I have been interested in trading and investing in the stock market for the past seven years. I have competed in various contests to test my strategies and have won several. Over these years, I have observed many trends in our volatile markets. News is what moves the markets. Not just local news or news within the United States, but global news will affect the markets. It is good to stay informed on the dates and times that economic news will be released. When economic news is positive, the markets will usually move upwards, most individual stocks will follow that trend. The opposite is also true. This pattern also holds true for stocks in various sectors. When biotech companies release clinical trial news, other stocks in that common sector also react. From the Yahoo message boards to analytical research data provided by companies, everyone perceives news very differently. In the stock market, emotion tends to take over where skeptical thinking should be in place. Many traders/investors make rash decisions about stocks before doing their due diligence because they are afraid of missing out on a possible great opportunity. Noticing these trends in the market can be very beneficial to the astute trader.
When speaking to other investors/traders, it is funny how observational selection comes into play. Many traders/investors speak of their massive gains in one or two stocks, yet, fail to mention the losses taken on countless others. Observational selection is a very common practice in the stock market. Specifically on the message boards you will find people pumping a stock after news has been released. This makes the news seem much more important than it actually is. Along with praise for the news, comments of how undervalued the st...
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...ons being asked by analysts. This is another way of getting information as if you were speaking to experts.
Although this is just a brief overview of some of the tools that I have found useful while trading stocks, there are other key statistics that I use before making any commitment to buy, sell or short a stock. I could go on about the statistics that I use such as chart patterns, volume, floats etc. However, I do not want to bore you to death. Knowing your facts is what I consider the most important aspect of stock trading. I cannot stress enough how important it is to independently confirm your facts. Make sure you look at all points of view to see that you have a strong chain for your argument and ultimately your decisions. Knowing the facts helps you get past the appeal to ignorance and gives you the confidence in your research to make an informed decision.
Can We Keep Our Promises? The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the article called “Can We Keep Our Promises?” by Robert D. Arnott, and to help better understand the three key risks facing each investor. Robert Arnott describes risk and return as “having two sides of the same coin” meaning risk is inseparable from return. Arnott points out the most important risks that are faced by managers of company pension plans: underperforming other corporate pension funds (their peers), losing money (mostly associated with portfolio standard deviation or volatility), and underperforming the values of pension obligations and therefore losing actuarial ground.
In the recent week, the Chevron Corp. stock can be easily categorized into one that has been oversold trading as low as $111.25 per share. A technical analyst defines an oversold position using the RSI, Relative Strength Index, to measure the momentum on a 0 to 100 scale. A stock will be called oversold, if the RSI falls below 30, and in the case of CVX Stock Analysis, it has already hit 28.1, which by comparison to other in the energy stock is low, the others averaging just above 50. Investor can always assume that the trend is one that will exhaust itself soon, but the analysts see the heavy selling as one that will continue for a few months, unless the Chevron stocks show a positive financial sign such as an increase in revenue, resumption of Gulf of Mexico operations, or some stretch in the margins of fuel products.
The Efficient Market Hypothesis suggests that market prices fully reflect all information available to the public. However, practitioners and regulator are uncertain as to the validity of this hypothesis. The questions that Bloomfield raises are: If market prices truly reflect information, why do investors waste efforts by trying to identify mispriced stock prices? Why do managers try to hide bad news in footnotes? And why do regulators try to prevent them from doing this? Robert J. Bloomfield presents an alternative to EMH called the Incomplete Revelation Hypotheses. IRH suggests that statistical data which is more costly drives fewer trading interest. Therefore information that is more costly to extract from publicly available information is not fully reflected in the market prices.
The stock market is a vehicle to invest money. It is where consumers buy and sell fractions of companies, and is referred to as stocks. A proven method to achieve wealth while keeping up with inflation, comprised of publically held companies who offer goods and services that are used by the general public daily. Companies sell stocks to public investors in a free and open market environment on a daily basis, which is an effective strategy to build a sound financial future.
Mutual-fund managers generally rely on some variation of the two classic schools of stock analysis: fundamental and technical. Fundamental analysis relies on information such as economic supply and demand, and the company's financial health. These investors use information such as annual growth rate, earnings records, and key ratios to make decisions and focus on consistent, steady growth. Alternatively, technical analysis focuses more on the study of timing, price fluxuation, and investor sentiment. A common method of technical analysis is the usage of a chart of the stock’s price history to predict market sentiment and stock price trends.
There are many different ways to save money and there are different things to save for. A savings plan for an immediate want is apparently different than a savings strategy for retirement. One may choose to select stocks, bonds, or mutual funds for a savings strategy, however, my personal choice is to invest in bonds first, then mutual funds.
The stock market plays a significant role in the health of the economy; the economy has to be strong for a country and its citizens to prosper. In 1929 over a period of two weeks 30 billion dollars disappeared from the U.S. economy, this was the event that started the greatest period of human hardship of the twentieth century known as the great depression. On October 19,1987 the Dow Jones industrial average plunged almost a third of its value. Many investors went completely bankrupt after one day of trading. Both of these crashes came without warning in booming markets are the currently booming markets heading for a collapse? The current market resembles both 1929 and1987 markets but there is a smaller possibility for collapse.
The first important concept I learned was the ‘goals of monetary policy’. The primary goal of a central bank is price stability (low and stable inflation). Some of the Feds (short for the Federal Reserve Bank) other concerns are:
There is a sense of complexity today that has led many to believe the individual investor has little chance of competing with professional brokers and investment firms. However, Malkiel states this is a major misconception as he explains in his book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”. What does a random walk mean? The random walk means in terms of the stock market that, “short term changes in stock prices cannot be predicted”. So how does a rational investor determine which stocks to purchase to maximize returns? Chapter 1 begins by defining and determining the difference in investing and speculating. Investing defined by Malkiel is the method of “purchasing assets to gain profit in the form of reasonably predictable income or appreciation over the long term”. Speculating in a sense is predicting, but without sufficient data to support any kind of conclusion. What is investing? Investing in its simplest form is the expectation to receive greater value in the future than you have today by saving income rather than spending. For example a savings account will earn a particular interest rate as will a corporate bond. Investment returns therefore depend on the allocation of funds and future events. Traditionally there have been two approaches used by the investment community to determine asset valuation: “the firm-foundation theory” and the “castle in the air theory”. The firm foundation theory argues that each investment instrument has something called intrinsic value, which can be determined analyzing securities present conditions and future growth. The basis of this theory is to buy securities when they are temporarily undervalued and sell them when they are temporarily overvalued in comparison to there intrinsic value One of the main variables used in this theory is dividend income. A stocks intrinsic value is said to be “equal to the present value of all its future dividends”. This is done using a method called discounting. Another variable to consider is the growth rate of the dividends. The greater the growth rate the more valuable the stock. However it is difficult to determine how long growth rates will last. Other factors are risk and interest rates, which will be discussed later. Warren Buffet, the great investor of our time, used this technique in making his fortune.
Currently there are over one hundred unique stock exchanges throughout the world. A Stock exchange provides a means for companies to raise capital through issuing stock. This process begins when a private company files to issue an initial public offering or an IPO. Often time’s companies wish to seek assistance from investment banks or other financial institutions to help get the IPO started. An investment banker looks over the company’s financial statements and records to determine what the company is valued at. Then stocks are issued to stock exchanges for investors and traders to purchase. The company raises money by selling their shares of stock to investors. The company and the investors share a mutualistic relationship as the company is in need of capital and the investors that purchased the stock believe that the company will do well and in return the stock will grow. Stocks fluctuate based off of several economic indicators. These factors include inflation, the strength of the market and competition, trends, and many more depending on what you are investing in. These factors are, for the most part, unpredictable. Even events such as a national disaster or terrorist attack can greatly impact the stock ma...
What is the role of investor’s confidence in the financial markets? Why a downgrade of the US treasury sends ripples in the stock markets all over the world .How do investors react to such kind of information? Do we take all the information into account before...
There are many studies that examine the direct relationship between news, information and activity online and the subsequent market characteristic. However, I have selected a sample of papers to look at, some of which look at the financial theory behind the stock market, and then several which look at the sentiments which can be extracted from Twitter and online sources and then tested to see if there are any significant relationships present, which could be then use...
The stock market is an essential part of a free-market economy, such as America’s. This is because it provides companies the capital they need in exchange for giving away small parts of ownership in their company to investors. The stock market works by letting different companies sell stocks to gain capital, meaning they sell shares of their company through an exchange system in order to make more money. Stocks represent a small amount of ownership in a company. The more stocks a person owns, the more ownership they have of that company. Stocks also represent shares in a company, which are equal parts in which the company’s capital is divided, entitling a shareholder to a portion of the company’s profits. Lastly, all of the buying and selling of stocks happens at an exchange. An exchange is a system or market in which stocks can be bought and sold within or between countries. All of these aspects together create the stock market.
Have you ever invested in the stock market? If so, do you know where your money is really going? The stock market is a risky business and it can make or break people’s lives. The stock market is used to daily to keep America on its trembling feet; it’s also being used at this very moment to cheat people out of money for personal gain. This happens every day in the stock market and its evolving rapidly, super computers that can trade faster than a blink of an eye, social media trends that can predict share values, and intricate stock market schemes that are getting harder and harder to find and take down. While the stock market keeps the world turning and the economy steady, the stock market is also being used in manipulative ways that are not always legal.
Financial theories are the building blocks of today's corporate world. "The basic building blocks of finance theory lay the foundation for many modern tools used in areas such asset pricing and investment. Many of these theoretical concepts such as general equilibrium analysis, information economics and theory of contracts are firmly rooted in classical Microeconomics" (Oaktree, 2005)