Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Stock Market for Beginners
From Stock Trading Info
Next you will need to understand what fundamental analysis and technical analysis is:
The Stock Market For Beginners can seem like a place to make some easy money fast. You often here in the news how a stock went up four points, and say to yourself, if I had gotten in on that one I could have made a killing. Fast easy money is far from the truth when it comes to the stock market. But you can make money in the stock market. Slow and easy is the way to go, and if you start at an early age, a fast and easy retirement is a reality.
Beginners at stock trading should take the time to get the education they need in order to succeed. You do not see a surgeon pick up a knife and become good at surgery overnight. It takes time and knowledge to be good at anything in life. To begin with, make sure you understand How The Stock Market Works. Start with the basics and work your way up. You did not pick up a book one day and start to read, first you learned the letters of the alphabet.
Decide how you are going to trade. Making this decision is going to tell you what you need to be reading to learn about it. Are you going to scalp, day trade, swing trade, or buy and hold for the long run. Scalping involves buying large quantities of shares in a stock, and you are just looking for a small move in the stock price. Day trading is similar to scalping but you are looking for bigger moves in the price, and you do not hold the stock overnight. Swing trading is when you buy a stock and hold it for a short period of time looking for a substantial move in the price. Buy and hold is when you plan on holding on to the stock for a long time. You believe the company is going to grow in value and the price is going to go much higher.
Next you will need to understand what fundamental analysis and technical analysis is:
- Fundamental Analysis relies on economic supply and demand information, such as a stocks annual growth rate, and quarterly earnings. This can be very time consuming reading each company's financial reports. There is a paper called Investor’s Business Daily to help with this. If you are going to be trading in the markets you should not be with out this paper.
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Technical Analysis is the study of time, price, and sentiment. The tool used for this is charts. Charts show a stocks price history, and with practice we can see everything we need to know about a stock, just by looking at the chart. Click here for more information about Reading and Understanding Charts
The next thing you are going to need is a Stock Trading System. When you go on a vacation you do not just jump in the car and go. You look at a map, decide when you are going to leave, when you are going to start to head home etc. The same is true with the stock market. Many beginners jump in without a plan, you must have a plan in place, why and when you are going to enter the trade, when you are going to get out, and you must stick to the plan. Practice trading on paper before you open an account to see how well you are doing. Once you are doing good on paper then it is time for the real deal.
- Source vss2000 -
- Source vss2000 -
Welcome to Australian Stock Exchange
The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is the main stock exchange in Australia.Other mirror exchanges exist but they simply mirror the Australian Exchange. The Stock Exchange started off as individual exchanges in different states which were established as far back as 1871.
Trading on the stock exchange is all electronic not like in days gone by where it was all manual and left up to humans. The system responsible for was called SEATS but has since been taken over by a new, far superior electronic system capable of many more transactions per second called ITS which stands for Intergrated Trading System.
The current Managing Director of the Australian Securities Exchange is Robert Elstone who was appinted in 2006.
There are four major index's which are regularly quoted and these include the All Ordinaries, The Top 200 (list of the top 200 stocks),the Top 100 (list of the top 100 stocks and the ASX 50 which contains the top 50 stocks.The most common indices which we often here on the news are the Top 200 and the All Ords. They are still watched by investors as the bench mark indices and are an indication of where the market is traveling. The Australian Securities Exchange is a public company and is listed on it's own Exchange. Every stock listed is assigned a three letter code.
The current market capitalisation is believed to be about 1 trillion dollars with approx 2200 listed companies to date.
The Stock Exchange trades approx 500 000 trades a day.
The mining stocks make up a very large portion of the index especially with the recent Mining resource boom.Some of the biggest stocks traded that make up the index include,Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, National Australia Bank and Telstra.
There are many rules regarding listing on the Australian Securities Exchange but this can be a great way for companies to expand and get new funds into their coffers.
For ASX Share Prices please go to our share prices page.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
THE BEST STOCK MARKET GAME - FREE ONLINE
The stock market is way down and this has prompted a lot of people who know nothing about stocks to want to learn about the market and get involved. They are thinking this might end up being an investment opportunity of a lifetime but they don't know where to go to learn about stocks.
Now there is a fantasy stock trading game for all those who want to get involved and learn the ropes and terminology without the risk. Wall Street Survivor is the best stock trading simulation game out there and the good news is that it is absolutely FREE! This game and site is meant for beginners and people who want to learn about the stock market and how to trade online.
I signed up (takes less than a minute) to see what it was all about and let me tell you , there is a lot going on at this stock simulator game including weekly and monthly contests where you can win prizes. First of all, you make buy and sell stock trades just like you would on any other real stock site platform. So, when you learn how to make the trades at Wall Street Survivor, you have learned how you would do it at a real online broker for real money.
The amount of material that is available for FREE is amazing. They have training videos, tutorials, a massive forum, contests which everybody is automatically entered in, a research section, and much more. Once you sign up you will quickly realize there is no shortage of things to do on Wall Street Survivor and things to learn.
Initially, you are given $100,000 to start out in virtual cash which you use to build up your very own stock portfolio. You can buy and sell stock (with your fantasy dollars) at the real prices of the stocks as they go up and down during the day. Just like in real life, you can learn how to short sell, set stop limit orders, put in orders after hours and just about anything you can do at a real online broker you can do here. You will be managing your very own stock portfolio through simulated trades that are executed on a real-time stock trading platform. As you can see below I am up a little from my starting amount of $100,000.
Wall Street Survivor is a very cool FREE site where you can learn how to invest and manage your own stock portfolio without any of the risk. So, once you feel comfortable with how the market works and how to do some research, you can sign up with a real online broker and jump right in. If you want to know what the market is like and what it would be like to have your very own portfolio of stocks that you can trade, this free stock simulation game is a no brainer. Sign up for Wall Street Survivor today and give it a spin.
HK Dollar Up Late For 2nd Straight Day On Stock Market Rise
JULY 23, 2010, 4:47 A.M. ET
Latest Change USD/HKD Spot 7.7734 -0.0028 1-year USD/HKD Forward* -195 +3 Overnight Hibor 0.02% -4 bps 1-month Hibor 0.23% -3 bps 3-month Hibor 0.36% +2 bps 1-year Hibor 0.80% Unchanged 2-year EF Note 0.50% +1 bps 10-year EF Note 2.22% Unchanged *mid-point of bid-offer spread
HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--The Hong Kong dollar rose against the U.S. dollar Friday for the second consecutive session as gains in the local stock market boosted demand for the Hong Kong currency. Traders said the U.S. dollar is likely to gain broad support offshore if the results of stress tests on European banks scheduled to be disclosed late Friday are negative. They said they expect the U.S. dollar to be well-supported at HK7.7700 next week, with psychological resistance at HK$7.7800.
In late Asian trade, the U.S. dollar was at HK$7.7734, down from HK$7.7762 late Thursday. The U.S. unit was fixed at HK$7.7743 earlier Friday.
"With investors not eager to bid ahead of the release of the stress tests on European banks, the rise in Hong Kong equities become the key driver," said a trader at a U.K. bank.
The blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 1.1% to 20,815.33 following a rally on Wall Street overnight.
European governments have agreed to issue Friday the results of stress tests on 91 banks accounting for 65% of Europe's banking sector in the hope that it will reassure markets worried about their exposure to the continent's debt crisis.
Morgan Stanley currency strategist Calvin Tse said he is bullish on the U.S. dollar in the week ahead because of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony to Congress this week.
"Bernanke's recent characterization of the economy has certainly not helped investor sentiment towards the U.S. The U.S. dollar should benefit as investors flock towards the safety of U.S. dollar-denominated assets," Tse said in a report Friday.
Bernanke said Wednesday in his semiannual monetary policy testimony to the Senate Banking Committee that the U.S. economic outlook is "unusually uncertain."
The one-year U.S. dollar/Hong Kong dollar forward contract was quoted at a discount of 195 points to the spot rate, narrowing slightly from a 198-point discount late Thursday.
Under Hong Kong's currency board system, the Hong Kong dollar is allowed to trade between HK$7.75 and HK$7.85 to the U.S. dollar.
-By Chester Yung, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2832 2331; chester.yung@dowjones.com
In late Asian trade, the U.S. dollar was at HK$7.7734, down from HK$7.7762 late Thursday. The U.S. unit was fixed at HK$7.7743 earlier Friday.
"With investors not eager to bid ahead of the release of the stress tests on European banks, the rise in Hong Kong equities become the key driver," said a trader at a U.K. bank.
The blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 1.1% to 20,815.33 following a rally on Wall Street overnight.
European governments have agreed to issue Friday the results of stress tests on 91 banks accounting for 65% of Europe's banking sector in the hope that it will reassure markets worried about their exposure to the continent's debt crisis.
Morgan Stanley currency strategist Calvin Tse said he is bullish on the U.S. dollar in the week ahead because of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony to Congress this week.
"Bernanke's recent characterization of the economy has certainly not helped investor sentiment towards the U.S. The U.S. dollar should benefit as investors flock towards the safety of U.S. dollar-denominated assets," Tse said in a report Friday.
Bernanke said Wednesday in his semiannual monetary policy testimony to the Senate Banking Committee that the U.S. economic outlook is "unusually uncertain."
The one-year U.S. dollar/Hong Kong dollar forward contract was quoted at a discount of 195 points to the spot rate, narrowing slightly from a 198-point discount late Thursday.
Under Hong Kong's currency board system, the Hong Kong dollar is allowed to trade between HK$7.75 and HK$7.85 to the U.S. dollar.
-By Chester Yung, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2832 2331; chester.yung@dowjones.com
Friday, July 23, 2010
Can the government control a stock market crash?
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Panicked New Yorkers flood Wall Street during the stock market crash on Oct. 29, 1929. See more recession pictures.
Stock market crash
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors. They often follow speculative stock market bubbles.
Stock market crashes are social phenomena where external economic events combine with crowd behavior and psychology in a positive feedback loop where selling by some market participants drives more market participants to sell. Generally speaking, crashes usually occur under the following conditions: a prolonged period of rising stock prices and excessive economic optimism , a market where P/E ratios exceed long-term averages, and extensive use of margin debt and leverage by market participants.
There is no numerically specific definition of a stock market crash but the term commonly applies to steep double-digit percentage losses in a stock market index over a period of several days. Crashes are often distinguished from bear markets by panic selling and abrupt, dramatic price declines. Bear markets are periods of declining stock market prices that are measured in months or years. While crashes are often associated with bear markets, they do not necessarily go hand in hand. The crash of 1987 for example did not lead to a bear market. Likewise, the Japanese Nikkei bear market of the 1990s occurred over several years without any notable crashes.
Wall Street Crash of 1929
Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.
The economy had been growing robustly for most of the so-called Roaring Twenties. It was a technological golden age as innovations such as radio, automobiles, aviation, telephone and the power grid were deployed and adopted. Companies who had pioneered these advances, like Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and General Motors, saw their stocks soar. Financial corporations also did well as Wall Street bankers floated mutual fund companies (then known as investment trusts) like the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation. Investors were infatuated with the returns available in the stock market especially with the use of leverage through margin debt. On August 24, 1921, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at a value of 63.9. By September 3, 1929, it had risen more than sixfold, touching 381.2. It would not regain this level for another twenty five years. By the summer of 1929, it was clear that the economy was contracting and the stock market went through a series of unsettling price declines. These declines fed investor anxiety and events soon came to a head on October 24 (known as Black Thursday) and October 29 (known as Black Tuesday).
On Black Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 38 points to 260, a drop of 12.8%. The deluge of selling overwhelmed the ticker tape system that normally gave investors the current prices of their shares. Telephone lines and telegraphs were clogged and were unable to cope. This information vacuum only led to more fear and panic. The technology of the New Era, much celebrated by investors previously, now served to deepen their suffering.
Black Tuesday was a day of chaos. Forced to liquidate their stocks because of margin calls, overextended investors flooded the exchange with sell orders. The glamour stocks of the age saw their values plummet. Across the two days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 23%.
By the end of the week of November 11, the index stood at 228, a cumulative drop of 40 percent from the September high. The markets rallied in succeeding months but it would be a false recovery that led unsuspecting investors into the worst economic crisis of modern times. The Dow Jones Industrial Average would lose 89% of its value before finally bottoming out in July 1932.
October 19, 1987
DJIA (19 July 1987 through 19 January 1988).
The mid-1980s were a time of strong economic optimism. From August 1982 to its peak in August 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) grew from 776 to 2722. The rise in market indices for the 19 largest markets in the world averaged 296 percent during this period. The average number of shares traded on the NYSE had risen from 65 million shares to 181 million shares.
The crash on October 19, 1987, a date that is also known as Black Monday, was the climactic culmination of a market decline that had begun five days before on October 14. The DJIA fell 3.81 percent on October 14, followed by another 4.60 percent drop on Friday, October 16. On Black Monday, the Dow Jones Industrials Average plummeted 508 points, losing 22.6% of its value in one day. The S&P 500 dropped 20.4%, falling from 282.7 to 225.06. The NASDAQ Composite lost only 11.3%, not because of restraint on the part of sellers, but because the NASDAQ market system failed. Deluged with sell orders, many stocks on the NYSE faced trading halts and delays. Of the 2,257 NYSE-listed stocks, there were 195 trading delays and halts during the day. The NASDAQ market fared much worse. Because of its reliance on a "market making" system that allowed market makers to withdraw from trading, liquidity in NASDAQ stocks dried up. Trading in many stocks encountered a pathological condition where the bid price for a stock exceeded the ask price. These "locked" conditions severely curtailed trading. On October 19, trading in Microsoft shares on the NASDAQ lasted a total of 54 minutes.
The Crash was the greatest single-day loss that Wall Street had ever suffered in continuous trading up to that point. Between the start of trading on October 14 to the close on October 19, the DJIA lost 760 points, a decline of over 31 percent.
The 1987 Crash was a worldwide phenomenon. The FTSE 100 Index lost 10.8% on that Monday and a further 12.2% the following day. In the month of October, all major world markets declined substantially. The least affected was Austria (a fall of 11.4%) while the most affected was Hong Kong with a drop of 45.8%. Out of 23 major industrial countries, 19 had a decline greater than 20%.
Despite fears of a repeat of the 1930s Depression, the market rallied immediately after the crash, posting a record one-day gain of 102.27 the very next day and 186.64 points on Thursday October 22. It took only two years for the Dow to recover completely; by September 1989, the market had regained all of the value it had lost in the 1987 crash. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained six-tenths of a percent during the calendar year 1987.
No definitive conclusions have been reached on the reasons behind the 1987 Crash. Stocks had been in a multi-year bull run and market P/E ratios in the U.S. were above the post-war average. The S&P 500 was trading at 23 times earnings, a postwar high and well above the average of 14.5 times earnings. Herd behavior and psychological feedback loops play a critical part in all stock market crashes but analysts have also tried to look for external triggering events. Aside from the general worries of stock market overvaluation, blame for the collapse has been apportioned to such factors as program trading, portfolio insurance and derivatives, and prior news of worsening economic indicators (i.e. a large U.S. merchandise trade deficit and a falling U.S. dollar, which seemed to imply future interest rate hikes).
One of the consequences of the 1987 Crash was the introduction of the circuit breaker or trading curb on the NYSE. Based upon the idea that a cooling off period would help dissipate investor panic, these mandatory market shutdowns are triggered whenever a large pre-defined market decline occurs during the trading day.
The Crash of 2008
OMX Iceland 15 closing prices during the five trading weeks from September 29, 2008 to October 31, 2008.
On September 16, failures of large financial institutions in the United States, due primarily to exposure of securities of packaged subprime loans and credit default swaps issued to insure these loans and their issuers, rapidly devolved into a global crisis resulting in a number of bank failures in Europe and sharp reductions in the value of equities (stock) and commodities worldwide. The failure of banks in Iceland resulted in a devaluation of the Icelandic Krona and threatened the country with bankruptcy. Iceland was able to secure an emergency loan from the IMF in November. In the United States, 15 banks failed in 2008, while several others were rescued through government intervention or acquisitions by other banks. On October 11, 2008, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the world financial system was teetering on the "brink of systemic meltdown".
The economic crisis caused countries to temporarily close their markets.
On October 8, the Indonesian stock market halted trading, after a 10% drop in one day.
The Times of London reported that the meltdown was being called the Crash of 2008 and older traders were comparing it with Black Monday in 1987. The fall this week of 21 percent was not as bad as the 28.3 percent fall 21 years ago. But some traders were saying it was worse. “At least then it was a short, sharp, shock on one day. This has been relentless all week.”. Business Week also referred to the crisis as a "stock market crash" or the "Panic of 2008."
The Black Week: Beginning October 6 and lasting all week the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower for all 5 sessions. Volume levels were also record breaking. The Dow Jones industrial average fell over 1,874 points, or 18%, in its worst weekly decline ever on both a point and percentage basis. The S&P 500 fell more than 20%. The week also set 3 top ten NYSE Group Volume Records with October 8 at #5, October 9 at #10, and October 10 at #1.
It has been noted that recent daily stock market drops are overall nowhere near the severity experienced during the last stock market crash in 1987. Others have suggested that the media is manipulating and over-inflating stock market drops and calling them "crashes" in order to create the perception of a great depression.
After having been suspended for three successive trading days, i.e. October 9, October 10, and October 13, the Icelandic stock market reopened on 14 October, with the main index, the OMX Iceland 15, closing at 678.4, which corresponds to a plunge of about 77% compared with the closure at 3,004.6 on October 8. This reflects the fact that the value of the three big banks, which form 73.2 percent of the value of the OMX Iceland 15, had been set to zero.
On October 24, many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices. In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 3.6%, not falling as much as other markets. Instead, both the US Dollar and Japanese Yen soared against other major currencies, particularly the British Pound and Canadian Dollar, as world investors sought safe havens. Later that day, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, Charles Bean, suggested that "This is a once in a lifetime crisis, and possibly the largest financial crisis of its kind in human history."
May 6, 2010 Flash Crash
Commonly referred to as the "Flash Crash", on May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average suddenly dropped almost 1000 points. Starting at 2:43 pm Eastern Time, the DJIA began to sell off at a furious pace with high volume. At 2:48 pm, the DJIA hit a low of 9872.57. Currently (May 7, 2010), there is not a consensus on what caused this unusual and record breaking drop of almost 1000 points on that day. The session was also a record breaking volume day, coming in at the 6th highest trading day with volume of 5,556,775,277 shares. A preliminary report on May 18 to a Joint Advisory Committee of the CFTC and SEC suggests "a failure in liquidity" and stressors of that liquidity as possible causes for the crash.
Trading curbs
Trading curbs, also known as "circuit breakers," are a trading halt in the cash market and the corresponding trading halt in the derivative markets triggered by the halt in the cash market, all of which are affected based on substantial movements in a broad market indicator.
United States
There are three thresholds each of which represents different level of decline in terms of points in Dow Jones industrial average.
In the event where threshold 1 is breached, the first halt is triggered. If that point is reached before 2 p.m., the market would shut down for an hour. If threshold 1 is breached between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., the halt will last 30 minutes. No trading stops will take place if threshold 1 is breached after 2:30 p.m.
If threshold 2 is breached before 1 p.m., the market would close for two hours. If such a decline took place between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., there would be a one-hour pause. The market would close for the day if stocks sank to that level after 2 p.m.
In the event where threshold 3 is breached, the market would close for the day, regardless of the time.
The thresholds are computed at the beginning of each quarter to establish a specific point value for the quarter.
For the first quarter of 2009, threshold 1 is 850 points, threshold 2 is 1700 points, and threshold 3 is 2600 points.
The rules would halt trading on the major securities and futures exchanges in a coordinated cross-market halt if the circuit breaker is enacted.
France
In France, daily price limits are implemented in cash and derivative markets. Securities traded on the markets are divided into three categories according to the number and volume of daily transactions and price limits vary depending on the category to which the security belongs. For instance, for the more liquid category, when the price movement of a security exceeds 10% from the quoted price at the close of the previous market day, quotation is suspended for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, transactions are resumed. If the price then goes up or down by more than 5%, transactions are again suspended for 15 minutes. The 5% threshold may apply once more before transactions are halted for the rest of the day. When transactions are suspended in the cash market on a given security, due to undue price movement, transactions on the option based on the underlying security are also suspended. Further, when more than 35% of the capitalization of the CAC40 Index is unable to be quoted, the calculation of the CAC40 Index is suspended and the index is replaced by a trend indicator. When less than 25% of the capitalization of the CAC40 Index is able to be quoted, quotations on the derivative markets are suspended for half an hour or one hour when additional margin deposits are requested.
Mathematical theory and stock market crashes
The mathematical characterisation of stock market movements has been a subject of intense interest. The conventional assumption has been that stock markets behave according to a random Gaussian or "normal" distribution. Among others, mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot suggested as early as 1963 that the statistics prove this assumption incorrect. Mandelbrot observed that large movements in prices (i.e. crashes) are much more common than would be predicted in a normal distribution. Mandelbrot and others suggest that the nature of market moves is generally much better explained using non-linear analysis and concepts of chaos theory. This has been expressed in non-mathematical terms by George Soros in his discussions of what he calls reflexivity of markets and their non-linear movement.. George Soros said in late October 1987, 'Mr. Robert Prechter's reversal proved to be the crack that started the avalanche'.
Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that there is evidence the frequency of stock market crashes follows an inverse cubic power law. This and other studies such as Prof. Didier Sornette's work suggest that stock market crashes are a sign of self-organized criticality in financial markets. In 1963, Mandelbrot proposed that instead of following a strict random walk, stock price variations executed a Lévy flight. A Lévy flight is a random walk that is occasionally disrupted by large movements. In 1995, Rosario Mantegna and Gene Stanley analyzed a million records of the S&P 500 market index, calculating the returns over a five year period.
Researchers continue to study this theory, particularly using computer simulation of crowd behaviour, and the applicability of models to reproduce crash-like phenomena.
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