voted best onlike broker overall over at ConsumerResearch.com as a result of its investment product range, the ease of use of its research and trading tools, customer service and customer satisfaction. You will need a minimum opening balance of $1,000. Fees are from $8.95 to $12.95 per trade.

2) Interactive Brokers has been voted 'best for active brokers' by ConsumerResearch.com who say that experts consider they offer the best of both worlds: low costs and state- of the art technology for day traders. Fees are $.005 per share up to 1,000 shares. Interactive Brokers offer direct access trading i.e. trades are sent directly to the market. However this site isn't for people whoe require a lot of support. And you must spend at least $10 per month in commissions

3) Zecco - free stock trading ! - : If you can maintain a minimum balance of $25K or make at least 25 trades each month, then you will be entitled to ten (10) free stock trades a month with Zecco. The regular Zecco commission rate is only $4.50 per trade which is still pretty good. As far as online stock brokers go Zecco is firmly in the cheap and cheerful camp - they offer very cheap trades (you can't realistically get cheaper than free!) but expects its clients to do their research elsewhere.

4) OptionsHouse - $2.95 each trade - OptionsHouse is another very cheap online stock broker at just $2.95 per stock trade. In addition you do not need to maintain a minimum monthly balance and there are no account maintenance fees. OptionsHouse doesn't just do options, you can also trade stocks, and a whole raft of financial products from a major discount broker. At the moment they will also pay up to $100 if your current broker charges a contract termination fee amd if you refer a friend they will pay you $50.

5) TradeKing - $4.95 a trade - TradeKing (voted 'best discount broker' by ConsumerResearch.com), also does not require you to have a minimum balance and does not charge fees for maintaining your account. TradeKing also is very well perceived by both the press and the public. At the moment they are also covering transfer fees up to $150 and offering $50 if you refer a friend.

6) Scottrade - Scottrade charges $7.00 per online trade which is pretty cheap but not as cheap as some. It also does not charge fees for account maintenance or inactivity. It also has a very large network of branch offices that you can visit (430 which is actuall more than Charles Schwab), which for some retail investors is important.

7) TradeMonster charge $7.50 a trade up to 5,000 shares - TradeMonster is a newish discount broker but has already been awarded 4 stars for trade experience, research amenities, usability, and portfolio analysis reports by Barron's. TradeMONSTER's rates are 'competitive' and they offer the latest online trading technology plus a complete suite of trading tools. They have 24 hour a day help via their 'learning center' (doesn't sound like live online help to me) and you get free real-time streaming quotes! Plus they will pay up to $250+ (why the 'plus' it makes no sense) for transfer fees.

8) E*Trade Financial charges $9.99 a trade. ETrade has been voted No. 1 by SmartMoney as best overall broker is not the cheapest of the discount brokers but it is one of the oldest. Etrade has won numerous awards over the years, including number 1 for best overall online discount brokerage in the 2009 best broker survey by SmartMoney. Etrade offers the best investment calculation tools and financial research material. It is competitive but far from the cheapest. Its rates are $9.99 per stock trade if you make 30 trades a month or keep $50K in assets, otherwise they charge $12.99 per trade. At the moment ETrade is offering a bonus offer of 100 commission-free stock and option trades for new accounts. Their site however has great screeds of information in what looks like 8 point font - aargh! Why do they do that ?

Wednesday Newspaper Share Tips

2009-09-16T04:24:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Wednesday Newspaper Share Tips

Wednesday 16 Sept. 2009
Daily Telegraph
Questor - Share Tips

Buy Genus at 700p it has raced ahead but the bull run is not over - based on the US dairy market recovery, expansion plans and trend of increasing demand for food

Buy Hargreaves Services at 643p. The business model has produced an annual compounded rate of EPS growth of 50% for the last four years. Very impressive.

The Times
Tempus Share Tips

Hold Debenhams at 81¾p, - it is in a better position than at the start of the year. The Woolworths and Adams have disappeared so it can build on its low market share in children’s wear.

It is growing in sportswear. However gains will be harder from here, especially given January’s planned VAT rise.

Buy Hargreaves

Brooks Macdonald - at 386p shares have rallied 1/3 since July - look to buy lower down.

Rumor - Tullow Oil up 13p to £10.87 traders have the company as a potential takeover target with Eni, rumoured to be considering a £20-a-share offer.

Deal - Shares in Lamprell rose 15p to 173p, after winning 3 contracts worth $52 million.

Bet of the day - Netcall, is set to announce full-year results, investors banking on company beating expectations by a wide margin. Shares closed up nearly 25%. The company said back in July it would significantly beat last year’s numbers.

Tiddler to watch - Southern Bear has raised £250,000 for expansion and has won a contract with eaga, the residential energy efficiency group. It says trading in Q1 was “very pleasing”.

The Independent.
Investment Share Tips

Buy Hargreaves

Hold fund manager Ashmore for now could be more fruitful in the future - it trades at 16.3 earnings ahead of its peers, which are just under 15 times.

******

Other posts -
Rod Kuusinen predicts stocks and share for beginners

Investing Online Tuesday Share Tips

2009-09-15T03:20:00.000-07:00

Stock Market Investing - Tuesday Newspaper Share Tips

The Daily Telegraph

Questor - Share Tips
Speculative Buy Antisoma - Antisoma is a loss-making biotech, but it has lots going for it which make it more than a gamble. It is fully funded until mid-2011, has a number of potential treatments at a late stage in development and Novartis is on its side.

Buy International Ferro Metals and wait

Other comments

US credit shrinking at same rate as seen in Great Depression giving rising to fears of double-dip recession

The Times

Tempus - Share Tips

Avoid Helphire At 36½p, or 14 times earnings. - Recovery from recession, even if it slow, will provide relief for Helphire. But can Credit hire, the niche pioneered by Helphire still be considered a growth industry, given its greater take-up since the downturn in 2001, and the willingness of Acromas and others to find alternative means of settling claims.

Hold Antisoma - its appeal is that it has enough cash until 2011. At 28p the recent improved sentiment on US biotechs — usually a lead indicator for European counterparts — should support the shares.

Pass on International Ferro Metals at 58½p, or 10 times 2011 earnings, it is high enough for now.

Rumour of the day - Sprint Nextel Corp rose 10% to $4.16 on speculation it might be acquired by Deutsche Telekom, even though analysts say this would be difficult to pull off.

Deal of the day - Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of Regis, said after the market had closed that he was selling about 3% of the company to institutional investors in what will be seen by many as a sign that demand is picking up. This is about 10% of his stake.

Bet of the day - Debenhams figures come out this morning and are expected to show fall of about 5% in Q4 sales, despite the department store’s best efforts.

Tiddler to watch - Charlemagne Capital, a fund manager that specializes in emerging markets, rose 1½p to 16p after receiving a “buy” recommendation from UBS which set a target of 16½p for the stock. Assets under management rose by 28% in Q2 to $2.4 bn.

The Independent
Investment - Share Tips
Buy Sainsbury's - Potential clouds could be Tesco pricing cuts and CEO Justin King jumping ship to M&S, although he has said he won't.

The shares have fallen slightly over the past year, but long-term Sainsbury's look in a good position to benefit from more spending by core customers after the recession.

Buy Velti - Velti was one of the first mobile advertising cos. to deliver marketing and technology for cos. such as Vodafone and Orange, Coca Cola and Honda. Advertisers are looking to find new ways of exploiting mobile phones and a 2010 PE of almost 6 times, Velti looks good value.

****

Sunday Newspaper Share Tips + Rod Huusinen Video

Weekend Share Tips and Crash Prediction

2009-09-13T04:26:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Weekend Newspaper Share Tips Plus is the Stock Market About to Crash Again?

Weekend Newspaper Share Tips

The Sunday Telegraph
Cheap dollars will bring about the next crisis
Lehman is just a footnote in the East-West globalisation crisis
Darling finally puts Gordon Brown in his place

Questor - Share Tips
Buy VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunities Fund at $1.71
Buy Catlin at 332.8p
Take profits from Cisco Systems at $23.12

Mail on Sunday
Midas - Share Tips
Aga will recover as economy warms up
Cadbury soaring but still has further to go
*****

Rod Kuusinen

Predicts Possible Stock Market Crash for 2009 starting Sept. 11According to Rod Kuusinen of rsksys.com the crash of 2008 was predictable and certain very skilled analysts saw it coming. Now the markets are rallying and investors see a recovery coming. But it ain't over yet, the recession is not over by a long chalk. Unemployment is still rising banks are still failing. Rod Kuusinen trades the S&P 500 futures and his software shows what he describes as "a frightening truth". The VIX has been falling since the end of 2008. This has caused a predictable stock market rally. The scary part is that gaps are always filled. In his video of July 30 2009 he showed how every gap in the past 10 years on a VIX daily chart has always been filled. The video shot on Sept. 10 shows where the gaps still exist and what you should do to protect your investments (basically get out of the market, get short but at the very least put in stops).

I don't know Mr Kuusinen and know nothing of his software but the video is at least a warning that investors would do well to watch and consider. There are plenty of people who think that a correction is due and some saying that the "dumb money" is now re-invested and the markets are highly overbought so it's high time they headed back down.

So here are Mr Kuusinen's two videos about why the stock market will crash again - one from Sept. 10 and one from July 30

July 30 2009 Video about VIX and Possible Stock Market Crash

Related Posts
Tuesday Newspaper Share Tips

Candlestick Stock Charts foir Beginners

2009-09-10T05:24:00.000-07:00

Stock Charts for Beginners - What are Candlestick Chart Patterns ?

Candlestick charts were developed many hundreds of years ago by Japanese rice traders, on the stock market they are used to show the high, low, open and close of a share price and connect the high and low of the time period being studied with a thin line. The open and close are represented by the body of the candle, which is shaded a different color depending on whether the closing price was higher or lower than the opening price. In candlestick software packages usually if the close is higher then the body is white, if the close is lower than the open then the body is black (sometimes green and red are used instead).

Investing in Stocks for Beginners is made easier by candlestick patterns which show what the supply and demand was for a particular period and show whether buyers or seller were in control. Long white candlesticks mean that buyers were in control whereas black candles show that sellers were in control throughout the period in question (this may be five minutes, five days or a month etc...).

Long wicks show that there was a lot of action but at the end of the period the closing price was close to the opening price. If the body is at top with a wick at the bottom this means that the sellers were in control at the beginning but the buyers got control towards the end of the period. If the body is at bottom with a long wick at the top then the buyers were initially in control but then sellers took control at the end of the period.

Short candlesticks means that there was no action or that there was a battle between buyers and sellers but that neither won. If short candlesticks show up at top of a long uptrend or downtrend then it can show a change in the trend.

Check out the short youtube video on candlestick chart patterns by informed trades .com for more details

For more on technical analysis see stock charts for beginners

Home : Candlestick Patterns

Tuesday Newspaper Stocks & Shares Tips

2009-09-08T02:28:00.001-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Tuesday Newspaper Share tips

FINANCIAL TIMES

Funds for fridges – a US$300 million rebate scheme on energy-efficient appliances could be in place by Christmas.

Kraft/Cadbury: the US group will have to up its offer

The Times
Tempus - Share Tips

Hold AB Foods
Hold Healthcare Locums
Lupus Capital for the brave only.

Business editor

Cadbury: offer must be increased to secure a deal

Other comment

Blue Cow to grab Red Bull by the horns.

Fears of sale of Alchemy stake overshadows Ath Resources.

Tiddler to watch - Mariana Resources

Daily Telegraph
Questor - Share Tips

Hold AB Foods
Hold Whitbread

Comment

Small companies raiding pensions to survive

RBS appoints Goldman to sell aviation arm, according to market chatter.

Rumours that Greene King may merge with Mitchells & Butlers or Marston's

The Independent
Investment - Share Tips

Buy Barclays
Buy Goal Soccer Centres
Sell Kofax

*********

Investing Online Tips for Beginners

Investing Online Investors Chronicle Tips

2009-09-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Investors Chronicle and Newspaper Share Tips Sept. 4

Investors Chronicle

Share Tips of the week
Buy Serco at 456p
Buy Severn Trent at 962p
Buy Chesnara at 170p
Buy CLS Holdings at 445p
Buy H&T Group at 268p.

Sell Paypoint at 486p.

Updates

Buy Omega Insurance
Buy Heritage Oil.

Sell Restaurant Group
Sell Grafton Group
Sell Majestic Wine.

Johnston Press fairly priced.

Company results

Buy Serica Energy, Fortune Oil, Kenmare Resources, Salamander Energy, Segro, Carillion, Churchill China, Bisichi Mining, London & Associated Properties, Roc Oil, Henry Boot, Quarto, Biocompatibles, Eaga, West China Cement, Dechra Pharmaceuticals, Rheochem, Asterand and Griffin Mining.

Sell Robert Walters, Aga Rangemaster, Bloomsbury Publishing, Avis Europe, PartyGaming, Kazakhmys and Marshalls.

The Times
Tempus - Share Tips

Hays tuck away before recovery
Buy McBride
Hold HMV Group

Daily Telegraph
Questor - Share Tips

Buy Melrose
Buy BP

Comment
Xstrata said to be lining up a new Lonmin bid

The Independent
Investment - Share Tips

Hold Hays
Hold Spice
Buy Playtech

Daily Mail

Abbey admits malpractice.

Daily Express

Lonmin up on Xstrata bid hopes

New public-private partnership deal talk for Rurelec

Caledon Resources up on renewed bid hopes

****
Stock Charts for Beginners

Shares Magazine Tips Thursday

2009-09-03T03:21:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Shares Magazine and Newspaper Share Tips

SHARES MAGAZINE

Share Tips

Buy Fenner at 115p
Buy Alexander Mining at 7.5p.

Updates

Buy Elementis
Buy Robert Walters
Hold Clapham House.

Emerging markets

Buy IQE
Buy Monitise
Buy Spirent
Buy Synchronica
Buy Velti
Buy Vyke Communications.

Trend spotting

Buy Guinness Peat
Buy CVS Group

FINANCIAL TIMES

Cape up on rumours of a takeover bid

The Times

Tempus

Thomas Cook and TUI Travel may need to wait until 2011 for pick-up in consumer confidence
Hargreaves Lansdown up with events
Avoid DSG International

Daily Telegraph

Questor Share Tips

Buy Cape
Buy Diageo.

The Independent

Investment - Share Tips

Hold Hargreaves Lansdown
Buy 32Red

Daily Mail

Cadbury workers threatening strikes over pay

McBride up on talk of upbeat circular

****

Warren Buffett News - Warren Buffett

Stock Trading for Beginners Tips

2009-09-02T04:11:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading for Beginners - Newspaper Share Tips Wednesday

The Times
Tempus

Retailers must get ready for bumpier ride in 2010
Majestic Wine hold
Avoid Johnston Press until a broad-based economic recovery seems likely.

Comment

Game Group up on Nintendo price drop hopes

Bet of the day: Hargreaves Lansdown.

Tiddler to watch - Kiwara

Daily Telegraph

Questor

Avoid Legal & General
Buy Serco.

The Independent

Investment

Buy Dechra Pharmaceuticals
Buy Kenmare Resources
Buy Scott Wilson

Daily Mail

Square Mile to axe an extra 35,000 jobs

Daily Express

Regen Therapeutics up on Talk of a Nestlé deal

Pentagon Protection strengthened by hopes of another contract win
*****

For stock charts see Stock Charts for Beginners

Home : Candlestick Trading

Tuesday Share Tips

2009-08-18T03:57:00.001-07:00

Investing Online - Tuesday Share Tips

THE TIMES

Tempus - Share Tips
Fresnillo - good bet if you think industrial recovery is imminent, if not, wait for weakness

Michael Page - setback in share price might make them worth a punt, if only because Addecco might renew its interest

Hold on to Dragon Oil - Emirates National Oil Company in Dubai made approach in June, at a modest premium for outstanding stock, but minority shareholders were unimpressed. Worth holding on for more

Comment

Hightex Group may sign a Vancouver stadium roof deal.
Bet of the day: Pendragon.

Tiddler to watch - Kewill

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Share Tips

Buy Plant Health Care - Analysts expect first profit in 2010 - currently still loss-making company so don't bet the farm, but yesterday brought welcome news of further commercialisation of its products

Buy Hill & Smith.

Comment
Stop bashing bankers – we must all accept blame for the recession [OK - where's my £2 million bonus then ? - Ed.]

Comment

British Land shares down ahead of possible sale of prize assets

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment - Stock picks

Buy Shaftesbury - short-term wait till the stock falls back before buying, but for buy and hold for the longer term, Shaftesbury is a must

Buy Brinkley Mining - price below group net asset value
Hold Hardy Oil & Gas.

DAILY MAIL

Fears that prospective bidders are no longer interested in Earthport.
Kiwara - Rumours of bullish drilling report

FINANCIAL TIMES
Lex

Lowe's shares fell sharply amid the sell off yesterday as sales were worse than expected
British housing sales rose in Q2 2009, but were still about half the average.
Swedbank's 2nd rights issue in a year highlights the bad situation in parts of eastern Europe
Japanese economic recovery seems to grow stronger.

Comment

Drax gets Morgan Stanley upgrade
Plant Health Care a 'buy' according to Evolution

***
Stock Charts for Beginners

Onilne Investing Weekend Newspaper Tips

2009-08-16T04:46:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Weekend Newspaper Share Tips Aug 16

SUNDAY TIMES

Agenda:
Legislation on bonuses could destroy the City [after we saved them ? Ed.]

Comment:

KBC Peel Hunt doubles profit in H1 boosted by rise in company fundraising and a boom in trading volume

Urenco finds path to enrichment

Sharewatch: Thomas Cook

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Share Tips

Buy James Fisher at 455p
Hold Prudential at 516p
Buy Diploma at 149p

Comment:

Icelandic rumours are nothing compared to the truth

MAIL ON SUNDAY

Midas High Yield Portfolio Review

BP, Man Group, Cable & Wireless, RSA, National Grid, Shell, Severn Trent, United Utilities, Standard Life, Vodafone

Comment:
Harry Potter equals success for Cineworld

Protests grow as bargain shops invade high streets

Holiday home owners may have to deal with tax penalties

Rio Tinto to state fall in profits from £3.3 bn to £1.6 bn on Thursday

SUNDAY EXPRESS

UK gyms Fitness First make loss

Hilco profits boosted 500% by pre-packs

THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Economic gloom means strong showing from Cineworld

SATURDAY

FINANCIAL TIMES

Rumours of major Carillion deal with BT

Trader - Jumps in volume - Alumasc

THE TIMES
Tempus - Share Tips

Energy sector's results not good for health of service providers - Lamprell, Petrofac, Wood Group

Comment:

Release of Lockerbie killer would free up BP to grab some of Libya's oil riches

Bet of the day: British Land
Tiddler to watch - Avisens
Prudential in good position for recovery

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Crispin Odey warns that markets are a bit overbought and will probably pull back
Citywire: credit crisis a thing of the past says New Star's Guy de Blonay

THE INDEPENDENT

US Outlook:

ObamaCare equals bad news for Big Pharma

DAILY EXPRESS

Rumous that predators are eyein gup Renovo Group

Volga Gas up on talk of positive drilling update

***
Official tips for investing online - Online Trading Tips

Weekend Share Tips Aug 09

2009-08-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

Online Investing - Weekend Newspaper Share Tips

SUNDAY SHARE TIPS

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Questor:
Buy Gulfsands Petroleum at 176p
Hold Mouchel at 186.5p
Take profits at ASOS at 345p

MAIL ON SUNDAY
Midas Share Tips

BG Group solid, reliable and should deliver for many more years
Accsys Technology can cash in fake hardwood
Andy Brough from Schroders, to add to his holding in Novae Group

SATURDAY SHARE TIPS
THE TIMES
Tempus:
Who will benefit from women's increasing financial power ? (HSBC, Standard Chartered, Prudential, Kingfisher, Cadbury, Unilever, Tesco, GlaxoSmithKline, Diageo)

Other comment:

FinnCap says Ffastfill is a logical target for Thomson Reuters or Fidessa

Bet of the day: Intercontinental Hotels

Tiddler to watch - Avacta

DAILY MAIL

Investment Extra:

Some ideas for your portfolio from Richard Buxton from Schroders (Tesco, Unilever, Burberry, Experian, BG Group)

Other comment:

Borders UK may be next high street casualty

Numis questions accounting policies at Brewin Dolphin

DAILY EXPRESS

Taking Stock:
Hold on for rise in biotechs (BTG, Vectura, Antisoma, GW Pharma, Abcam, Oxford Biomedica, Proximagen, Vernalis,)
Healthy forecast for Immupharma.

***

How to read Stock market charts

Newspaper Share Tips Aug 5

2009-08-05T02:58:00.000-07:00

Online Investing - Newspaper Stock Picks Aug 5

FINANCIAL TIMES

Credit cards: the party is over for card issuers and free-spenders, with the credit card industry set to shrink dramatically.

Northern Rock - retail banking is still a mess

THE TIMES

Tempus - Share tips

Avoid Dray Group
Stay away from Cookson Group
Buy William Hill.

Comment

London property market perks up as off-plan buyers with large deposits return

HMV to suffer from change by shoppers from discs to downloads.

BoA suggests Baleen’s Cameroon assets are prime acquisition target

Bet of the day: Lloyds.

Tiddler to watch - EservGlobal

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Questor - Stock picks

Rexam: take up you rights
Buy RM

Comment

Talk that BowLeven may be a takeover target.

Talk that Dubai International Capital wants to reverse Travelodge into Whitbread.

THE INDEPENDENT

Investment - Share tips

Buy Legal & General
Buy Moneysupermarket.com
Buy Marston's
***

What is swing trading ?

Weekend Share Tips August

2009-08-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Weekend Newspaper Share Tips

SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS

SUNDAY TIMES
Barclays' investment bankers to get £250,000 each in bonuses and salaries for 6 months' work

Eurofighter purchase cuts threatens 20,000 jobs and may lead to the closure of BAE Systems' Warton plant

ITV to reveal its pension deficit almost tripled

Dividend cuts by Aviva and Legal & General threaten market rally

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Share Tips

Buy Morgan Crucible at 128.75p
Buy BAE Systems at 307p
Buy Tate & Lyle at 367.75p

Comment:

Xstrata expected to state significant drop in interim results this week

THE OBSERVER

Banks to write off another £32 billion, but Lloyds will forecast that worst is over

Jaguar Land Rover may soon get state aid

MAIL ON SUNDAY
Midas - Share Tips

International Ferro Metals - buy and hold

Update:

IS Pharma still rising

Comment

Surprise bank figures hide huge losses say analysts
ITV hit by adverts plunge
Ladbrokes and William Hill odds-on to go offshore
A&S Leisure profits fall 27%

SATURDAY NEWSPAPERS

THE TIMES
Tempus:
6,000 here we come - why Europe's stocks will shine

Comment
RBS to deliver £1 billion blow to investors
Cazenove says WPP will tap the market for funds

Tiddler to watch - Henderson Morley

DAILY TELEGRAPH

WPP shrugs off rumours of capital raising

****
Tips for investing online

Newspaper Share Tips July 30

2009-07-30T04:34:00.000-07:00

Online Investing - Shares Magazine and Newspaper Share Tips

SHARES MAGAZINE
Financial Services: buy Banco Santander, Fidessa and Old Mutual
Mining: buy Centamin Egypt, Kiwara and MDM Engineering
Oil and gas: buy Afren and Petrofac
India and China: buy Eredene Capital and OPG Power Ventures
Technology: buy Avanti and Intec Telecom
Overrated: sell Debenhams and Mothercare.

Agenda
Buy IMI, Johnson Matthey Victrex, Johnston Press, Shire, Melorio, Game Group and Iofina
Sell Morse
Sell K3 business Technology.

Plays
Buy Vodafone and Johnson Matthey

Small caps
Buy Arena Leisure, Faroe Petroleum, EcoSecurities, Patsystems, Zetar, Vertu Motors and StatPro
Sell Sinclair Pharma.

THE TIMES
Tempus - Share Tips

Inchcape high enough
Buy Morgan Crucible
Hold Rathbone Bros.

Comment
Duchy Originals ready to be engulfed by Waitrose.

Tiddler to watch - Straight

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Stock picks
Buy Bunge

Comment
Talk that Aviva is selling its back-book business.

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment - Share tips

Buy BG Group
Buy Halfords
Sell Rathbone Bros

Comment
Aviva up on sector consolidation hopes

DAILY MAIL
Plethora Solutions could be an exciting ride say analysts.

DAILY EXPRESS
Synchronica may be ready to sign order for its Mobile Gateway product with a North African operator
***

How to read Stock Market Charts

Newspaper Stock Picks July 28

2009-07-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

Stock Market Investing - Newspaper Share Tips- July 29

Yes July 29 is correct - july 28 in the URL is wrong

FINANCIAL TIMES

Lex

USA house prices: the first month-on-month increase for 3 years
Results from Canon suggest the outlook for business technology remains bleak
BP's results look quite rosy, till you look more closely at the numbers.
Morse believed to be a takeover target for Computacenter
Possible equity issue from Gulf Keystone Petroleum

THE TIMES

Tempus - Share Tips
Buy Croda International on weakness
Pass on ARM
Sell Games Workshop.

Other comment

Lamprell said to be delaying several projects in the Middle East.
Bet of the day: Cadbury.

Tiddler to watch - Horizonte Minerals

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Questor - Stock Picks
Buy Randgold Resources
Buy Croda International.

THE INDEPENDENT

Investment - Share Tips
Hold Sage Group
Buy Provident Financial
Hold Games Workshop.

Comment
UK's top accountancy companies are putting hundreds of thousands of pounds of resources and staff into the Tory party, in expectation of a Conservative government

***
Online Investing Tips

Newspaper Share Tips July 28

2009-07-28T03:32:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Newspaper Stocks and Shares Tips

THE TIMES

Tempus - Share Tips

Wolseley - take profits
Tuck away Beazley
Buy Dialight on weakness.

Comment

RBS considering withdrawing from government lending plan.

Bet of the day: BP.

Tiddler to watch - Probability

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Stock picks

Buy National Grid
Buy Pearson.

Comment

MPs have introduced new rules allowing them to claim £9125 a year without any receipts - [so nothing new there then]

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment - Share Tips

Buy National Grid
Buy Beazley
Sell Aberdeen Asset Management
****
What is swing trading? - Swing Trading

Investors Chronicle Tips July 24

2009-07-24T03:46:00.000-07:00

Onine Investing - Stock Market Share Tips

INVESTORS CHRONICLE

Share Tips
Buy Centrica at 232p
Buy Mears at 235p
Buy Omega Insurance at 124p
Buy KBC Advanced Technologies at 34p
Buy Ashley House at 81p.

Sell Centaur Media at 32p.

Updates
Buy National Grid, William Morrison, and Nighthawk Energy.
Sell Abbey and British Airways

Company results
Buy Kirkland Lake Gold, Domino's Pizza, Spark Centres (speculative) and Colefax (Contrarian)
Sell Sports Direct.

FINANCIAL TIMES
Comment

HSBC helped by rumours of listing in mainland China
Thomas Cook helped by Arcandor stake sale rumours
Earthport boosted IBM bid
Talk of 30p-a-share offer for Coffeeheaven

THE TIMES
Tempus - Share Tips

Get some Imperial Tobacco for the long term
Buy Kingfisher on weakness
Avoid Colt Telecom.

Comment

Bet of the day: Yell Group.

Tiddler to watch - IQE

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Stock Picks

Buy Capita Group
Buy Compass Group
Buy Scottish & Southern Energy.

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment - Share Tips

Buy Kingfisher
Buy Capita Group
Hold International Personal Finance
****

For info. on How to read stock market charts see - Stock Market Charts

Shares Magazine and Newspaper Tips

2009-07-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

Online Investing - Newspaper Stocks and Shares Tips

SHARES MAGAZINE

Plays - Share Tips
Buy Brooks Macdonald at 307p
Buy Hargreaves Services at 178.5p.

Update

Hold Central African Gold.

Ten sizzlers for the summer

ASOS, Craneware, China Shoto, Healthcare Locums, Eros International, Mears, Hilton Food, NCC, Melorio, and Penna Consulting.

FINANCIAL TIMES

Lex

Apple's results defy belief almost as rivals struggle to sell cheaper machines.

Flu - the world's misfortune is good news for GlaxoSmithKline's

Comment

Revival of bid rumours help SThree

Morse up on takeover talk

THE TIMES

Tempus - Share Tips

Hold BHP Billiton
Euromoney: avoid for now
Buy Carr's Milling for income.

Business editor

Flu could give GSK another blockbuster
Going gets tough in Africa for Rio Tinto

Comment

Bet of the day: Vodafone.

Tiddler to watch - Dwyka Resources

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Questor - Stock Picks

Avoid GlaxoSmithKline
Buy Galiform.

Comment

Road to recovery appears bumpy but in place

Comment

Microsoft: a lot is riding on Windows 7 after the flop that was Vista

Entertainment One stock overhang cleared

THE INDEPENDENT

Investment - Share Tips

Sell Sportingbet
Buy Galiform
Sinclair Pharma - cautious hold.

DAILY MAIL

Yell's bosses' bonuses cause investor rebellion.

Investors bet on deal for Caledon Resources.
***
Stock charts for beginners

Shares Magazine Stock Picks July 16

2009-07-16T02:30:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Shares Magazine and Newspaper Shares Tips and Stock Picks

SHARES MAGAZINE

Plays:

Buy Dana Petroleum at £13
Buy Persimmon at 401.25p

Updates:

Buy Netplay TV
Take profits at BGlobal

Top Tactics:

Buy Johnson Matthey -- Admiral -- Severn Trent

Sell GlaxoSmithKline -- Kier -- Bodycote

Sector Report:

Buy Spring Group -- Penna Consulting -- Michael Page

FINANCIAL TIMES

Reckitt Benckiser down on analyst warning
Wellstream up on renewed bid speculation
Rumours that Central African Mining may be a takeover target

THE TIMES
Tempus - Share Tips

Buy London Stock Exchange on weakness
Buy Business Post for income
Blacks Leisure for the brave only

Anglo American rights issue speculation

Bet of the day: Sports Direct

Tiddler to watch - Nighthawk Energy

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Stock Picks

Buy Northern Foods
Hold Bodycote

Comment

Stake building in SIG by Canadian trade buyer

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment - Share Picks

Hold Burberry
Buy Northern Foods
Avoid Nordic Land

DAILY MAIL

Killick increases its Wolfson Microelectronics shareholding

DAILY EXPRESS

Speculation that Wellstream has a predator

***

For information on stock market charts see - stock market charting for beginners

Newspaper Share Tips Wednesday

2009-07-15T04:11:00.001-07:00

Investing Online - Newspaper Share Tips July 15

FINANCIAL TIMES
Technology stocks, early signs suggest the sector is not as resilient as had been hoped

Facebook -- Digital Sky Technologies reveals offer of $100 million for 1.54% of Facebook's stock

Ever darker clouds swirling round the US economy - retail sales show 4 consecutive months of declines despite price falls

Does Cathay Pacific need recapitalisation, and will shareholders back it?

Comment:

Senior banking figures leave sinking ship and take their irreplaceable talents to independent firms

Heritage Oil up on Genel Enerji takeover talk
Computacenter up on deal talk
Renewed Generali bid talk in RSA Insurance
Encore Oil up on sale of stake

THE TIMES
Tempus - Share Tips

Hold BG Group
Buy James Fisher on weakness
Pass on Alphameric

Dana Petroleum (DNX) rose 32p to 1332p on talk that BP could be interested in it

Tiddler to watch - Plexus

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor - Stock Picks

Buy Britvic
Buy Mothercare

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment - Share Picks

Buy Britvic
Buy Melrose Resources
Buy Alphameric

DAILY EXPRESS

Heritage Oil up on Shell bid talk
Computacenter up on talk of big contract
Rumours that Stagecoach are interested in National Express.

****

See here for stock charts for beginners

Newspaper Share Tips July 14

2009-07-14T03:07:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Stocks and Shares Tips July 14

FINANCIAL TIMES
Mini-mergers - the stock market has steadied, so companies can now consider deals that would have been impossible to value just a few months ago

McDonald's to go - uncertainty about taxes in the UK is driving companies out

Comment:

ITV talk of a change to subscription model ! [They must be joking - Ed.]
National Express - rumours of new offer from FirstGroup
Aquarius Platinum - Chinalco rumoured to be buying
Rumours of bid approach for Redhall

THE TIMES

Tempus - Share tips

Hold Dunelm
Buy LMS Capital
Tuck away some Low & Bonar [presumably that means buy - Ed.]

Comment:

Bet of the day: oil price

Tiddler to watch - Hutchison China Meditech

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Questor: Stock Picks

Hold Venture Production
Buy Cranswick

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment Column - Share Tips

Hold Dunelm
Hold Cranswick
Buy Huntsworth

Ccomment:

Potential upside tempts buyers into ITV

DAILY MAIL

BP buzz sends Dana Petroleum higher

DAILY EXPRESS

Rumours of Futuragene deal with Monsanto.

Investing Online Share Tips July 10

2009-07-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Newspaper Share Tips July 10

Stock Market Investing

INVESTORS CHRONICLE
Technology shares for the brave

Amphion Innovations
Imperial Innovations
Braveheart Investment Group
IP Group

Tips

Sell Yell Group at 22p
Sell Marston's at 91p
Sell Hallin Marine at 105p

Buy Morgan Sindall at 626p
Buy Informa at 229p
Buy Resaca Exploitation at 28p

Updates

Sell Game Group and Anite
Buy Research Now and Petrofac
Accsys Technologies fairly priced.

Company results

Buy Eros International - IDOX - MDM Group - Opsec - Photo-Me International -Digital Marketing.

FINANCIAL TIMES

Lex

Swiss bank secrecy - Berne may confiscate UBS data so that Switzerland's largest private bank will be unable to release them to US courts.

Quantitative easing - the Bank of England has surprised everyone by halting this treatment.

Comment

European Islamic Investment Bank up on bid hopes
Talk of fundraising at London & Stanford

THE TIMES

Tempus - Share tips

Buy Premier Oil
Sell Computacenter
Hold on to Begbies Traynor.

Comment

PV Crystalox rises on takeover speculation

Bet of the day: Bovis Homes.

Tiddler to watch - African Minerals

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Questor - Stock picks

Buy Croda
Hold Aveva.

Comment

Hays: recruitment in the city gives cause for hope.

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment - share tips

Hold AB Foods
Man Group - tentative buy
Sell Centaur Media.

Outlook

Nationwide offering 125% mortgages.

Comment

Fresnillo benefits from silver price outlook

DAILY EXPRESS

Aviva hit by solvency fears.

***
Swing Trading

Investing Online Swing Trading

2009-06-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Stock Investing for Beginners - Learning to Invest

What is Swing Trading?

When investing online or trying to make money from the stock market, traders apply a number of different strategies, such as Day Trading, Swing Trading, or Long-term Value Investing as recommended by Warren Buffett.

In swing trading the idea is to buy stocks (or sell them) for just a few days. The aim obviously is to make money by selling the stocks (or buying them back) a few days later. Swing trading is not interested in long-term trades.

There are however a number of recommendations it is worth following when swing trading

If a stock price gaps 1-2%, you should buy (or sell) half of the position size you intend buying (or selling) then see how the stock behaves before increasing your position. If the price doen't return to its original price, increase your position position.

If a the stock price gaps 2-3%, only buy (or sell) a quarter of the position size you intend buying (or selling).

If the stock price has gapped more than 3%, you are probably better off not bothering with the trade and looking for something else instead - the risk/reward is no longer the same, there is too much risk for too little reward.

Stock Investing - Swing Trading Video

Newspaper and Magazine Share Tips

2009-06-18T03:49:00.000-07:00

Stocks and Shares - Shares Magazine and Newspaper Share Tips

SHARES MAGAZINE
Plays:

Buy BAT at £16.51

Updates: take profits at Smiths News and HMV

Family Jewels:

Buy Abcam -- A&J Mucklow -- Penna Consulting -- Dunelm -- Town Centre Securities

Sector Report:

Buy Pennon
Buy Renewable Energy
Sell Centrica

FINANCIAL TIMES

Plans to cut almost one third of jobs at MySpace are late but necessary as News Corporation faces up to online realities

Comment:

Production woes at Genzyme factory benefits Shire

Rights issue rumours send GKN down

Yell Group hit by fundraising fears

Kofax up on vague bid talk

Morgan Stanley expects Xstrata rally

THE TIMES
Tempus:

Pass on WS Atkins
Hold RPC Group
Avoid Alexon

Other comment:

BP plans closure of alternative energy office

Cookson hit by rights issue fears

PartyGaming rumoured to win auction for Cashcade

Bet of the day: Cadbury

Tiddler to watch - Max Petroleum

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor:

Buy Lonrho
Buy Rolls-Royce

Comment:

Debt and rights issue worries hit Cookson

THE INDEPENDENT

Investment

Hold WS Atkins for now
Buy RPC Group
Hold Imaginatik

DAILY MAIL

Dark clouds swirl around solar firm Jetion

Brewin Dolphin up on vague takeover gossip

Cookson hit by rumours of profits warning

DAILY EXPRESS

Shire off the sick list
Arena Leisure boosted by improved weather
Talk that Alexander Mining close to deals for its MetaLeach mineral technologies

Investing Online Newspaper Stocks Tips

2009-06-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Newspaper Stocks and Shares Tips

Share Tips

FINANCIAL TIMES
Capita shares about-turn on shorting rumours

THE TIMES

Tempus:

Buy Halma if/when price drops
Hold Whitbread
Hold on to Ted Baker

Comment:

Retailers condemn return of VAT to 17.5% on New Year's Eve as mad

Egdon Resources underpinned by exploration permit hopes in France

Bet of the day: Sainsbury

Tiddler to watch - Lighthouse Group

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Questor:

Buy National Grid
Buy Tesco

Comment:

British Airways: Willie Walsh (£750,000 a year) has a flight of fancy and asks employees to work for nothing [only for a month so that's alright then - he is obviously a great talent and worth every penny of whatever his final salary is - let us hope that B.A. manage to hang on to him - with talent like that he could be snapped up by a bank Ed.] --
Tesco cautious about signs of recovery

Guardian Media Group expect losses

THE INDEPENDENT

Investment
Buy Whitbread
Hold Halma
Avoid Journey Group

Outlook:

Digital Britain - [back to the future - Gordon Brown promises 2 Mbits - and all on copper wires - yum, I can hardly wait ! - Ed.]

Redburn Partners says Lloyds, Barclays and RBS are ripe for picking

DAILY MAIL

UK aerospace - there may be turbulence ahead

PZ Cussons up on Vague takeover talks

Stock Charts for Beginners

2009-05-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Technical Analysis - Stock Charts for Beginners

Stock Charts - DOW Theory

The previous post on stock charts for beginners was about the first 3 tenets of DOW theory as explained by the guys at informedtrades.com - this post is about the last 3 tenets.

Tenet 4 - The Averages Must Confirm Each Other
This means that any rise in the DOW Jones Industrial Average must be confirmed by a rise in the DOW Jones Transportation Average, the reasoning being that if manufacturing companies are making more goods and more profits then the companies in the Dow Jones Transportation Index should also be more profitable as they are shipping the goods - if there's a divergence in these two indices then this is a signal of pending change - if not then it confirms the trend. This tenet is not so relevant today as the US is now much more of a service based economy than a manufacturing based economy.

Tenet 5 Trends Must Be Confirmed by Volume
This is still very relevant today. If the change in price (up or down) is accompanied by large volume then it means lots of people are taking part

Tenent 6 Trends Exist Until Signals Prove Otherwise

"The trend is your friend until the bend at the end" Finding signals showing that a trend is coming to an end is very important and will be covered later.

According to Dow, trends exist despite "market noise". There may be moves against the trend but these are temporary and the trend should be followed until it becomes clear that it has ended. Determining that the trend has ended is of course the tricky part and technical analysts tend to disagree.

In the current context (May 2009) many people were expecting the markets to put in a bottom after the horrendous 45% slump, but people differed about just where that bottom in the markets was going to be. When the DOW reached around 6500 many people were calling for it to go a lot lower, down to 4000 ! But so far it hasn't done that, it has in fact rallied back to around 8500. Now of course we are in an uptrend but most people expect it to end and head back down, which probably explains why it conitnues to go up.

1702 was an important point on the NASDAQ, if the NASDAQ had fallen back through 1702 that would have been very bearish and a signal that the markets were headed back down, but as it turned out the Nasdaq didn't fall back through 1702 and so that is seen as being very bullish. Markets should therefore continue to head higher ! We shall see.

Technical analysis may seem arcane but investing online without some basic understanding of stock charts would be very foolish.

Home : Candlestick Patterns

Investing Online Stock Market Charts

2009-05-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Technical Analysis and DOW Theory for Beginners

How to Read Stock Market Charts

Around 1900 Charles DOW was analyzing the movements of the DOW Jones Industrial Average and the DOW Jones Transportation Index when he found that these indices tended to move in a predictable way over time.

This is considered by many to represent the beginning of technical analysis and is used by a great many experts and non-experts in stock trading.

There are 6 tenets to DOW Theory, here are the first 3 :-

Markets have three trends - an uptrend, a downtrend and a correction i.e. the market moves up corrects then continues to move up.
Trends have 3 phases - the accumulation phase (when the experts are taking positions) - the public participation phase (which leads to rapid price increases) - the last phase is the excess phase when rampant speculation catches on but the smart movement starts exiting the trend.
Markets discount all news so that once news is released it is generally too late, the markets have already taken it into account - so to beat the market you need to look at technical factors not fundamental factors.

See stock market charts for beginners for the remaining 3 tenents

All this is said so much better than I could say it in this video by informedtrades .com

Investing Online Newspaper Share Tips

2009-05-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Investors Chronicle Tips

Stocks to Watch

INVESTORS CHRONICLE

Stock Tips
Sell Hammerson at 305p
Sell Fidessa at £10.45
Sel Avis Europe at 17p

Buy Connaught at 346p
Buy Pace at 164p
Buy Costain at 26p

Updates:

Sell ASOS -- Thorntons -- Sports Direct

Buy Concurrent Technologies -- BAE Systems

ITV fairly priced

Company Results:

Buy MP Evans -- Egdon Resources -- Hasgrove -- Serica Energy -- China Shoto

Sell Game Group -- Whitbread -- Punch Taverns

FINANCIAL TIMES

Colgate-Palmolive has improved profits by a combination of lower costs and higher prices

Takeover hopes buoy Concateno

THE TIMES
Tempus:

Pass on Cadbury
Antofagasta - there will be better times to buy
Galiform - wait for further progress before buying

Other comment:

Pendragon trying to get new debt deal with banks

Taylor Wimpey may be considering £100M sale of Canadian business and share issue

Bet of the day: platinum

Tiddler to watch - Rea Holdings

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor:

Swine flu:

Avoid Lipoxen
Avoid PuriCore
Buy Cranswick
Benefit to pharmaceutical majors is marginal

Comment:

After 20 years Sky has now got ITV's licence to print money
DSG is on edge of cliff

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment
Buy DSG
Hold Cadbury
Hold McBride

DAILY MAIL

Swine flu lifts Lipoxen and Puricore
Rumours of imminent sale lift GKN
Redstone - gossip that large buyer is sniffing around

See here for tips about investing online

Investing Online Eight Tips

2009-04-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - Eight Things You Should Know

If you are interested in investing online there is a great site you may want to have a look at - The Investing Online Resource Center - www.investingonline.org - the site is in their own words "designed to serve as a valuable source for noncommercial information about investing online .... created solely for educational purposes and maintained by the North American Securities Administrators Association."

They list 8 things you need to know if you are interested in the stock market for beginners and are considering investing online.

Start small
You know it makes sense - don't bet the house ! You can always decide to increase your online account if things work out OK.
Diversify
Online investors tend to focus on stocks, and in particular large-cap domestic stocks. These stocks should be a large part of your portfolio, but to increase risk tolerance you should put together a well-balanced portfolio of stocks, bonds, and cash.
Don't ignore mutual funds.
Mutual funds have the expertise (take care here as they often make mistakes too!). Keep your mutual funds - don't put everything into individual stocks.
Keep a close eye on costs they may not always be obvious. Online brokerage costs are lower than offline brokers, but they can still add up. You also must reckon with federal capital gains tax.
Make sure your orders work for you.
When investing online, learn how to use the tools available. (Obvious but true)

Make sure you know the difference between a MARKET order, a LIMIT order, a STOP-LOSS order, "stop orders," "day orders" and "good-till-cancelled" orders.
Take care with market orders.
A limit order limits the price you are willing to pay, a market order means the price when the order is finally placed, which may be a lot different to what it wa when you looked at it.
Problems are inevitable.
Investing online will undoubtedly cause problems - you may be away from your computer, your Internet connection may crash etc... your online broker may have problems etc... In this respect I would recommend anyone reading this to steer clear of TDWaterhouse in my experience you can expect problems - for further info see. TDWaterhouse Problems .
Information is power.
When investing online, you must keep youself well informed. Don't be drawn into hype - make sure you check the facts - I would also add make sure you get to grips with at least the basics of technical analysis and stock market charts.

If in addition to your online investments you have worked hard all your life and have been putting money into a 401K retirement investing then you may wish to consider a 401k rollover to an IRA as a sensible and prudent way of protecting your retirement savings.

You also need to understand about stock charts - see online stock trading for beginners

Home : Candlestick Trading

Investing Online Time To Invest?

2009-04-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - Is this a Good Time to Invest?

Is the Bear Market Over ?

If you are investing online and have been following the stock markets lately then one of the most overworked phrases you are likely to have heard is "there will not be a V-shaped recovery". The problem with this is that if everybody is convinced there will not be a V-shaped recovery then it is more than likely that that is exactly what we will get.

It is of course important when trading the stock markets to seek stock market investing advice - unfortunately, as we have seen over the last two years, the people who are giving the advice are generally clueless. How many of them actually said back in 2007 that the DOW and the S&P500 would collapse by 50% ? Not many. There were one or two, but one or two out of the many hundreds that are paraded on the TV finance channels is not a lot and not very impressive.

How many of them said "don't invest in the stock market ! Bear Stearns will disappear, Lehman's will disappear, AIG will be nationalized, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac will be nationalized etc... etc... ? GM will file for bankruptcy ?" I would guess that the answer to that would be none.

So right now most of the experts are saying that there will be no V-shaped recovery and that the recovery will be slow and painful. Most of the experts that I hear on TV expect the stock market to re-test the bottom set in March around 6600 on the DOW and 667 on the S&P500, but so far it doesn't look as if the markets are keen to do this. Which makes us wonder just exactly who controls the stock markets ? Why would the stock market be going up when most people are not buying but are sitting on the sidelines ? Or could it be that they are saying one thing and doing another ?

The upshot of all this is that you really have to make up your own mind. The 'experts' don't know what's going on, as it was the experts that created this mess in the first place. Did they do it on purpose ? Was it all engineered by Goldman Sachs which seems to have been the main beneficiary of this financial meltdown ?

Trust no-one !

Today, despite no V-shaped recovery being expected the markets are still holding up well with the S&P500 up 5 points at 857 and the DOW is up 14 at 8044. Warren Buffett may have got it right by buying in October 2008, so maybe he can be trusted, but even so you need to be a long-term investor and have deep pockets if you are going to hang on in there with Warren Buffett.

The tech sector (+2.0%) has been the liveliest sector as investors buy Google ahead of its earnings report this evening.

The number of jobless continues to increase but this of course could be good news for the stock market as profit margins can increase at the same time,

March housing starts were 510,000, against 540,000 expected. This a reversal on last month where the figures were better than expected.

The stock market is a very confusing place to try and make money with your online stock trades , especially if you are not one of the insiders, and as we have seen the vast majority of them got it wrong

Online Stock Trades Markets Decline

2009-04-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners

Stock Market News

The FTSE 100 started the day in buoyant mood but later slumped and drooped below 4,000 as the US markets opened up weak after the publication of inflation figures and industrial data that was not too healthy.

By the end of the day the FTSE was down 20 points to 3,969.

March saw a 0.1% decline in CPI inflation, the year on year decline was 0.4%, for the first time since 1955. The drop in industrial production was worse than expected at 1.5%.

At close of play in the UK, the Dow was 16 points higher, at 7,397, the S&P 500 was unchanged.

The worst performers in London were mining stocks.

Rio Tinto announced they would be cutting production, Vedanta Resources was the hardest hit - falling 76p to 930p, Antofagasta retreated 36p to 5543p.

Financials was also weak, Legal & General taking the worst hammering - down 5p to 50p, Schroders joined them in the slide slipping 60p to 810p.

The rotation out of miners and financials saw defensives improve, BAT were up 72p to £15.68 and Imperial Tobacco were up 50p to £14.79.

Reed Elsevier was the star performer of the day - up 30p to 489p, due to Goldman Sachs including it on their "conviction buy list". One to watch maybe ?

After the release of the Beige Book in the US, which indicated evidence that the economy may be falling at a slower pace, the DOW rose 57 points to 7977 with but it has now fallen back and is more or less flat on the day - the S&P500 is down 2 to 839

Have we seen the bottom for the stock market in this bear market, plenty of people seem to think so, and certainly the falls are not as dramatic as they were earlier in the year and it is rare to get more than 2 down days in a row at the moment - so if it falls back to re-test the March lows then maybe that would be a good time to start investing online again - just a guess.

Stock Market Privacy Policy

2009-04-08T08:09:00.001-07:00

Investing Online - Stock market for Beginners - Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

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Log Files
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Newspaper Share Tips Thursday

2009-03-19T03:38:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - Newspaper Share Tips

Stocks and Shares

SHARES MAGAZINE

Plays:
Buy Halfords at 279.3p

Update:

Take profits in Cineworld

Commodities

Buy European Nickel -- Dana Petroleum -- Ceres Agriculture

Property

Buy Land Securities -- Persimmon

Sector Report:

Buy Rensburg Sheppards and Aberdeen Asset Management

Sell Ashmore

FINANCIAL TIMES

US quantitative easing -- they must be dancing in Beijing. On Wednesday, the US FED decided to follow the BoE and start buying longer-dated government bonds

ArcelorMittal -- says it has no need to raise cash to pay its debt, but it also says it is considering 'all options'

UK pension funding -- Royal Dutch Shell's announces $8.3 bn hole - a sign of the times. Lots of companies will be making similar warnings

Unicredit's 38% fall in net profit to €4 bn was not as bad as expected, despite 50% jump in bad loan provisions to €3.7 billion.

Rumours of US predator looking at Aga Rangemaster

Paragon - takeover rumours

THE TIMES

Tempus:

Hold Venture Production
Avoid French Connection

Comment

Andy Hornby forgoes £700,000 cash offer from HBOS to avoid another Goodwinesque row
Vague bid rumours boost Aga Rangemaster
Talk of falling income in Japan hits Robert Walters

Bet of the day: Prudential

Tiddler to watch - Fiberweb

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor:

Buy Mouchel
Avoid Friends Provident

Comment:

Afren up on talk there will be a positive Nigerian update

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment
Buy Chemring
Buy Alkane Energy
Hold Alliance Pharma

Outlook:

FSA: in comes the iron fist [only 50 years too late - Ed.]
Unemployment surges over 2 million

Comment:

Legal & General rises as fears of rights issue ease

DAILY MAIL

Barclays whacked by investor lawsuit
Urge to merge on UK High Street (Carpetright, Topps Tiles etc..)
Mears meltdown

DAILY EXPRESS

Hard road ahead for JJB Sports
Aga Rangemaster up on vague US takeover talk
Panmure Gordon recommends Fiberweb
******

Ever wondered what quantitative easing is ? See - What is Quantitative Easing

Looking for a currency converter ? See Online Currency Converter

Newspaper Stocks and Shares Tips

2009-03-18T04:10:00.000-07:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - Newspaper Share Tips

Stocks to Watch

FINANCIAL TIMES
US economy -- a few chinks of light have many people claiming to see the light at the end of the tunnel. February housing starts data, for example.

Uptick rule -- Congress focussing on symptoms rather than cure - What is the Uptick Rule?

Comment:

Speculation over job losses drives Sage Group lower

BowLeven firm on rumours of takoever approach

THE TIMES
Tempus:

Buy Royal Dutch Shell
There may be better times to buy Luminar
Hold Collins Stewart

Comment:

AstraZeneca - expiry of patents looms
AssetCo up on contract hopes
BowLeven up on talk of imminent 60p-a-share bid

Bet of the day: French Connection

Tiddler to watch - Great Eastern Energy

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Questor :

Buy Royal Dutch Shell

Comment:

Dolphin Capital may be catch of the day

THE INDEPENDENT
Investment

Buy Royal Dutch Shell
Derwent London a cautious hold
Buy BATM

Comment:

ITV needs to raise cash says housebroker UBS

DAILY MAIL

Steve Morgan moves in on Redrow

JSJS Designs up on talk of branding deal with Siemens

DOW Rebounds Trend Still Down

2009-03-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - DOW Rebounds But Charts Still Bearish

After falling below 7000 the DOW rebounded 150 points today to finish the day on 6875 - still 125 below 7000. A number of bears were calling for DOW to fall below 7000 since about a year ago, wjem most people thought they were nuts. All they were doing was looking at the stock market charts and drawing trend lines down from the double top we saw back in 2007. Their projection was under 7000 now Goldman Sachs has said it will go to 6000 and there are even some saying it wil go to 4000 ! That is still quite a drop if indeed it does happen.

Similarly with the S&P 500 - people were calling for 688, and though we haven't actually seen 688 yet we have been very close at 696 - the S&P bounced back to 712 today. I guess we could see another bounce tomorrow but my guess would be for a move up in the morning (US time) then a turn and a move back down. Thus giving a two day uptrend in a bearish market

On Feb 27 on CNBC Bill MClaren said "The next low if the index breaks the November low should be very close to a 1/8 extension of this range. Why, because that is what occurs in almost all similar circumstances. There could just be a marginal break of the November low at 734 to 712 but a run to just marginally below this 1/8 extension of the range to 636 seems more likely. Because the index is trending down from three descending trendlines the probability exists for this run down to be of an exhaustion or capitulation style and quite scary. But it also indicates this could be the last leg down to this trend. If the index does capitulate down it will recover the November low quickly no matter where the low."

So watch out for 636 [UPDATE - we got to 667 in March 2009 on the S&P500] on the downside in the S&P and as my mate Oscar likes to say "Don't fall in love with the upside".

Online stock trading is very difficult at the best of times and at the moment there seems to be more risk to the downside than to the upside when investing online.

See also - online stock trading for beginners

Newspaper Stock Tips

2009-02-27T04:46:00.000-08:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - Share Tips

Investing for Dummies

For today's newspaper share tips in the UK see online stock trades

For today's share tips from the Investors Chronicle see trade stocks

The FTSE is down around 125 points at the moment - the DOW, Nasdaq and S&P futures are down and the S&P looks likely to fall to around 740 today. Citigroup has been to all intents purposes nationalized because it's too big to fail - Ivanka Trump thinks CEOs are not paid enough and people should get off their backs and give the guys a break - "we need to pay the best people ludicrous amounts of money otherwise they will go somewhere else" - what best guys ? I haven't seen any recently - GM is bankrupt, Ford is not far off, Chrysler too, practically all the banks are slowly sinking into the mire - who are these highly talented individuals who need billions just to get out of bed in the morning - it's all nonsense !

The DOW may well see 6000 in the not too distant future by the way so hold on to your hats - learn to read the stock charts - and for the time being save your cash or short something if you're very confident - shorting the S&P seems fairly saf at the moment - but that isn't a tip or advice so don't blame me if they discover 10 trillion dollars under Superman's mattress.

For basic information on investing online and on the stock market for beginners see stock charts

Stock Market McClellan Indicator

2009-02-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - The McClellan Oscillator

What is the McClellan Oscillator?

The McClellan Oscillator indicator is used in technical analysis by stock market analysts, technical analysts and chartists. It is a "market breadth indicator" overlaid onto stock market charts which indicates the rate of money entering or leaving the market thus indicating when there is an overbought or oversold condition. It was devised back in 1969 by Sherman and Marian McClellan, and is calculated using the exponential moving average (EMA) of the "daily ordinal difference of advancing issues" (stocks which have risen in value) from "declining issues" (stocks which have fallen) over periods of 19 and 39 trading days. The formula used to plot the Oscillator is:

Oscillator = (19-day EMA of Advances minus Declines) - (39-day EMA of Advances minus Declines)

Each day, there are stocks that close higher (advances) and stocks that close lower (declines). The gap between these advance/decline numbers is referred to as the daily breadth. The cumulative total is referred to as the Daily Advance-Decline Line.

This number is important because it correlates closely with stock market movements and gives another way of quantifying market movements.

When a bull market comes to an end for example, there is the possibility that a small number of stocks will make significant gains which will propel the index higher, but in fact there are a lot more decliners than advancers. This indicates that the market is starting to turn.

The converse is true at the end of a bear market. A few stocks may take the index down although a lot of stocks are in fact rising. This can indicate that the trend is changing.

If the McClellan Oscillator is in the area of -70 to -100 indicating an oversold situation and then turns up a buy signal is generated. Sell signals are generated when the oscillator rises to +70 to +100, indicating an overbought situation, and then turns down.

If the oscillator goes beyond these zones (i.e. above +100 or below -100), this indicates that the market is extremely overbought or oversold. These extreme readings are, however, contrary to expectations, usually a sign that the trend in place will continue.

For example - the oscillator falls to -90 and turns up, thus generating a buy signal. If however, the oscillator falls below -100, the market will probably continue to fall over the next 2 to 3 weeks. Buying should be delayed until the oscillator forms a series of rising bottoms or the market regains strength.

For those active in online stock trading and interested in investing online and given that we are in a bear market at the moment it may be useful to keep a close eye on the McClellan Oscillator.

Related post : online stock trading for beginners

Home : Candlestick Trading

Stock Charts for Beginners

2009-02-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

Stock Market Charts for Beginners - Investing in Stocks Online

Investing in Stocks for Beginners and Stock Charts

For beginners to stock trading looking to invest in stocks, it is important to understand at least the basics of stock charting and technical analysis.

What is Technical Analysis ? Technical analysis on the stock market is basically looking at past prices of stocks, indexes, commodities in the form of charts. Stock charts show where the stock price has been in the past and the trend, either up or down, in the belief that it is possible to predict where the stock price will be in the future based on the trend and various signals which can be seen in the charts.

This is not as strange as it may seem, as the way a stock price moves up or down is the result of decisions taken by a large number of humans and so the stock chart shows the result of human behaviour in graphic form.

It is also claimed that charts are capable of showing things that an actual analysis of the company's financial information will not show. As people who really do know what is happening with a company's financial situation trade the shares before everyone else, thus establishing a trend while everyone else wonders why the share price is moving up or down on no news. It is very useful for online stock trades to understand what the charts are saying.

A basic 20 Year Chart of Barclays

Even a beginner can see that this stock chart shows that Barclays reached a peak around 750p and then dropped like a stone. It is also claimed that close analysis of this chart before Barclays plummeted would have shown that the right course of action was to sell or avoid Barclays.
Stock charts or even charts in other areas of trading, such as in forex charting, are analysed in a number of different ways using a variety of technical indicators. The most common indicators used are moving averages. Moving averages are merely the average share price over a given number of days, for example the 20 day moving average or the 50 day moving average.

Barclays 3 Year Chart with 20 Day (Red) and 50 Day (Green) Moving Averages

Note that before the peak in early 2007 the share price was above the 20 day and 50 day moving averages, then moved below both the 20 day and the 50 day moving averages and has stayed there more or less ever since.

If the share price falls below a particular moving average this is usually seen as a sign that the stock price will fall further. A very important moving average is the 200 day moving average, if a stock falls below its 200 day moving average this is seen as being particularly negative as it often indicates the beginning of a long-term downward trend.

2 Year Barclays Chart with 200 Day Moving Average in Black

In this chart we see that Barclays share price moved below its 200 day moving average in mid-2007 and has stayed below it ever since, for an unusually long time in fact. At the time of writing it is still far below its 200 day moving average. [UPDATE - This chart is updating automatically and it can be seen that Barclays moved back above its 200 day moving average at the end of March after bottoming out around 50p]

6 Month Barclays Chart

The share price is still well below the 200 day moving average. When the share price moves above the 200 day moving average this would be considered to be significant for the long-term trend. [Update : Barclays is now down to 93p - so even further away from that 200 day moving average - on bad banking results in the UK and the continuation of the mess and more evidence of snouts in the trough] [UPDATE : the 20 day moving average (red) crossed over the 50 day moving average (green) back in March which is generally seen as a bullish signal]

This belief in the significance of moving averages reveals the main reason why stock charts are so important and why they can tell a stock trader and also stock market beginners, so much. Stock charts become self-fulfilling prophecies. As in the above example if a stock price falls below the 200 day moving average it is seen as negative, therefore a lot of experienced stock traders will sell when this happens, thus causing the stock price to fall further and thus fulfilling what the charts predicted i.e. because a lot of people believe it will happen, they in fact make it happen.

Similarly when a stock price moves above its 200 day moving average it is seen as a long-term positive move. It is significant in these terms of financial turmoil (2009) that a lot of banking and financial stocks moved below their 200 day moving averages a long time ago and so far do not show any sign of getting back above them.

In online stock trading for beginners investing in stocks, using stock charts to decide on stock trading strategies means that you do not have to know a company's financial fundamentals or understand how to read a balance sheet, you leave that to everybody else, all you neeed to understand is charts and indicators and what they mean or imply and most importantly what everybody else thinks they mean, as you as an individual stock trader will very much be a tiny cog in a very big wheel, so it is extremely important to understand what they very big cogs are thinking, and this can be seen in the charts.

There are three indicators that are very important to understand and study - Moving Average Crossovers, when one moving average crosses over another moving average (usually when both are heading in the same direction) - see 2 Year Chart above.

Stochastics which is an oscillator, and can shown when a stock has moved too high, too fast and is thus overvalued, or has moved too low, too fast and is thus undervalued.

Volume, i.e. the number of shares traded, in general it is considered a positive sign, for those who want the share price to go up, when there is high volume on days when the stock price is moving up and low volumes on days when the stock price is moving down.
If you are interested in investing online whether a beginner or an experienced trader then you really need to get to grips with technical analysis

Top : Investing in Stocks for Beginners

Home : Candlestick Trading

Geithnergate Will it Go Away?

2009-01-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - GeithnerGate, Will It Go Away?

Would You Buy Stocks from Tim Geithner?

Nothing to do with online stock trades but Senator Charles Grassley has described the tax violations of Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner as "disconcerting". Some would argue this is a bit weak. For a president who was elected on the slogan "Change we can believe in" this seems a very poor start, before he is even in office.

Geithner has been President of the FED of New York since 2003, it is therefore particularly worrying that Geithner, who will be responsible for overseeing the Internal Revenue Service, forgot to pay over $34,000 in federal taxes and we are assked to believe that the reason he didn't pay was that he 'forgot' - well that's OK then - the guy's just incompetent, not a crook.

But why would Obama want someone incompetent in charge of US finances?

In addition, the Senate Finance Committee found other violations by Geithner, including his use of a "child's time at overnight camps to calculate dependent-care tax deductions", which is not allowed. And that he employed an immigrant whose work eligibility had lapsed as a household employee.

That's three counts of incompetence so far and the guy hasn't even started his job yet.

Barack Obama has called this an "embarrassment", there are plenty of people in the US who are calling it a lot more, and there other people in the US who wish it would just all go away. But will it? And should it?

The Editor of the Des Moines Register has said : "It arouses suspicion that Geithner thought he could get away with these oversights to save some money, not the sort of integrity that the president-elect has sought for his administration." The comment on his site are even more disparaging. Stormin for example wrote "The trouble is he will get confirmed cause the crooks are operating the bank and the lunatics are running the asylum."

Senators are being urged to get to the bottom of what Geithner did, but whether they will is another matter. I suspect the whole matter will be brushed under the carpet just like in the good old days before Saint Barack everything changed.

[Update : 5 weeks after taking office President Obama and Tim Geithner still have not come up with a detailed economic recovery plan - the markets have fallen around 1200 points a a result and look likely to continue falling - all the way down to 6000 on the DOW if Glodman Sachs are to be believed]

For the latest news on the Geithner tax caper see GeithnerGate

For investing online information on cheap online trading click the link

Million Dollar Traders BBC Show

2009-01-13T11:23:00.000-08:00

Investing Online - Stock Market for Beginners - Million Dollar Traders BBC TV Show

As a beginner in the stockmarket I was interested to see the new reality TV show on the BBC - Million Dollar Traders.

The stock market for beginners idea behind the show is that eight 'ordinary' people (i.e. people who know very little about the stockmarket and share trading) are given two weeks intensive training, then let loose on the stock market to buy stocks for two months with 500,000 quid of someone else's money to partake in a spot of online stock trading. What would Warren Buffett make of all this? Can they do better than the so-called experts? You know those people who came up with CDOs and sub-prime mortgages and who ruined the world economy and are now being bailed out right, left and centre by taxpayer money, or even non-existent money, which the Royal Mint is now busy printing?

The 'someone else' providing the money is hedge fund manager Lex van Dam : his aim is to see if 'ordinary' people (why all these references in the BBC blurb to 'ordinary' people is the implication that city traders are 'extraordinary' people ?) can beat the professionals, he also expects to make a profit - ha ha the guy is clearly an expert.

Lex Van Dam despite working in the world of high finance seems quite rational, saying : “What’s become clear over the past year is that the experts don’t know. If you just do what the experts tell you it’s probably the quickest way of losing your money."

“And if something looks too good to be true it probably isn’t true – like the Madoff fraud. You can’t trust the Government, and you can’t trust companies.”

Mr Van Dam believes passionately that you don't need a business education to be a successful trader. “When I worked at Goldman Sachs I went through a training programme and most people there had MBAs and the view was that you need lots of education to be a good trader but I don’t think so. It’s not that complicated, you just need to stick to a few rules.”

However, "no-one foresees the financial crisis that lies ahead" - that's straight from the BBC blurb and it is revealing as it is a tacit admission that none of the 'extraordinary' professionals had a clue that the world stockmarkets were heading into their worst bear market since 1929.

The eight novice traders were selected in spring 2008 and are :-

an environmentalist
a soldier
a cage fighting promoter
an entrepreneur
a retired IT consultant
a vet
a student
a shopkeeper.

Needless to say, they struggle - let's face it they are being launched with just two weeks training into the biggest financial meltdown in modern times. The BBC must have been overjoyed at the result, but there is no suggestion that the eight novices actually caused the financial meltdown.
The first episode was great fun and we look forward to more financial fannying about over the coming weeks!

Related Posts : online stock trading for beginners

Home : Candlestick Trading

Online Stocks Shares Trading Sites

2008-12-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

Stock Charts - Online Stock Trading Sites

A List of Online Stock Trading Sites with Price Quotes

If you are new to online stock trades, and stock charts the first thing you are going to need to do if you want to actually buy stocks is to open an online share trading account with one of the online brokers to allow you to buy and sell stocks in real time and get real time quotes and real time stock prices, they are the sort of brokers who offer cheap online trading but don't expect any stock tips of course, as they will be execution only services.

You might wonder if investing in the stock market is such a good idea at the moment, given that we are in the middle of a worldwide economic recession and credit crunch, and things have rarely been so bad. Well, there are some who would argue that this is precisely the time to be considering getting in to the stock market, as things have got so bad they can hardly get any worse.
Warren Buffett, aka the Oracle of Omaha aka the most successful investor of all time, for one, has been investing. He says to invest when others are fearful, and due to the amount of fear in the market that is precisely what he has been doing, since October, for the first time in years. Bear in mind that he invests for the long term (i.e. at least 5 years) and that he has $60 billion dollars to cushion him if things should go even more pear-shaped than they already are. But he does argue that in the long-term stock markets go up!

There are others, however, who say the stock markets have further to fall. Some say the S&P could drop to 600 and the lowest figure I've heard mentioned so far is 500. At the moment the S&P is around 850 so these people are talking about another 25% or 30% fall, which is not peanuts, so bear all this in mind and don't jump in with both feet.

So, without further ado, here is a list of online stock trading sites who will be more than happy to open an account for you. I can't make any personal recommendation, as I haven't opened an account with any of them, my account at the moment is with TDWaterhouse, but I can't recommend TDWaterhouse as I am in dispute with them at the moment, so I haven't included them in the list. The main criteria you need to take into account when choosing an online broker are 'honesty' and 'reliability'. I will be looking around myself to open an account with just such an online trading service in the very near future.

All I have done with these online brokers is to check that their sites are still up and running.

Online Stock Trading Sites in North America
Etrade.com
Schwab.com
Fidelity.com
Zecco.com
TradeKing.com
ScotTrade.com
FirstTrade.com
Marsco.com
corporate.TRowePrice.com
OptionsExpress.com
ThinkorSwim.com
ShareBuilder.com
GFtForex.com
Forex.com
DBfx.com
Home : online trading
Related post : online stock trading for beginners

Stocks for Beginners

2008-12-05T12:33:00.000-08:00

Investing Online - Stock Market For Beginners

Investment Strategy

Reasons to buy stocks

The first post on the Stock Market for Beginners - a new venture for optimistic souls who believe (or hope) the stock market will soon be bottoming out. According to many we are going through a bottoming process, according to some we have already seen the bottom and according to others we ain't seen nothing yet !

As I write we have just seen the worst US unemployment numbers in living memory - an increase of 533,000 - worse than most people were expecting and yet the DOW is up 273 the NASDAQ is up 56 and the S&P is up 29 ! So maybe that's a sign that the market is finally turning. Up on bad news.

Personally, I will put my neck on the line and say we are somewhere near the bottom (i.e. within 15% - so the DOW could fall back to around 6800 - UPDATE the DOW fell back to 6500 in March 2009) and we may start to see the recovery in January. I'm not confident that we will see the famous Santa Claus Rally this year. [Update the DOW is now around 7100 and heading lower - - Citigroup has more or less been nationalized Goldman Sachs says 6000 to come on the DOW before this is over] - this despite the fact that the Oracle of Omaha said it was time to buy stocks back in October when the DOW was around 8200. I personally expect to see somewhere around 6600 on the DOW soon.] [UPDATE : the stock markets appear to have bottomed out in early March and have recovered sharply since, though many people now expect the markets to fall back and re-test the lows seen in March]

So watch this space, this is the first post just to set the ball rolling. Stick me in your bookmarks, who knows I might say something useful !

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