Learn where to invest your money
Before you decide where to invest your money, it is important to keep in mind that you should never try to invest in 'markets'. Only huge financial institutions like index future traders or mutual funds worry about market indexes. Try to ignore most of what you hear about the so-called 'markets'. Do not try to understand where the market is going because market is a collection of major stock indexes. Therefore try to free yourself from the opinions of mediocre mutual funds and financial planners.
Instead, you must learn to find out the good but cheap companies to invest in and hold your stock till they grow to reward you with good profits. The key to success is to clearly understand the true worth of the company. Then you can use the age-old formula of buying low and selling high. You should identify a good company, wait till its stock price falls below its true worth by a tempting margin. Once you buy its stock, you need to keep track of the company's value. You should sell the stock when its price rises to an uncomfortably high premium to its true worth, so the basic lesson in stock trading education is that all your trading decisions should be guided by comparing the company's stock price to its true worth and not by rumors of what a hot stock at a given moment is.
The basic criteria in selecting a good company should be to ensure that it is in a strong industry and is growing as well. For example, Coca Cola Enterprises is one of the largest companies in the area of soft drinks. This makes its stock an attractive investment option. Although it is better to find out a good new and rapidly growing company, the job of finding such a company may not be easy. Using two tools, fundamental analysis and technical analysis can do it.
Fundamental Analysis
Fundamental analysis helps the investor to understand the company's current management and its position in the market. It also enables an investor to understand if a stock is overvalued, undervalued or is trading at a fair price. This can be determined by applying the concept of intrinsic value of the stock. Fundamental analysis involves examining the information regarding the company's future anticipated growth, sales figures, cost of operations and industry structure besides many other factors. This exercise provides the intrinsic value of its stock. According to those who rely upon fundamental analysis, the market price of a stock tends to move towards its intrinsic value. If the intrinsic value of a stock is above the current market price, the investor should buy the stock. If, however, the intrinsic value, according to the fundamental analysis, is below the market price, the investor should sell the stock, or, take a short position in the stock.
Technical Analysis
The other way to find the true worth of a company is to go for the technical analysis of its stock This method is based on studying the charts, which help you to identify the market trends of the stock and invest accordingly.
An easy way to use the charts is to study the candlestick charts. A candlestick chart reveals several basic pieces of information in every period of time, it may be daily, monthly or yearly basis.
Technical analysis studies the past price movement of a stock with the help of charts. This helps in understanding its future performance. Every investor tries to analyses the future price of a stock on the basis of its past performance almost every day, whether consciously or unconsciously. He tries to determine whether the stock price is going up or down in the near term and the odds of that trend continuing.
It is advisable to use both the perspectives to view a stock and double your insight and understanding about whether or not to invest in it.
