Stocks & Mutual Funds Articles

A Need To Know Basis Too often investors buy shares in a stock armed with little more than the ticker symbol and a tip from a friend at work. Why not arm yourself with the best possible information, especially when it is all there at your fingertips ...

If you think mutual fund performance is the whole story, watch out! You could make a very expensive mistake by not considering the costs of a mutual fund! The lower a fund's costs, the higher percentage of your fund's real return you receive. You ...

Let's say you are interested in this one company. You read its annual report, like what you see and your calculation indicates that the stock is trading way below its fair value. You are excited. It is time to buy! Hang on for a second. There are sev...

Ever jumped out of an airplane? It's OK if you have on a parachute. Pretty dumb if you don't. Every buy any stocks, mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds? It's OK if you know how much you are willing to risk. Pretty dumb if you don't. Parachute inves...

The fight continues to rage among traders who use technical indicators and those who prefer fundamental information to establish new positions and to exit current positions. The fundamentalist believe in knowing all the facts about a company such as ...

You have heard about a particular mutual fund from a friend, saw it advertised on TV or read about it in some publication thought it would be a good buy. Next you call your broker to get his advice before you buy because he is an expert and is there ...

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a bucket of …money. Money? They are continuing to fill their bucket with stocks without any consideration to the value of these equities. They are not worried at all as they are buying "safe" mutual funds. Ev...

There are formulas for just about everything, but it has been shown that the simpler the formula or method of doing a particular task the better it works. It has evolved down to KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. This also applies to trading in the stock ...

Do you have a financial planner? Does one of your friends have a financial planner? Maybe you take your advice from your broker. As I have said countless times before a broker will make you broker. And a financial planner won't do any better. I know....

Day trading is all about making buy and sell decisions. When you make a trade either your going to lose money or your going to make money, and some other times you will break even. When you win some body else will lose and so forth, but that's NOT wh...

What is the Series 7 Exam? If you are looking to become a licensed Stockbroker, you need to know about the Series 7. The Series 7 is a 250 question exam that when passed, licenses you to act as a Registered Representative. Persons who receive thi...

The stock market can present you with a lot of hot stocks every day. Many of them are new technology stocks that come from the nanotech, biotech, voip, healthcare, homeland defense or internet sectors. Most of them may seem promising, but the truth i...

The bulls and bears of the stock market are both tempting and scary to the investors. Speculators are enchanted by the stock market's potential to help them in making quick money with a big M. While those who tread with care and caution, often shy aw...

One of the main reasons many of us get into investing is to become financially independent. Who isn't trying to amass a portfolio with enough income to ensure that we don't have to work when we should be playing golf or traveling the world. While the...

Picture one of those clubs where only the real heavyweights need apply. In the library the old aristocrats, General Motors and JP Morgan, are dozing in their leather chairs. On the terrace, a late luncheon is underway for those who have only improved...

When an individual investor wants to roll up his sleeves and do some research in the pursuit of the next big winner in the stock market, the place many start is in the small cap sector. As with the other capitulation sizes (capitalization is a stock'...

If you're like many investors who squander those small dividend checks from your stock portfolio, a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRP) might be just what you need. Just as its name implies, a Dividend Reinvestment Plan allows you to reinvest some or al...

Much like the middle child, mid-cap stocks have long struggled to find their identity. Carved out from the upper echelons of the small caps and the lower end of the large caps, the mid-cap sector has a rough definition of stock with a market capitali...

"I bought that stock a month ago and it hasn't done anything. My broker said it was going to take off." Yes, and pigs can fly. How about, "I bought that stock 5 years ago and it went up and now is selling for less that it did when I bought it". Do I...

Maybe you have done the same thing as I have. Been driving down an unfamiliar street at a good pace and suddenly been thrown into the air as the car hit a speed bump. You immediately slow down or even stop to put everything back together. Kinda remi...

Talked to your broker or financial planner lately? Probably. The slowdown in the economy is causing the stock market to go down. Of more than 5,000 stocks on the Nasdaq over 1,000 have lost 90% of their value and more than 200 have lost 99%. The Inde...

Did I spell that right? What I mean is change happens. Like what we are seeing now in the stock market. In the Spring everything was headed down. For most of the Summer stocks were going sideways with few exceptions. The down-movers had made their lo...

Last year you could have used a dart, thrown it at a stock page in the newspaper and bought that stock. By the end of the year you probably would have had a nice profit. This year you can retrieve your dart, throw it again, and there is about a 90% c...

We have established why a stop loss order is a requirement for the successful investor. Now let's look at some of the simpler methods. There are 3 basic methods (and many more we will not discuss here) for stops that almost anyone can master. They ar...

Think about this one. Has your broker EVER recommended that you place a stop-loss order on a stock after you have bought it? Ninety-nine percent of the brokers never think about helping you protect your capital. In fact these brokers are not taught t...

No, not the money you have in your brokerage account, but mutual funds. This year so far more than 600 mutual funds have vanished. Where did they go and what happened to the money in those funds that belongs to the investors? The mutual funds were ei...

Because almost everyone has been baffled by Wall Street baloney they have accepted the conventional wisdom that every investor needs a stock broker or financial planner if they are going to invest in the stock market. That would be true if brokers an...

I have recently been contacted by a gentleman who has a large financial Internet web site devoted to mutual funds and he has asked me to act as an editor. He sent me a list of mutual funds and asked me to list them into 53 categories. "Gee, Ken, than...

The operatic fat lady is singing and she has many choruses to go. As you know an opera is a musical drama. Unfortunately the one we are watching has terrible screeching with discordant sounds. This opera is called The Market and the scene we are watc...

At the end of the day everyone is talking about profits in this business. We wouldn't say there is 100 percent profit and no loss taking place in this industry but this is where those intelligent ideas come into place which can really turn the market...