Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Of Stocks, Stockholders And Stock Market

A copper mining enterprise Stora Kopparberg first introduced the system of stock in the 13th century. The financial backers and owners felt the need to raise money for investment in the new projects of the same company so they started the method of stock and shares. It was also required in order to ward off the threat to the ownership rights if the company was sold, which would mean complete loss of control.

The investors got the monetary support they were looking for and at the same time solved ownership issues in case the company was sold by granting stocks to the people. Plus, they sold a part to people and still retained control over the company. Thus, the owner had some portion of the assets, some power to make decision conditionally. In return, they shared a part of the profit with the stockowner as dividend.

Financially, stock implies the ownership or share in a corporation. It gives the stockowner the right to claim a share in the assets and income of the corporation. The two types of stocks, preferred and common differ in many respects. The common stock owners can vote at the shareholders' meetings whereas the preferred stockowners cannot vote. 

Common stockowners get dividends declared by the company, whereas preferred stock owners have higher claim in assets and income of the company. Preferred stock entitles the owner to have his dividends earlier than the common stock owner. Preferred stock owner gets the priority when the company goes bankrupt. Besides these two, the other types of stock are dual class shares and treasury stock.

A stock-owner is not liable to losses in case the company closes and has loans to pay back. The loss of the stockholders is limited to the money that would have been made by converting the assets into cash since all the money would be used to repay the loans to the creditors.

A stock market exchange is the place where trading of shares is carried out. Individuals and companies sell and purchase shares on a large scale. Generally, a particular company trades only in one specific market and is said to be on the list of that particular stock exchange. However, big multinational companies can be listed on many stock exchanges. This is called inter-listed shares.

There are various methods to buy or sell finance stocks, but the commonest among them is through the mediator called stockbroker, who actually transfers the shares from one owner to another. Stocks can be bought directly from the company also.

The stock market of a country is an indicator of its economy, which just goes to show the growth and power of the stock market.



By: Sintilia Miecevole
Sintilia Miecevole, host of http://www.fulstock.com has everything from stock quotes, news, portfolio management resources, international market data, mortgage rates to mutual funds, dividends, trading and much more. Be sure to visit http://www.fulstock.com for further information.

Monday, April 6, 2009

The Stock Market Report That Wall Street Does Not Want You To Read

The best way to maximize your profits is to be prepared to give some back to the Stock Market. When most traders first hear this, they are a little taken back. Why would you give any of your profits back to the Stock market; because you are never going to be able to exit right at the peak of the Stock market trend. But, you can still stay with the trend as it develops, and let your profits run in the Stock market. Then, when the price turns, you can exit.

Traditionally, an inexperienced trader will exit a position once they see a little bit of a profit in their trading account. They want to crystallize that profit immediately. People don`t like to lose, and they believe that those profits, made in the Stock Market, are their profits, and once they have them, they don`t want to risk giving them back to the Stock market.

Is the Stock market strategy written about in this article doomed to failure, since it breaks one of the cardinal rules of trading; to let your profits run? It is always wise to implement cardinal rules like this, but how do you implement this in the Stock market? Well, after you`ve defined your trading float, set your maximum loss, calculated your stop losses, and also calculated your position sizing – you can determine how to handle profits.

Once you`ve set your initial stop loss, you`ve ensured a mechanism to cut your losses short. Now you need to introduce a rule that allows your profits to run. By simply setting these two rules, you can control two important variables - whether or not you make a profit, and how much profit you`re going to make.

Of the two types of exits you use in the Stock market, hopefully it`s the ones we`re about to discuss now that you`ll get to implement more often, as these are the ones that are implemented once you`re in a profitable situation. Trailing stop losses will allow you to follow a trend as it develops in the Stock market, and exit the position at the point where you can realistically maximize your profits.

A simple example can illustrate the importance of a trailing stop loss. If you received a buy signal and purchased XYZ, and set your initial stop loss, you`d be sure to keep your losses small. But, your initial stop does not move. What happens if, after purchasing XYZ, the asset runs up a few hundred percent?

Unless you have a way to lock in the profit, you could keep that position until the share reverts all the way back down to your stop loss, where you would exit the trade. You would end up losing money even though there`s potential for some fantastic gains.

Obviously, you need to have a way to keep a situation like this from ever happening, and that`s exactly what a trailing stop does. This form of stop is adjusted on a periodic basis according to a mathematical formula that keeps it moving upward as the price moves upward.

After the first day of trading, if the price moves in your favour, or even if the shares volatility shrinks, then the trailing stop is moved in your favour. If the Stock Market then moved against you enough for your stop to be triggered, you would still take a loss, but it would not be as large as your initial stop loss.

The key to the trailing stop loss in the Stock market is that you need to adjust the asset continually to make sure that the stop is moved in your favour. A trailing stop loss is calculated in a way that is very similar to the way we calculated our initial stop loss. The only difference being rather than calculating our trailing stop loss from the entry price, we`re calculating our stop loss from the highest price since entry.

With a trailing stop loss in place, you will be able to let your profits run, and let your trading system deliver the maximum profit in the Stock Market.



By : David Jenyns
David Jenyns is recognized as the leading expert when it comes to designing profitable stock trading systems.Discover the "secret formula" of trading that anyone can use to consistently generate BIG profits from the market by downloading your FREE copy of David's new Ultimate Stock Trading Systems course.
Go here to download Stock Trading Systems ==> http://www.ultimate-trading-systems.com/stocks.htm
 
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