Stock Trading Online Guidelines
Mar0
The process of stock trading has of course evolved a lot over the years as technology as developed. In the early part of the 20th century you had to visit a stock brokers office or trading room to buy and sell stocks.
When the postal mail became into common use you could then buy and sell stocks by mailing a letter to your broker, of course today nobody would think of doing either of these.
Today the most common form of trading uses either the telephone or stock trading online. When using the telephone to trade stocks you can still do it by speaking to a broker and giving them your clear instructions, or you can do it all yourself by using some form of menu system using the digital key pad.
But by far the most common form of trading is done online, so what do you need to know about stock trading online?, much more than you may think!
Here are some points that you may not have considered:
1. Virtually all brokers can do stock trading but what about options, Forex and futures?. While you may not be interested in trading either Forex or futures it is quite likely that at some time you will want to trade options online, even if it is just covered calls. Make sure that your broker allows you to trade all the markets that you want to.
2. Of course the fee’s charged by your online broker is an obvious point to check, the fee’s can vary a lot and if you are doing hundreds or thousands of trades a day it can add up to quite a lot of money. Did you know that you can just call up your online broker and ask for a reduced commission charge?, yes you can, I’ve done it. Of course they don’t advertise it but if you do a lot of trades they will want to keep your business.
3. Have you planned what you will do if you are trading and your internet connection goes down for any reason, it could be a power failure, problems with the internet or your PC crashing?. If you are in a day trade you will want to telephone your broker and manage your trade, probably you will just want to close it. How will your broker deal with your call, will they answer quickly, will they look at the charts for you and describe what is going on?. Make sure that your broker provides good telephone support.
4. Are your trading accounts safe?, make sure that your broker is a member of SIPC, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which protects against losses caused by the financial failure of the broker-dealer, but not against losses resulting from depreciation in a security’s value. Usually trading accounts are protected by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), up to $500,000 (including up to $100,000 for cash claims).
Whatever you decide to do, before trading stocks, options or anything else make sure that you get a good trading education by reading the best trading books that you can.
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Identifying the Pros and Cons of Options to Ensure an Effective Option Trading Strategies
Mar0
by: Daniel Webb
This article looks at the potential advantages and disadvantages of using options. Understanding these are crucial for investors and present a factor to investors in formulating their option trading strategies.
What are the Advantages?
Options contracts present a lot of potential advantages to holders and writers:
Benefits for holders
Security
Call options provide those investors hoping to guard their current positions a means to guarantee that their underlying assets (e.g. stock) can be sold at a certain price within a given time frame.
What’s more, put options potentially offer investors a way of considering at the same time as concurrently preventing their losses: in terms of say an option to purchase stock, the holder’s maximum potential loss would be the cost of the option (which would be realized in the case that he/she does not use the option); by contrast, were the investor to invest directly in the same stock, his/her probable loss would be the whole price of the stock (e.g. if the stock became of no value).
Additionally, as options entail a permanent responsibility on writers independent of market changes, it also form the probability for those properly positioned to produce earnings even when the market is declining.
Power
Furthermore, as holders of put options, investors can potentially get “more bang for their bucks” (i.e. higher returns on their investments (ROI)) by controlling more equity with their money than would be the case if they were to purchase the relevant underlying assets outright.
Advantages for writers
Options also offer some potential advantages to writers. For instance, in a “covered call” (i.e. where the option writer is the owner of the property that is the subject of the option), the options premium with regards to that property can stand for an added source of income for the writer (without the writer having to dispose of that property) if the option expires before being executed
General Pros
Also, the present market bid all investors, whether they hope to be holders or writers, with a broad collection of option contract models of varying complexity.
What are the Disadvantages?
There are several potential disadvantages which investors should bear in mind while designing their option trading strategies.
For example, unused options are worthless once they have expired. Hence, if it has not been exercised prior to its expiration date, the holder will have effectively wasted the premium.
Also, as noted above, options can be very multifaceted and can entail a good deal of market observation in order to be used efficiently.
Advise for new investors
Neophyte investors considering of becoming holders should primarily think about their own risk profiles: they should make a decision whether they want to use options to influence their present capital, or to keep them from unwanted near-term market fluctuations (as above).
Investors must also consider brokerage fees when taking into account the cost of options contracts. Indeed, the cost may be higher on a percentage basis than the cost of trading in the underlying stock.
Furthermore, there are a number of strategies available to investors, some more high risk than others. The neophyte investor would be best off staying away from the high risk end of the spectrum (e.g. becoming a writer on an uncovered call, i.e. where the writer grants an option over property that he or she does not possess – there is no hypothetical boundary on the losses that the writer may get under such an arrangement).
All investors should understand the potential for options contracts to generate losses (e.g. where the amount of the premium cancels out the income based on the possession or disposal of the underlying asset.
Finally, it is much sensible for newbies who are looking to make money through stock options trading to primarily go into options contracts as holders, rather than writers (due to the larger possible risks facing writers).
The information offered in this article is absolutely not complete. Naturally, there are a lot more aspects one should think about in putting together effective option trading strategies prior to pitching into this potentially profitable venture and definitely, one would be sensible to completely comprehend the consequence beforehand.
Visit my blog on more information about how you can make money trading options and grab some free ebooks and e-courses along the way: http://www.savvyfinancialtraders.com
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What is Your Trader Type?: Scapler, Day Trader, Swing or Position
Mar0
Did you know that there are 4 mains types of trader and depending on what sort you are will determine many parts of your trading strategy and trading plan. The four types are: scalping, day trading, swing trading and position trading. When you determine the type of trader that you are it will also determine the time frame in which you will be making your trade. This will be a very important decision that you need to make when deciding how you want to learn to day trade.
1. Scalping Trader, if you scalp the markets this means that you are only looking for a few ticks profit per trade and you may only be in the trade for a few seconds or a minute at most. trading. Some people will also call this day trading but it’s really micro day trading, buying the bid and selling the offer, it’s high speed trading and you might end up doing 15-50 trades a day. This is a very stressful way of trading for many people.
2. Day Trader, the true day trader opens and closes their trade within the same trading session, usually this mean the same day, but unlike a scalper the trade may be held for a few minutes up to several hours. Usually day traders make about 2-5 trades a day and most of them will be in the 5-30 minutes range. This is a less stressful way of trading than scalping but it still requires a lot of attention and quick decision making.
3. Swing Traders, swing trading usually means that a position is held for between 1 to 5-10 days, although some swing traders may keep a trade on for longer most are within this time period. For many this is the idea way to trade because it allows you to review your trade overnight, at the very least you have several hours to make your trading decisions.
4. Position Traders, this just means that you are going to hold onto your trade for longer than a few days, maybe even as long as 1 to 2 months.
If you are still working out how to day trade then it may be better to go with the longer time frames as it gives you more time to think.
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Protect Your Stocks Using Put Options
Feb0
Hoping and praying that the stocks that you just bought will go up is not the best strategy to use, however it is the one very often used by the average Joe stock trader who is learning how to trade. The only salvation they have is that in bull markets most stocks will go up.
Statistics show that in a bull market about 75% of the stocks will follow the general trend and go up, and in a bear market 75% will also go down. Trading with the trend is the best way to trade as 9 out of 12 stocks will follow the trend and give you the best chance of making gains on your stock purchases.
The most important thing that you can do is learn to trade from a good trading mentor, and also learn about other startegies such as swing trading.
But what if you own some good stocks and don’t want to sell when the market is clearly going down, or about to go down?. There are a couple of tactics that you can consider, both of which involve the use of options, CALL options and PUT options. There is the well known strategy called Covered Calls, and the much lesser known one called the Married Put.
If you are going to trade options it is essential that before you start trading you get the best option trading education that you can. You should also practise until you are comfortable with the process. This is a very important point that must be taken seriously, if you don’t understand the terminology and theory then you should not be trading options. If Put option, Call option, Married Put and Covered Call are new to you then don’t trade until you have studied sufficiently.
Selling call options against your stock in 100 share increments is the basis of the covered call strategy and it can provide about a 2-7% buffer against the loss in stock price. However a bigger drop in stock price will not be compensated for using the covered call strategy, in general.
Stocks in a bear market, and even in a bull market, can drop quickly on news or earnings releases, as much as 15 to 40% within a month. Using covered calls to protect your stocks will only provide limited protection of less than 7% at best and so will not save your account if the stock takes a 40% tumble.
The better solution to providing down-side stock protection is the option strategy called the Married Put. As the name suggests the PUT that you buy is used to provide protection when the stock goes down because Put options will increase in value when the stock decreases in value. The term married is used because the option that is selected has to be a good fit with the stock, in other words a good match, if the strategy is to work.
The selection of the best Put option is not straight forward and involves several criteria which are listed below:
1. The strike price of the option
2. The current stock price
3. Choice of options, in/out of the money
4. Put expiration time
Even though the married Put protection only has a limited life span if offers much more protection than the covered call. It can provide as much as 95% loss recovery in the event of a significant drop in the stock price.
The downside of the good protection is that you have buy the Put which is a cash debit whereas the covered call is a credit. But there are ways of offsetting this expense and there is much more to this strategy when executed correctly. The Married Put can be made to pay for itself and used to generate very good gains if the market, or stock to be specific, moves a lot.
The basic idea of the Collar Trade is to combine the covered call and married Put strategy into one, this is what is called the Collar Trade. In effect you put a collar around the stock, sell a call and buy a PUT. If you do this correctly most of the cost of the Put can be offset by the credit from the covered call so you can protect your valuable stock at almost no cost. Yes this is a great strategy which the general public is unfortunately ignorant of, and most brokers don’t understand.
The strategy that I have outlined above is unknown to the average stock market trader but is one of the best trading systems you could have, along with momentum trading.
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Risks Involved in a 403B Rollover
Dec0
Getting all the funds together for your retirement can be a bit of a challenge, so you should learn all you can about the retirement accounts that are available to you. There are also a number of options associated with each of the accounts that you have to choose from, and one of these options it 403b rollover. This is a very easy process, but you’ll need to be very clear on your financial goals in order for the rollover to be successful.
One of the challenges in understanding a 403b rollover is the financial jargon. Since the rollover is an investment, there are some risks involved, so you’ll need to do as much research as possible.
When you’re doing a 403b rollover from a 401k account, you’ll need to keep the 60 day rule in mind. The rollover needs to be completed within this time frame, so that you won’t incur any tax penalties. If you are experiencing financial hardship, there are ways to get around the 60 day rule, but this needs to be approved by the IRS.
It’s also essential that you have a clear understanding of direct rollovers when you’re preparing for the 403b rollover. Direct rollovers involve the transfer of funds from your current 403b custodian to your new IRA custodian. A direct transfer doesn’t require any tax withholding, and it is likely that this process will be completed in much sooner than 60 days. Indirect rollovers are also a part of the 403b rollover. This involves a distribution of funds that comes directly to you. After you receive the money, you’ll need to transfer it to the new custodian. Your current custodian will deduct 20 percent withholding taxes from your 403b balance before you account is fully cashed out. You’ll get a check for the balance of the account, and you’ll have to send the check to your new financial institution within 60 days.
In order to make your 403b rollover complete when you’re taking funds from a 401k, make sure that you fill out a 1099-R form. This way, the rollover distribution will be reported to the IRS by your current custodian. You should include this form with your taxes as they are being filed, so that you can pay the right amount of taxes, or receive an accurate refund if applicable.
Be sure to talk to your financial advisor, or a professional at your financial institution to learn more about 403b rollover. Getting money advice on a regular basis will also help you to organize the money that you’re using for other purposes, so that you’ll be fully prepared for retirement.
Beth Kaminski is a leading expert in how to end panic attacks and has been publishing lots of information on the best anxiety attack medication for years now at www.anxietydisordercure.com.
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