Developing An Investment Strategy

By Micheal Jones

There are a few things to take into consideration when developing your investment strategy.

Corporate Actions A good way that you can predict whether a specific stock may fluctuate upwards or downwards is by checking into the individual company with which you intend to invest. If there is an impending action on the part of the company such as a take-over or a merger then you may see a dramatic increase in the share price even if the market trends in general are taking a downturn. You can increase your chance of beating the market average by simply knowing a bit of information about a company.

Dividends Another great trick for knowing ahead of time in which direction the share prices will go is to know when the dividend payments will be paid. Some investors actually only invest for the purpose of dividend farming.

This simply means that they will purchase the stocks to take the dividend yields and then sell them when they become ex dividend. You may see a relatively cheap stock, but you should check to see if it is ex or cum dividend. Buying a stock ex dividend means that you are not entitled to the dividend allocation of the stock that you bought. The person who is selling that stock receives the dividend and then sells it at a lower price to you.

Opinions Finally, there is the fact that people are much like sheep; if one says sell then most of the herd will surely follow. If the media says to sell then you shouldn?t just sell blindly, you should investigate further and make your own decision.

Remember that the media is not paid to give you a good bargain or opportunity. The same is true for family and friends, too. Just be confident in your own investment strategy and don?t be afraid to go against the herd if you?ve done your homework and know your own mind.

Michael Jones is an expert investor and hedge fund manager; find out what he has to say about investing in the Australian Share Market and the best approach for investing. - 23200

About the Author:

If you wish to learn the best information on investing today you need to check out this free video right now!

Start Trading with Good Penny Stock Listing Options

By Zachary Riff

If you have the right tools and the right information, stock trading can be very easy. Today, it's made even easier for beginners who can start investing their money online in good penny stock listing options. These are good ways to begin with, as well as gaining experience and creating your own workable trading strategy. For beginners like you, it's best to rely on a good online stock trading firm to help you start up.

To start, you will need two important tools in beginning your online stock trading: a good and reliable online stock trading firm; and several very reliable and fast stock trading information portals. Begin by surfing for an online brokerage firm that offers free start-up accounts.

There are several online brokerage sites offer courses on online stock trading. These sites also offer services like small stock options, penny stock listing information, as well as stock news and data reports. Sites like these also offer advice and services on how to start buying and selling online, as well. Choose a site that you like and whose registration process and site navigation are easy to understand and maneuver through. Pick one that not only offers the courses on online stock trading, but also has great turnkey applications and solutions.

Getting the right stock information is vital to learning how to become a good online stock trader. The most common kinds of stock information you can get online (through your online stock trading firm) are updates on your stocks, updates on new shares and penny stock listing options, and other stock market information that you can use in your buying and selling.

Aside from relying solely on information given by these trading sites, you should also do your own research and browse through stock market news sites that cater specifically to the online stock trading community. Check for through online stock news portals, daily streaming stock quote and data and charts, and penny stock listing reports, and other stock updates.

These online financial and stock market news sites may also offer information about the stock market reports, penny stock listing data, and specific stock options that you may be interested to invest in. Be cautious, though: Don't be taken in by sites that say you don't need to learn about online stock trading. Online stock trading requires knowledge and experience, even for non-professionals who have been doing it for years. Start with small investments and penny stock listing options that are solid and reliable. Don't go for the kind that is highly erratic and unreliable.

Going online is probably the best way you can start practicing with stock trading. These investments are the perfect training grounds for you to develop experience and your own working trading strategy. Eventually, when you move on to trading bigger stock investments, you'll be able to apply what you've learned and find that online stock trading is a sound and reliable way to invest your money.

Keep in mind that the keys to learning about stock trading is starting with small investments and good penny stock listing options, learning how the market works and gaining the tools and valuable experience to be able to buy and sell shares, and lastly (but not the least, by far), getting the vital information that you need to ensure that whatever trading movement that you do, it's always the best move you can make. - 23200

About the Author:

Read more about good penny stock investing. Practice stock trading online now.

Covered Call Strategies

By Maclin Vestor

Covered call strategies have advantages and disadvantages. A covered call is essentially giving up a stocks potential for capital gains and exchanging it for income... As you probably can imagine, value investors and contrarian investors, or those who bet on a stock that they believe has underappreciated in value and is on the way down or moving sideways will generally be able to see some value in this. Income investors will love the extra yield.

Merrill Lynch quantitative strategist Richard Bernstein in his book Style Investing: Unique Insight Into Equity Management offers a very useful conceptual framework for understanding the role of earnings and earnings expectations in stocks price growth. The cycle starts from the low where contrarian investors thrive, to the top where the growth investors thrive. Although it is possible to sell deep in the money calls which may allow you to profit on anything from torpedo stocks that have peaked and are plummeting, to contrarians. Or even using higher strike price calls that can allow you to profit from contrarian to growth, generally you would probably want to target any strategy from Dogs to estimate revision. In other words, you want to target stocks that have already been in declined and have surpassed the 2nd half of their decline, to stocks that have began climbing and are less than half way through their moves. To understand this more, check out Richard Bernsteins book Style Investing: Unique Insight Into Equity Management .

Any type of investor could hypothetically use covered calls to his or her advantage. However the stronger move the strategy expects to make with the stock, the quicker you must cut your losses, and the higher strike price you must sell calls. Of course there's also someone that might operate more like Buffett and find companies that are so well managed and so undervalued and have such a good business model that the time frame you own the stock is forever. In this case, you may wish to own a stock through all of the cycles and continue to sell calls and just vary your strategies according to the cycles.

If you wish to execute a covered call you would buy 100 shares of the stock, for every call you sell. If you are using an option spread strategy, your call is still covered if you own another call at a different strike price and/or a different expiration date, but we will not get into this right now.

The thing about covered calls is that it has a few advantages 1) Most stocks will never produce an infinite return which allows you to sell high strike calls to eternal optimists when you think the stock may go up, but won't go up forever. Provided that the premium is more than the fees, you collect income. 2) One thing is certain, that time will continue - a) A stock has value based on it's value of executing the option and selling it immediately.. If a stock option has a strike price of $50 and the stock is priced at $55, this value (known as intrinsic value) is $5. b) A stock option has value based potential. That same option with $5 in intrinsic value is worth more if the stock is expected to make large moves (known as implied volatility). The reason is of course, if someone bought that option, they are more likely to pay more if they believe there is going to be a large move. The supply and demand would of course dictate that a stock expected to move higher would have a high implied volatility. c) A stock option has value based on it's time remaining. That same option with $5 intrinsic value with 6 month until expiration, obviously isn't going to be worth as much as an option with 1 month until expiration. An interesting thing results though. People aren't going to want to lock up cash to own a long term option if they could buy month by month. So time value decays very slowly early on in it's contract, and it accelerates the closer you get until expiration. So someone who buys a long term option will find that this time value does not decay very fast at first, while someone who buys an option that expires in 6 days would find that time value quickly evaporates. As such, in terms of time value alone, it is more expensive to buy 6 1 month options month at a time for 6 months than it is to buy a single 6 month option. The future is less certain to most people, so the way the LEAP(long term option) market works is it is given a high implied volatility 3) Protection against downside - Options can offer value in hedging downside risk. If you buy a put, you are insuring a loss from the current price all the way to 0. If you sell a call, you are protecting your loss to only what you paid for your option. Lets say for example you owned a 100 shares of a $50 stock. If you sold a $50 strike price with 1 month, you might receive $2 a share or $200 for it. You would be protected if the stock went from $50 to $48. However if the stock went to $46, you would still lose $200 rather than $400, but still a loss on paper. The deeper in the money the strike price is, generally the lower the Time and potential value (known as theta). However, the further out of money the option gets, the less probability the stock has of reaching it, so the theta is lower there as well. Generally at the money options will have the most theta. If you purely will be an income collector, you want stocks that stay neutral, and continue to collect the theta through covered calls. A strategy that seeks to take advantage of the cycle will sell deep in the money calls as the person expects the stock to go lower, then sell closer to in the money calls as the cycle begins to cause the stock to flatten out, and then to take advantage of appreciation sell out of the money calls just slightly, and as the stock moves stronger upwards further out of the money calls can be sold. - 23200

About the Author:

Maclin Vestor teaches about varioustrading systems and teaches you to find a trading system that works for you.

Software You Can Use to Get Out of Debt Software You Can Use to Become Debt Free The Best Software for Getting Out of Debt The Best Software Programs for Getting Out of Debt

By Sean Payne

If you're stuck with loads of debt, you may have noticed that many of those who get out of debt tend to use some kind of financial software. There's a good reason for them to do so: It works like crazy!

There's a saying that Success leaves clues. This means that people who are successful in getting out of debt have done specific things that got them out of debt, and that by doing the same things that they've done, you can get out of debt, too.

One of the things that successful people do to get out of debt is making a debt payoff plan, and then working that plan. Once you've developed a plan for getting out of debt, the right debt software will help you stick to that plan.

When it comes to getting out of debt, my favorite software is budgeting software. My personal favorite budgeting software is called "You Need A Budget". This is an Excel spreadsheet program that is 100% created to help you budget your money and get out of debt. I credit all of my success with getting out of debt to the fact that I use my budgeting spreadsheet program.

There are many other great budgeting software programs. One popular program, known as Mvelopes Personal, is a web-based budgeting system that allows you to access your budget from anywhere that has Internet access. It also access your bank accounts to automatically enter your purchases into your budget.

One free budgeting program is Mint. Its also a web-based budgeting system, but it doesn't cost anything to use. One unique feature of Mint is that it compares the rates you're paying on your debt to offers from credit card companies. If it finds a better rate for you, it will let you know, and it could end up saving you hundreds of dollars while you're working to pay off your debt. Similarly, if it finds a bank account that pays a higher interest rate than yours, it will let you know, giving you the potential of earning much more money on your savings.

In addition to budgeting programs, there are plenty of other debt reduction software programs that will help you follow your plan for getting out of debt.

Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft's Money are both programs that can help you so create a budget and manage the rest of your finances. Both of these programs have related capabilities, so whichever one you decide to use, they'll both do about the same thing. One of the complaints I have about these two programs is that they do too much. They have so many features that you will probably be distracted from your plan to get out of debt.

My advice is to stick with a simple budgeting program that helps you track your expenses, income, and debts. don't get caught up in complicated software that does more than you need it to. Even a spreadsheet that you create can help, but I recommend that you use software that has a good reputation of helping others to get out of debt.

Whatever software you choose to help you with your debts, start using it today and don't switch software unless it really doesn't do what you want it to. Use it consistently, every day or every week as your situation requires, and your software will quickly get you out of debt. - 23200

About the Author:

If you're serious about paying off all your debts, the right debt free software can greatly speed up the process. Check out Sean Payne's hot tips at his budgeting software website.

Evolutionary Investing

By Michele Perdue

Our hard wiring through evolution has resulted in a short circuit that makes us more apt to risk losing money if we start worrying about not earning it. The majority of investors are busy worrying about their missed opportunities.

Reflection is important but attention should be focused on the purchases that were mistakes rather than the non-purchases that we regret. Mistakes are costly and the missed opportunities do not affect us but to be there as a reminder that we chose the wrong investments.

A useful analogy might be found in a book (more than a decade old) called Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins. This science writer, evolutionary biologist and provocateur talks about strategies that are available to the animals with high metabolisms, such as small birds, that has the need to find food often in order to stay alive. Imagine that the bird is flying around seeking its prey and is surrounded by twigs that may hold some cleverly camouflaged caterpillars. If the bird got close and examined the twig a moment it may be able to distinguish between twig and caterpillar quite readily.

But, this is problematic for the bird as it cannot examine each of the numerous twigs lest it starve while looking for its first meal. It needs to take a faster approach, scan rapidly at a more cursory level even if it means missing out on many caterpillars. Finding the right balance between a deep scan and one that is more cursory but still effective is important. Too cursory will mean that the bird never finds anything and starves; to detailed and the bird may find too few and starve.

This is the same thing we must do as investors. If we waste time on a twig, we?ll never find a caterpillar; and we really can't afford to think about all those missed caterpillars. An optimal investment strategy will be profitable while leaving a number of the good opportunities untouched. Birds don?t fret over their missed caterpillars and neither should you.

Investing is a tricky thing to master. Get some great advice and investment tips from a leading expert and hedge fund manager, Andrew Baxter. - 23200

About the Author:

If you wish to learn the best information on investing today you need to check out this free video right now!