While trading a basket of Stocks has it's advantages, such as removing the risk of any single company you own Stock in going bust and taking all of your money with it, Indexes tend to be highly volatile, especially the smaller ones. Using technical analysis and swing trading strategies for your index fund trading can vastly improve your results and profits if you know how to analyse Stock trends and patterns. The S&P 500 is probably one of the Worlds best known indexes, and it has a long history of strong trends that have made and lost traders fortunes over the years....

To read farther

What! Me worry? Many of you remember the cover of MAD magazine. It was one of my favorites. Alfred's only worry was about his front tooth. You and I have other problems. The one big problem we all have is enough income to support our life style. Those who are approaching retirement or are retired will have to have enough cash or income from investments or pension plans to make it. We all know you can't live on Social Security alone. Your broker, financial planner, banker, whoever you rely upon for financial advice will advise you to start saving and to make some sound and safe investments....

To read farther

The bear market that showed up at the end of 2000 has every brokerage house-as well as the entire mutual fund industry-scrambling to find creative ways to boost both their image and bottom line. Unfortunately, this is often at the investors' expense. Fund managers are ever on the lookout for ways to spin the stats to hide lousy track records and to find ways to obscure fees. To add insult to (financial) injury, investors end up being penalized for selling. So what's an investor to do? In this case, knowledge is power....

To read farther

Last time we looked at the real performance of the stock market (we used the Dow Jones as a reference point) and the apparent performance that makes the headlines and can be seen by a casual look at a chart or "ballpark" figures - briefly; the Dow went up, for example, less than 50 points between April 1999 and April 2005 - essentially 6 years with no growth! But behind that seemingly "becalmed" Dow there were at least 10 significant moves each and every year totalling many thousands of points! But did the Wall Street Moguls, the so-called "Masters of the Universe" make you any money from those huge movements?...

To read farther

Let's go into the details of why non-indexed mutual funds are such a bad deal. When Arthur Levitt became the head of the Security Exchange Commission in 1993 he had to sell off all of his individual stocks so that people would not claim that he was doing any dirty inside dealing. He decided to put the cash from selling off his stock portfolio into mutual funds. Mr. Levitt grew very angry when he tried to decipher how particular mutual funds divvied up their cash into specific stocks. He couldn't make heads or tells from the fancy brochures of the mutual funds called prospectuses....

To read farther

What can I expect to make my first year of trading? We get questions like this one quite often. We find that most aspiring traders don't have a clue as to what to expect from the market. Yet here they are, putting up their money. Most are going to learn the hard way. We have no idea in the world what you can expect to make in your first year of trading, or any other year, for that matter. What we can tell you is that without proper guidance and help, you are probably going to have some very bitter experiences....

To read farther

We have two candidates for president that have really different ideas on how to make the economy grow. Bush believes in the entrepreneurial approach. People should be allowed to invest in themselves. He even wants to let people have some of the 15% that now goes to the Social Security "trust fund". Folks, there ain't no such thing. All the money the government takes out of your paycheck goes into the general fund and the pols spend it as they choose for "your best interest" provided it coincides with theirs....

To read farther

The greatest stock market myth is the idea that investing in stocks is a form of gambling! The financial markets are often compared to a casino. Put some money on X stock and you might as well be playing craps! If that's your impression, and it's keeping you out of the markets, consider this:If investing is organized gambling, it's one of the rare kinds where the odds are stacked in your favor! Why is that? Corporate profits are the key to understanding the investor's edge. By buying a share of stock gives its holder an ownership claim on that company's earnings....

To read farther

Mutual fund investing is a lot like Thai cooking. Everyone has heard of it, most know a little something about it, but very few actually know how to do it and do it well. To invest in mutual funds wisely, it is important to have a good grasp on what mutual funds are, how they work, and what the risks involved may be. The fact that mutual fund investments are often considered safer than stocks, options, and other investments often misleads people to think that their investment in mutual funds are risk free....

To read farther

You have a lock on your house. You have a lock on your car. You have a lock on your tool shed. Do you have a lock to protect your stock market investments? Maybe you have a safe at home for your valuables such as jewelry, rare coins, special documents and even stock certificates. Wait a minute. Is that stock certificate protected just because it is surrounded with 3 inches of steel? Not really. The problem is that its value does fluctuate every day. It is OK so long as it is increasing because that is why you bought it....

To read farther

To begin, you might look at playing the stock market as though you were playing a game of Monopoly. That's right; for playing the stock market 'game' is not unlike playing a game of Monopoly. There are definite comparisons and parallels. In Monopoly there are a Boardwalk, a Marvin Gardens, Utilities, Railroads, etc. In the stock market you have the same type of properties (stocks), as in the game of Monopoly. For example, a Boardwalk may be a GE; a railroad, a CSX Corp.; Duke Energy, a utility. The rent a player collects in Monopoly could be compared to the dividends collected by a shareholder in the stock market....

To read farther