INTRODUCTION
One of the biggest mistakes an investor/trader will make is letting the stock broker choose him instead of the investor choosing the right agent. Being selective when choosing an agent can prove fruitful, ensuring you receive exactly the service and advice you deserve. There are many to choose from. Asking questions and screening can lead to a successful relationship for the investor and smooth out the rough roads on his investing journey.
Understanding the broker and his many functions is just one step in understanding the big picture of investing. Understanding one's own goals and purposes is more important, at least from the trader's viewpoint. What do you want to achieve financially? What areas do you want your investments? Are you comfortable with aggressive investing? Conservative investing? Do you really need a broker? As many traders as you have these days, you also have the same amount of different trading strategies. Will the trader need a different middleman if his/her strategies change?
Mastering a subject comes with the gradient accumulation of knowledge and experience on that subject. To assist those seeking a stock representative I've written a brief summary of guidelines and helpful hints. There are many questions, inquiries and investigative searches one can use to expose an agent's intentions and purposes. These will help you weed out the undesirable individuals not having their client's best interests at heart. These are not strict rules or policies but guidelines to help the trader arrive at his destination, which is making money through wise investments.
Having the right representative on your side is a huge asset. Each individual will have to examine his or her own personal situation to determine if these apply to their own plan on investing. My main focus here is Stock Brokers but these questions and investigations can be applied to many agents; Business, Commodity, Forex, Insurance, Mortgage, Real Estate, etc.
WHAT IS A BROKER?
Basically he is someone who is licensed to buy and sell securities (financial instruments including stocks, bonds, notes, mortgages, etc.) and derivatives (financial instrument whose value is based on another security) on the stock market for traders and investors, which could be either individuals or corporations.
Being a "Stock Broker" does not mean he is an all-knowing deity come to alleviate your financial woes. He has become such because he has a desire for investing and the markets and has invested the time in himself after a short study to obtain a "Series 7" license. This by no means makes him an expert in investing. This comes with time, experience and the passion to learn and do more.
They are not at all hard to find. Good ones are more difficult to find and they will have at least the following characteristics;
Understands the stock market game. Executes orders with high efficiency. Knowledgeable in most trading strategies. Good communication skills with his clients. Charges reasonable commissions. Offers other assistance as needed. Holds his client's trust as his biggest asset.
These assets are well worth having on your side when confronted with battling the stock markets.
Part of their job is to discuss and advise the client on investments and strategies. They should be able to explain in detail any aspect of investments and trades. He also needs to accumulate as much data about the client's financial status and goals in order to assist the client in attaining these ambitions. Based on this data the agent then determines the best financial route to follow and advises the client to do so. When the client has the trades executed they are charged a commission (fee charged for carrying out a transaction). Commissions will vary depending upon the level of service provided. The higher the involvement of the agent, the higher the commission costs is the usual case, which is justifiable for good service.
Paying a higher commission is worth it if he is putting together trades that consistently turn into profits. On the other hand, paying a lower commission which produces mediocre or no profits makes no sense and leads to frustration for the investor and broker alike.
Of course saving on commissions is increasing your profit ratio, but don't sacrifice your investment profits by employing a middleman who does not have your best interests at hand. Your main interest as a trader is to get all your trades executed efficiently and at the best commission cost possible for that service.
No matter what kind you employ, full service, discount or online, they must be efficient and quick to complete your trade in order for you to make a profit. A client's portfolio performance has nothing to do with commissions, but the amount of trades executed does. How is he being paid? Is he pushing certain financial products on you to receive more commissions? A good broker always safeguards his client's interests. Always.
There are three basic groups or types of agents; full service, discount and online. These groups each have different levels of service, advice, commission costs and each are unique depending upon the needs of the investor. Which service could best benefit you? Do you really need a broker? Is research and market advice really worth the extra commission cost?
About the Author
John Nelson is a successful management administrator working within the customer service and finance industry for over 20 years. His interests also include photography and writing. John has written articles in regards to helping individuals overcome financial obstacles and finding workable solutions to those problems. Helping individuals locate solutions is a very rewarding venture. For more info: http://stockinvestingreview.blogspot.com/
Saturday, February 9, 2008
HOW TO FIND A STOCK BROKER - EXPOSED (Part 1) by John Nelson
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Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Trading Opening Range Breakouts by Leroy Rushing
One of the most common and popular intraday trading concepts is the Opening Range Breakout (ORB) trade. Since its conception, ORB has evolved into a number of different varieties which are often reviewed in the Trading EveryDay Live Trading Room with entries, set ups, and stops.
Ever since the market decline of 2000-2003, the trading environment has become one of low volatility resulting in the propensity for short-term price movements to reverse. In turn, this environment has created chaos with Opening Range Breakout trading. Let's take a look at what this means.
Say that a trader looking at the opening prices from the stock market open interprets a decline at mid-morning as an OBR. If the trader is astute and experienced, three (3) things would come to mind before taking the trade.
1. The trader should look at the entire pre-opening market as the opening range because it is an indication of how U.S. stocks have responded to pre-opening economic reports and Asia and European market developments. The only way you can tell if the new buying and selling information is impacting traders' value assessments is if you break out of that range. 2. A true breakout move should impact all the major market averages and sectors (including, but not limited to, Dow Jones, Standard & Poor's, Russell 2000, etc.) the same way. 3. A valid breakout should also provide us with increased participation as there are lower or higher prices. When this happens, you can be fairly certain that that the "big boys" are "playing" in the move, which allows you to follow in their footsteps.
So did the trader take the trade? Not if the downside move turns out to be a failed test of the overnight lows. The moral of the story is to do what you have to do to figure out how to separate valid ORB trades from false breakouts. That means to continue educating yourself because just as you evolve as a trader, the trading world is evolving as well.
About the Author
About the Author:Leroy Rushing is an active, professional day trader; trading coach; and eBook author. He is the Founder and CEO of Trading EveryDay, a distinguished provider of educational trading products and services that are available worldwide.
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How Stock Investor Make More Money From Bear Markets? by Finley Zhang
As everybody already knows the stock market cannot always be soaring. There are times when the situation can look pretty bad. Well, there’s no need to panic or feel down just because of a bearish market. You should realize that you could actually capitalize on the situation. A bear market may, in fact, just be the kind of blessing you need. It is true that a bear market can be terrible for retirees who live off their investments. It is the reason why retirees are advised to keep enough of cash and bonds to ride through market downturns without being affected too much.
However not all of require our investments for the purpose of bill paying. You may be one of many people who are in the process of accumulating money while earning elsewhere in order to retire happy. You may also have some other objective like sending your kids to college or anything that will require such wealth accumulation. A bear market can work to the advantage of a person like this.
This is how it works …#34; when the market plummets, your money has the ability to buy more shares of stock. The same money invested in a healthier market would buy you fewer shares. This helps you build more equity than would be possible in other times. It is true that trading in bullish conditions is far easier and far more comfortable. It is also true that profits can also be more easily made. But there are ways in which you can trade successfully in a bearish market as well.
First of all you must not panic when the market plummets. Rather than looking for people to blame you need to spend time actively planning for the future and strategizing. This will help you avoid bearing huge losses. If you do bear losses because of a drop in prices you should get ready with the kind of action to bail yourself out and take advantage of the current situation. You can’t trade the way you are used to trading in more bullish conditions. For instance you can’t just buy some stock because of an initial outbreak and come back later in search of profits. Trends are important in bull markets. However due to market freezing in bearish conditions you’ll find that trends are much shorter and less stable. The market is likely to go in a sideway direction. Prices will fluctuate between ranges. Therefore you will see that range trading is the better option during a bearish market than trend trading. Your adaptation period needs to be really short and you must catch on quickly.
The margin for errors during a bear market is really small. You need to work with smaller profits at this time but you can trade in a higher volume and at a higher rate as your money can allow you to buy more equity. You can also bump up profit margins by using low cost online trading platforms or negotiating lower brokerages due to conditions. All this should help you do well.
About the Author
Finley Zhang is a stock investing expert and owner of Tips For Investment.Tips For Investment helps those who are new stock investor to achieve long term and stable income by using Finley's investing tips, methods and strategies. You can instantly Download the formula by visiting http://www.TipsForInvestment.com
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'Marl' The Stock Trading Robot. by bigdogsurg
WARNING: Do Not Read This Unless You Are Already Rich!" ... Or Curious About The First Commercially Available Stock Trading "Robot" Which Earns $346.77 Per Week (Managing $1000 Capital). What I am about to share with you, is a very unusual story. Unusual... because it is about 2 "geeks", named Michael and Carl. Who developed the first commercially available stock picking "robot". Michael (the programmer) named the robot "Marl". Marl came about after Michael developed the famous "Global Alpha" computer stock trading model, while contracted to Goldman Sachs. A piece of software which most years is responsible for... $4,000,000,000+ Annual Trading Profit
http://bigdogsurg.affstocks.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=STOC0002
About the Author
WOW!!!! Tested and it's great!
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