Forex Trading

Stock Research – What You Need To Know and Where You Need To Go

For more than 100 years, Wall Street was the exclusive domain of the rich. Not only were stock trading commissions prohibitively high, but research was almost impossible for the average person to find.

You might be able to find some out-of-date stock research information at your local library, but up-to-date, real-time research data was something that cost thousands of dollars.

This was the paradigm on Wall Street for decades, but then came the internet. Not only did the web provide discounted commissions through online brokers, but also a plethora of informative stock research.

While reading books on the market, watching CNBC, and following the business press are all vital elements of any new investor’s education, the most important thing to do before buying your first stock is research it thoroughly.

Thanks to the internet, research has never been easier to come by, or less expensive to access. In fact, most stock research is completely free of charge!

Stock Research – What To Look For

There are two basic elements of research – fundamental and technical.

Fundamental stock research involves examining a company’s published financial documents. These include the income statement, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows.

Several web sites make this data available free of charge. Most have all three financial statements dating back three to five years for literally thousands of publicly traded companies. The best sites for fundamental research are Yahoo! Finance and MSN Money.

Technical stock research examines the price movements of the stock. Most technical analysis involves studying patterns in the charts of a stock’s daily pricings. This form of research has certainly been made easier by modern technology, as in the past, technical analysts used to plot charts by hand.

Now you can find great charts for stock research on Yahoo! Finance, and Smartmoney.com. If you’re willing to pay for your technical research, consider investors.com, which has a great service called Daily Graphs.

Other Sources of Stock Research – Newspapers and Magazines

SmartMoney is probably the best monthly magazine for research purposes. They frequently profile stocks and mutual funds in easy to understand terminology, and therefore, it’s great for the novice investor.

Forbes is another great magazine for stock research. It is published bi-weekly, with about 1/3 of its pages devoted to the stock market. The politically sensitive should be forewarned, however, that Forbes has a very pronounced conservative bent. If you like your journalism free of partisanship, consider Fortune, which is also published every other week.

The Wall Street Journal is a daily newspaper, and probably the most famous source of research. It can be purchased on most newsstands for only $1.00 an issue, and it normally has promotions running that allow you to subscribe for much less than that. Despite the paper’s New York City headquarters, daily delivery is available in all but the most remote U.S. locations.

But in all honesty, The Wall Street Journal pales in comparison to Investor’s Business Daily (IBD), which is almost uniformly recognized as the best source of stock research for serious investors.

Although the paper’s editorial pages are aggressively Republican, its reporting is geared towards the individual investor – whereas The Wall Street Journal’s target audience is business executives.

Best of all, IBD publishes a special Monday edition (actually released on Saturday) that features detailed charts of its top 100 rated stocks.

Subscription Web Sites – Morningstar.com

As far as subscription web sites go, MorningStar (morningstar.com) is probably the most respected of all. It offers detailed research reports on over 1000 companies, in a simple, concise format.

Although MorningStar is best known for its mutual funds research, it is also a great source for research information. However, at $13.95 per month, it is a bit pricey – you could subscribe to SmartMoney magazine for an entire year at that price.

The good news is that there are a bevy of sources from which you can get your stock research. The bad news is that there might be a little too much of it. Whenever conducting research, be sure to consult at least two sources.

There are a lot of opinions out there, and in cyberspace especially, some investment opinions aren’t worth the paper that they’re not printed on.

Stock Research – What You Need To Know and Where You Need To Go / William Smith

William Smith the author provides additional financial information on many subjects as well as the secret to his success in the market along with 5 Free power stock picks emailed daily so grab your Free subscription on his website at Stock Research (All is Free)

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Is Buying Stocks Only For Winners?

When you tell people that you’re about to start buying stocks, you’re likely to encounter some latent hostility.

Most people wish that they too were buying stocks, but they’re afraid to get started or ashamed that they don’t understand the markets.

Therefore, they try to discourage others from purchasing stocks – it’s the crabs in a bucket parable come to life. Often, these naysayers will dispense popular (but untrue) myths about buying stocks. In this article, those myths are dispelled, one-by-one.

#1 – Buying Stocks is Only for Rich People

Sadly, there was a time when this was mostly true. Way back when, the commission charged for purchasing stocks was more than $100. Thanks to discount stock brokers like Charles Schwab and the advent of the internet, buying stocks has never been less expensive.

For one, technology has reduced the spread between the bid and ask prices. This means that the prices you see scrolling across the TV screen are very close to the prices you will pay when purchasing stocks – off by only a few cents or so.

Secondly, commissions are way down. Buying stocks now costs as little as $7 per trade through online brokers like FirstTrade and ScottTrade. Purchasing stocks through E-Trade and Ameritrade costs less than $10.

But if you’re really on a budget, you should be buying stocks through Sharebuilder, which allows you to pool your money with other investors, and add fractional shares to your account for as little as $1 per investment!

#2 – You Need a Broker to Begin Buying Stocks

For this myth, the naysayers exploit the popular understanding of what a “broker” is. Yes, you do need a broker in order to begin purchasing stocks.

But if you think a stock broker is a grey-bearded know-it-all that you pay to make you feel bad about yourself , then you’re in for good news, because you don’t need one! The type of broker that you need isn’t a human being at all – Ameritrade is a broker, for example.

All you need to begin buying stocks is an account with an online broker. Don’t listen to the naysayers or the Edward Jones commercials – you can do this on your own!

#3 – Buying Stocks is for Suckers

This is one of the pettiest, most inaccurate myths of all, but in the wake of Enron and other Wall Street scandals, it’s also one of the most pervasive. It’s based on the absurd notion that stocks are nothing more than pieces of paper.

Stocks are not just pieces of paper. They represent actual ownership in a real, live business. When you own stock, you own a fractional share of every penny that the company earns and every dollar that’s in its bank account.

You even own its property, plant, and equipment! Of course, you are just one of many owners, and your share is undoubtedly very small – but you are an owner, and this does matter.

Even if the stock falls on hard times, a bigger company might come in and buy the company in full – usually at a healthy premium. When they buy the company, who do they buy it from? From you, and all the other shareholders like you.

The Truth – Purchasing Stocks is Inexpensive, Easy, and It’s for Winners

Don’t listen to the naysayers. You know that buying stocks is in your best interests, and you’ve probably been putting it off for far too long already. Give yourself a basic education by reviewing articles at informative websites like this one, and then get out there and start purchasing stocks.

After all, there’s no better education than the one you’ll receive when your real money is on the line.

Is Buying Stocks Only For Winners? / William Smith

William Smith the author provides additional financial information on many subjects as well as the secret to his success in the market along with 5 Free power stock picks emailed daily so grab your Free subscription on his website at Stocks (All is Free)

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A Brief History Of Gold

Gold has a place in history regardless of the country of origin. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that gold is seen as a common currency in every country in the world. Gold sees no boundaries. History states that gold coins have been minted since around 670 BC when King Gyges of Turkey minted some gold coins for his personal currency when traveling. The Roman Legions were apprehensive when Julius Caesar first issued gold coins as payment for their service. However, the tune soon changed when the legions realized that the gold coins actually increased in value.

Today, bouillon gold coins have a face value that is pretty much just symbolic. The true value of a gold bouillon is the gold weight by content and the ever-fluctuating price of gold on the world market. A one-ounce gold coin is worth the market value of one ounce of gold minus around 5% for minting and shipping. Of course, bouillon coins come in various common weights: 1/20 of an ounce, 1/10 of an ounce, 1/4 of an ounce, 1/2 of an ounce and finally a one-ounce coin. Gold bouillon is a legal tender and gold coins are guaranteed authentic by the country of origin. Almost anyone can purchase and sell gold coins because of the diverse market acceptance.

In 1489, King Henry VII introduced the first gold currency into the world market. In Britain during World War I, Britain issues banknotes because gold bouillon was needed to finance the war. Soon, these banknotes completely replaced the use of gold sovereign. The gold sovereign ceased gold mint production in 1917 and started again in 1925. Then production was stopped for World War I and restarted in 1957.

There are many famous finds of gold in various regions of the world. These gold finds caused huge gold rushes. Gold rushes caused large amounts of people to migrate to these areas. Such places as the Klondike Gold Rush of Alaska, which occurred at Forty-Mile creek in 1886. In August of 1869, gold was then discovered at Bonanza Creek – a part of Klondike River, Yukon Territory. In the one-year starting in the winter of 1896 and ending in 1897, miners pulled out millions of dollars in gold bouillon. In the year 1915, over $50 million USD was exported from Alaska to the United States. The 1898 gold rush was a modern event. With the addition of media, the gold rush had world wide media coverage. This media coverage sent people rushing to the gold locations.

The history of gold is an amazing display of human endurance. It is estimated that only 120 to 140 thousand tons of gold is available above ground. Surprisingly, there is only $1.8 trillion USD total in gold above the ground. Compare that to the total US debt of almost $7 trillion USD. In addition, only $375 billion USD is held in reserves at banks around the world; $1.3 trillion USD in gold is owned by private parties.

A Brief History Of Gold / Steve Thomas

Steve Thomas writes about gold history and runs a gold related resource website at www.golda.co.uk

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