Speak Stocks

Day Trading Made Simple (VIDEO)

Amey S — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:30:18 +0000

More often that not the “success” stories you hear about stock traders generally comes from those taking part in day trading. While the opportunity for making a lot of money is there, day trading requires a lot of capital on hand and taking on a substantial amount of risk at the same time.

Because day trading requires such short time frames, traders do not necessarily need to look for the same qualities or positive long-term signals that one would normally look for. Day traders are NOT look to invest, they are looking to trade.. get in and out.

All traders require some sort of strict guidelines and trading rules, but more so for day traders. Holding a stock just a couple minutes longer than you want can mean the difference between a decent gain and a huge loss.

Trend TV recently launched a new video, Day Trading Made Simple.

Floor trader, William Greenspan explains how he day trades and shares the system he uses everyday. This very system has allowed Greenspan to achieve 155 consecutive winning months.

In this video, you will learn:

What it takes to day trade on the floor of the major exchange.
How to interpret major fundamental reports.
And much more…

This video looks in the mind of a successful trader… watch it over at Trend TV.

Capital Gains Tax Tips For Traders (FREE EBook)

Amey S — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:24:48 +0000

While there are many positive attributes to trading, probably the most undesirable event is managing your taxes.

There are various tax levels based on time span of investment and even tactics like tax loss selling to benefit off any loopholes.

The main idea is that stock trading + tax = pain and tedious work.

Thankfully there are several programs and applications to help try to automate the process as much as possible.

Simple Trading System has put together a brief ebook, Capital Gains Tax Tips For Traders And Investors.

Visualize Fundamental Data Using YCHARTS

Amey S — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:03:30 +0000

Fundamental analysis is all about taking a company’s numbers and extrapolating them into some long-term predictions on where the stock price should be valued at. For the most part fundamental analysis requires investors to look at spreadsheets and long lists of numbers, YCHARTS is a nifty resource that breaks down several fundamental factors (i.e. earnings per share, PE ratio) and spits them back out as visual appealing charts.

With YCHARTS you can create and track up to 40 stocks, rank stocks by various metrics, draft up comparison charts, and get broad sector data. There is also a blog setup that shares just how detailed these charts can be.

Spotting Trends To Make Profitable Stock Trades

Amey S — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:51:47 +0000

The ability to spot trends is key when trying to make profitable stock trades. In today’s global economy, markets drive and influence each other and ignoring them is the difference between a good and bad trade.

Trend TV is a new free service that teaches users how to easily spot trends and consequentially make good stock trades.

Videos included in Trend TV include:

Day trading made simple
Strategy trading using next day
Interpreting candlestick reversals
Trading with Vantage Point

Watch, learn, and earn, with Trend TV. Sign up for your free account.

Tax Loss Selling

Amey S — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:01:44 +0000

You might have noticed towards the end of year a lot of traders throwing around the term tax loss selling, but did you know what it meant?

Before we can sum up what tax loss selling means lets first clear up some facts about taxes relating to stock trading particularly.

Whether you close your stock position at a gain or loss it has an effect on your yearly tax returns. Obviously the quicker you make money, the higher taxes are. This is commonly referred to as short-term capital gains tax.

There are a couple varying terms, but on average a gain is considered short-term if it was made in less than 6 months to a year.

Just like businesses can write-off expenses or losses, so can individual traders. Using this method many traders use their losses to offset taxes for any gains. While the country files there tax returns in August, capital gains are calculated through the previous December 31, which is why you may see unnormal or unwarranted selling around November and December.

Sell your losers and take your losses now – that is tax-loss selling in a nutshell.

A good way to capitalize on tax loss selling is by shorting stocks; however, it can be risky. Although you shouldn’t put too much emphasis on tax loss selling when considering to take part of a stock, there are a couple factors you can look for when searching for companies that could fall victim to tax-loss selling.

1. Look for stocks that traded well above their current price for much of the year. Check out the daily volume and see if the high-price period corresponds with high volume too. That means a lot of folks bought the stock at much higher prices than now. They may sell it for the tax loss before December 31.

2. Look for companies with large floats, i.e. a lot of shares available for the public to trade. This is a good rule for short-selling in general. Stocks with small floats (less than 5 million shares) can be hard to borrow and short to begin with. If they are already heavily shorted, the chances are greater you could get caught in a “squeeze” as the price runs up and shorts are forced to cover at desperation prices.

Using the above factors along with other criteria you would normally look for when finding shorting candidates, hopefully next year you can take advantage of tax loss selling rather than just taking part in it.

Learn more tax tricks and tips for stock traders.

Best Wall Street Movies Ever Made

Amey S — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:56:03 +0000

Regardless of what type of movies you like, everybody enjoys plots of greed, corruption, fast lifestyles, and ultimate downfalls. All these factors is what usually makes Wall Street based movies so fun and entertaining to watch. They can also be quite inspiring.

With the much anticipated Wall Street 2 on the way, its a nice time to recall some of the best Wall Street-based movies that have been made.

In no particular order.

Wall Street

The movie that set all standards for past, present, and future Wall Street movies. Wall Street symbolized the greed, corruption, and illegal activities that were synonymous with the financial world of the time. Some big names in the movie include: Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas.

Boiler Room

Like Wall Street, Boiler Room revealed the greasy and sliming tactics that were relevant with the time and ultimately introduced the world to pump and dump stock promoters. The movie includes the likes of: Vin Diesel and Giovanni Ribisi.

The Persuit of Happyness

Unlike most of the movies in this list, The Pursuit of Happyness, does not revolve around any greedy or illegal trading scheme, but rather depicts the hardships and dedications one must take to become a stock broker at one of the top investment firms. This movie stars Will Smith.

Trading Places

More of a comedic tale than real-life depiction, Trading Places includes Eddie Murphey and Dan Aykroyd as they get tangled up in a scheme plotted by two super-rich siblings who argue: Are captains of industry born or made? Eventually the two men team up to teach the nasty old manipulators a lesson, cornering the market in frozen orange juice futures in the process.

The Associate

In a time where old men dominated top spots on Wall Street, Whoopie Goldberg, in The Associate, conjures up a fake male persona to head up her new investment firm only to realize covering up her real identity may be harder than she had though, while being caught in some interesting situations.

American Psycho

Christian Bale plays a Wall Street yuppie obsessed with success, status and style, with a stunning fiancé (Reese Witherspoon). He is also a psychotic killer who rapes, murders and dismembers both strangers and acquaintances without provocation or purpose. Based on the controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho offers a sharp satire to the dark side of yuppie culture in the ‘80s, while setting forth a vision that is both terrifying and chilling.

The Family Man

Nicolas Cage plays a widly successful stock broker that gets the shock of a lifetime when he wakes up one morning in suburban New Jersey next to Kate, the girlfriend he left 13 years ago. Suddenly Jack’s entire world is turned upside down, and must wonder what if he had chosen a different path. The Family Man also includes Don Cheadle and Jeremy Piven

Practice Day Trading With TradingSim

Amey S — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:35:18 +0000

No doubt one of the best ways to learn how to trade stocks or test out different trading strategies is through paper trading or virtual stock trading. These simulators will let you practice trading without actually risking any money.

Recently TradingSim launched a free trading simulator that is specifically geared for day traders.

Day trading is unlike other trading strategies in that all decisions must be made quicker, and you have to rely on strict rules to protect yourself from monumental losses. TradingSim aims to help traders learn and practices this type of active stock trading without risking any money.

More about TradingSim

TradingSim streams tick data through their web interface, allowing users to practice/fine tune their day trading skills through a historical market replay. They store the last 5 weeks of trading data for all Nasdaq symbols so users can trade any symbol they want for any of those days. The app has been taken one step further and offers the time and sales information as well as the level 1 info.

How To Use TradingSim

TradingSim is pretty easy to use and is a fun resource to play around with.

Pick a stock and let it stream.
Based on the current setup, determine what the proper trade would be.
Once you have made your decision, fast-forward the streaming chart and see what the actual result was.

Tradingsim requires no downloads and is completely web based (as compared to the other apps which force a download). Additionally, there is no need to have a brokerage account. You just have to create a free account to actually transact through the simulator (its for legal reasons)

Best of all, the app is completely free to use! Try out TradingSim.

How To Analyze The S&P 500

Amey S — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:42:21 +0000

While there are not too many differences between analyzing an individual security or an entire market, there are some key factors to notice. For one, markets obviously have a lot of more outside interferences than an individual stock.

The following is an in-depth video on how to analyze a market, specifically the S&P 500, using technical analysis.

A couple things this video will point out:

Using past market tendencies to predict future movement
Measuring trends using fibonacci
Distinguishing between end and beginning of trends
Relationship between MACD and price movement
Spotting possible price targets

View video – Is S&P 500 Getting Ready to Skyrocket or Collapse?

Using ETFs To Invest In Commodities

Amey S — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:31:16 +0000

Traders in the investment community use commodities as protection from inflation. There are several different ways to get commodity exposure. Unlike stocks and bonds though, commodities don’t produce income or have a stake in future profits of a business. They are worth what other investors are willing to pay for them. And long-term returns on commodities have not been outstanding.

According to Morningstar, investing in commodities has seen the best results when the investor is limited and diversified. Specifically among energy, agricultural, and industrial and precious metals.

While you could physically buy gold bars or barrels of oil and keep them in your garage, this is not a practical solution. You have to worry about insurance and storage, and some soft commodities like corn aren’t going to hold up too well over the years. For many decades, these barriers prevented the average trader from investing in commodities, but now exchange-traded funds have now made it possible for individuals to gain direct exposure.

Morningstar has an interesting ETF scanner that will help you find ETFs for various classes of commodities. For example, if you were looking for gold exposure, then, using the screener, you would find the ETF, SPDR Gold Shares GLD, which buys gold bars for every share issued, and then store them in vaults in London.

ETF Screener

Here is a list of some of the more popular commodity ETFs.

PowerShares DB Oil (DBO)
U.S. Oil (USO)
iShares Silver Trust (SLV)
iPath Dow Jones AIG Commodity Index (DJP)
PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA)
PowerShares DB Energy Fund (DBE)

Essentially using an ETF screener such as the one at Morningstar will not only allow exposure to commodities, but also the ability to properly invest in it without having to actually store a tangible item.

Learning Options Trading Risk From The Greeks

Amey S — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:17:57 +0000

If used correctly options trading can be a very lucrative investment solution. At the same time it can wash out your entire account pretty fast too.

See Idiot’s Guide To Option Trading.

Believe it or not, many of the most commonly used trading and analysis tools were created far before the current markets as we know were even created, such as the Fibonacci retracement.

In the options market, the Greeks define and quantify the risks of your position before you commit to the investment. Understanding the Greeks is a must for proper risk management. Further, the Greeks can also help you identify and select not only the proper strategy to fit the opportunity you selected, but also which specific options to use to create that specific strategy.

Ron Ianieri does a good job of covering this “Greek” idea in one of his seminars, DIW Ron Greeks. You can view this video as part of the free INO TV Account.