Comments on: Should You Trade Stocks Online?

By: Trading Rite

Trading Rite — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:14:15 +0000

The internet is great. No longer do we have to pay outrageous commissions for stockbrokers to place trades for us. In order to take advantage of this, one must learn how to trade stocks (unless you prefer to pay somebody else to do it for you).

By: SVB

SVB — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:58:28 +0000

AJ,
I recommend at most 4% of one’s portfolio for trades and for “fun investments”. That way you can control the risks. I love index funds by the way: these should be what constitutes your core portfolio. But doesn’t mean I shouldn’t learn about other aspects of the stock market. My goal is to increase my knowledge of investing and as far as I know, technical analysis works on probabilities, which is an interesting concept.

By: RJL

RJL — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:28:57 +0000

SVB, awesome post! I appreciate investing articles which have a lot of helpful information and make a lot of sense. I find the information on brokers and INO pretty helpful since a lot of people don’t really know how to start investing. The tools here can be a great start for those learning how to invest.

Great stuff and I look forward to more from you.

By: SVB

SVB — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:36:58 +0000

I've mentioned that I invest in index funds, all other mutual funds, perform dollar cost averaging as well as study technical analysis to get a well-rounded view of the investment world. The more knowledge I get, the better. As a small investor, you should learn about the basics of investing -- lots of sites, magazines and books can give you the details, but you can read financial blogs as well to get started. You may want to check this page to start with.

By: Latonia Treadwell

Latonia Treadwell — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:04:12 +0000

Hi, My name is Latonia, for the past 3 months i been investing into stocks. I will admit that i dont have full knowledge about stocks. At this current time i’ve been doing my research on it. I’ll tell u, this stuff is like a foreign language to me. I’m just curious about the stock market and trying to learn it so i can use it to my advantage. I have 2 questions What do I need to learn about the market? and I’m curious about why you don’t do index funds?

By: AJ

AJ — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:14:59 +0000

That INO stuff is hindsight, in my opinion (your mileage may vary).

The answer to the question is “you shouldn’t ‘trade’ stocks at all because 99.9% of amateur retail traders go busto.” Instead, first by Greenblatt’s “Little Book that Beats the Market.” Read it. Then go buy Joe Ponzio’s book F Wall Street, read it, then go buy Lawrence Cunningham’s “Essay’s of Warren Buffett”, read that, then read all three books through one more time. Also look into net-nets: http://www.winninginvesting.com/net_asset_value.htm is a good link about those, just as an idea. Here’s a link to find them: http://www.grahaminvestor.com/screens/grahams_result Those are how Buffett got started.

Do those things and you’ll have a leg up on almost all amateur investors and you’ll be smarter than many professionals (especially any ‘financial advisor’ that you see around town or working for the bank, those guys are total chumps that want to rip you off.)

If that’s too much, you’re too lazy I’d recommend this:
Go here: http://www.gurufocus.com/stock-market-valuations.php if the ratio is between 75 and 90, put all your money in SPY or something like that. If it’s higher than 90 maybe put 30% into stocks 40% into a corporate bond index fund and maybe 10% treasuries index fund depends on yields and rates I dunno I don’t do index funds. Check that page every month then when it’s reasonable again up your exposure to equities.