by: David Jenyns

The first point to mastering money management is that you have to understand when you’re trading on the stock market is that you are playing the odds - but unlike many forms of gambling, you can make money. The key to making this money is to respect the risk that is part of the market, and manage it. Money management is a set of rules and guidelines that enables you to turn a profit. By being triumphant with your money management skills, you can keep your risk at a level at which you’re comfortable with, keep from making poor trading decisions, and ensure you don’t loose your trading capital. This is why it is so important to follow money management rules.

Why do these money management rules work? You know, it’s funny. I once thought I had a fool-proof way of making money on roulette. You see, I’d bet on red and black. I’d sit at the table. After the ball had landed on black or red five times in a row, I would start betting on the opposite color.

Let’s say I had five reds in a row. I would then start to bet on black. If I was wrong, I would go ahead and double down, so that if I started my bet at one dollar, the next time I would be able to bet two dollars, then four dollars, then eight, then 16. With this system, eventually I’d win and I’d come out one dollar ahead.

So, here I am at 23 and I’ve set up my computer program to test my theory. I made a ridiculous amount of money in the program. I really thought I had the Holy Grail here. But, if it’s so easy for an 23 year old to figure it out, why aren’t all the casinos out of business and why aren’t we’re all millionaires? Unfortunately, roulette doesn’t work this way.

You see, if we’re flipping a coin, heads has a 50 percent chance of turning up on each flip of the coin and so does tails. But, each flip is independent of the last. The last coin toss has nothing to do with the one before it, each flip is a random event. This means it’s possible to get a hundred heads in a row if you do it long enough, and believe it or not, that’s what happened to me. When I first played roulette in a casino, I saw a string of 23 blacks in a row. I went home defeated.

Trading is the same. A percentage of your trades will not work out. A certain percentage will not go in your favoured direction, and the next trade has nothing to do with the last one. Even if you have the world’s most accurate method, over time you will go broke if you don’t practice good money management.

Money management rules include defining your trading float, setting your maximum loss, calculating your stop loss, and most importantly learning how to choose your position size. Once these rules are in place, it’s important to stay with them. They will keep you from making snap decisions, and playing the odds longer than you should. This is why money management rules are a critical part of any effective trading system.

About The Author
David Jenyns Discover BIG profits from the market by downloading your FREE copy of David's new Ultimate Stock Trading Systems course. http://www.ultimate-trading-systems.com/stocks.htm

by: Joe Cooper

I'm pretty sure you have seen ads for “How to Make A Fortune on the Stock Markets” books for before. These books, seminars, and training courses claim to teach you how to properly invest in stocks, bonds, penny stocks, commodities contracts, etc. Their advertisements focus on the pleasure of trading stocks from the privacy of your home. You can buy or sell stocks anywhere you can access a telephone or the internet. You don’t have to sell any products. You barely have to exert yourself at all.


So what’s the problem with “How to Make A Fortune on the Stock Markets” books, seminars, and training courses. Are they just hype or can you follow their directions and get rich as the ads claim? Read on for the truth you must know about “How to Make A Fortune on the Stock Markets” books, seminars, and training courses.


The first problem is stock market training courses and how-to books out there are much like real estate training courses and how-to books: The strategies you’ll learn in these programs will be anything but satisfactory. They’ll tell you to “buy low and sell high.” Duh! Anybody with a competent brain already knows this. True successful investing takes experience. To expect to pick the correct stocks, at the correct time, and to sell them at the correct time, as an uneducated beginner, is absurd.


The second problem is it’s almost impossible to stay current with the market. There is just too much ground to cover on a daily basis: Too many articles and newspapers to read, too much software to run…it will all become too much. To top it all off, no one truly knows what makes the stock market fluctuate. This is why entire corporations are dedicated to analyzing and dissecting the market before making recommendations.


The third problem is the risk and the resulting stress it will cause you: The day you discover you have lost a few thousand dollars in a single instance is the day the ulcer in your stomach will begin.


The fourth problem is you lack the funds. It is recommended that have at least a $20,000 portfolio. Forget investing in stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, etc. Get in the game if and when you can afford it, and proceed with caution. Buying a “How to Make A Fortune on the Stock Markets” book or training course won’t help you get this money either. You need this money whether you are educated or uneducated.


Conclusion


There have been thousands of people who have fallen victim of “How to Make A Fortune on the Stock Markets” books, seminars, and training courses. People who simply want to earn an extra income from the comfort of their homes find themselves cheated by con artists who take advantage of their hopeful attitudes. No doubt there are legitimate companies out there offering real investment training opportunities. Unfortunately, home based business scams are at an all time high. It has become harder to find legitimate work from home operations. So, if you are planning on buying “How to Make A Fortune on the Stock Markets” books, seminars, and training courses, use common sense and the guidelines above to avoid falling victim to these infamous scams!

About The Author
Joe Cooper has researched and experimented with over 275 home based business opportunities over 25 years. Discover more information about “How to Make A Fortune on the Stock Markets” Books at http://www.best-internet-home-based-business.net/how_to_make_a_fortune_on_the_stock_markets_books.html

by: James Marriott

The bulls and bears of the stock market are both tempting and scary to the investors. Speculators are enchanted by the stock market's potential to help them in making quick money with a big M. While those who tread with care and caution, often shy away for fear of losing. However, the stock market is not all about speculative gains or black Tuesdays. It is a place where committed companies look for raising money to fund their activities. Serious investors can actually create wealth not only for themselves, but also for the companies and the nation. A wise way to invest in the stock market is to empower your self with information. You have to know and learn about the company you invest in, from past records and future plans.

Irrespective of what the Wall Street Gurus predict or what the economic indicators like Dow Jones Average say, a simple and foolproof way of knowing that a company is doing well is to keep a track of how much dividend income does it pay to its share holders every year. If the dividend rates have been rising steadily every year, you know you have a safe bet. To benefit from the future prospects of such companies, it is a good idea to rollback the returns into the company. Which means, instead of adding the dividends to your savings, you can invest them in the shares of the same company. That way, you can ensure that the dividends you receive are always higher than what you got last, with a larger number of shares getting added to your investment portfolio every time.

With this kind of an assured investment plan in place, investors with a gambling streak begin to think beyond making a quick gain. While those who were afraid to take risks get wiser.

Let us find out why companies that give ever-increasing cash dividend income are a good choice for investment:

Your Share Holding Goes Up And So does Your Dividend Income.

Your income begins to escalate with your owning more shares every year and the dividend income rising correspondingly.

Your Dividend Income Increases Even If Stock Prices don't.

You are no more at the mercy of the market. Irrespective of what your shares are worth, you keep earning additional cash dividends. In fact, even if the market price dips, you are still at an advantage, as that allows you to reinvest to purchase more shares.

You are not hit by Inflation.

With the dividend income rising every year, you offset the effects of a rising inflation. This particularly provides relief to people who have retired and depend on a regular cash inflow to help them meet their expenses. At this stage one need not rollback the investment into further shares, instead, the cash dividend can be used as a kind of regular pension money.

Start Young

The ingenuity behind this investment strategy is that it protects you from the fluctuations that generally occur in the market. A lower stock market rate only means you buy more to increase your dividends more. It is advisable to start this strategy early in life while you are still working, so that your wealth builds up gradually and constantly over the years. And you are assured of a regular income, as you grow older.

Remember, the success of this proven investment plan depends significantly on the track record of the company you invest in. It should be one that declares a higher dividend at the end of each financial period. A simple way to find that out would be to calculate the dividend yield. You can do that by dividing the annual dividend per share by the price per share. Of course, no investment can be totally free of risks, neither is this one. Keep an eye on the dividend yield, and if that dips, it's a signal for you to opt out of the investment.

About The Author
James Marriott is a finance writer with more than 15 years of experience in writing financial content, including those related to credit cards, mortgages, stocks, investments, and funds. He has been with RNCOS, a premier financial writing services company, for 2 years as head of financial writing. He is also a regular financial columnist with renowned business journals. For your comments on the article and further financial assistance, please contact our staff writer at info@rncos.com

by: RNCOS

There are those who like to invest in stocks and shares with the belief that they are fuelling the economy or the industry they trust in. They ‘buy and hold’ shares for longer periods hoping to be rewarded with bigger fortune. This may sound appealing to most investors seeking long-term goals like saving for a college education or a peaceful retirement. But then the tour to the exchange is a bit adventurous, for the future is blurred and meets no end.

Though many advocate the ‘buy and hold’ philosophy on the grounds that it lowers your taxes and saves on your commission, the share holding may ultimately yield low profits. Eventually when the time comes to sell, it may be a bear market. Even if the market were to be bullish, there is the possibility of inflation eating into the dollars you made.

In the last 100 years in the history of trading there have been 30 occurrences of a bear market. The ‘corrections’ that followed never brought up the market to the post bear market position. It is a fact that every stock exchange faces a bear market periodically as a part of an established linear cycle. Though brokers always believe the market will come back, sometimes, it may be too little or too late for many.

While trading in shares or stocks, the foremost aim is to protect the original cost of your holding. In “market timing” you buy the shares and hold them in your portfolio on line for further trading. Shot term bullish and bear market trends are required to be monitored so that one knows the moment when to buy or sell. The ‘market timing’ investor aims to keep his losses low and protect his capital too. He is more sensitive to the volatility of stocks and shares. He believes he is lowering his risks and looking at long time trading gains that are consistent.

The ‘Buy and Hold’ believers have great faith in utility stocks. However exchange records reveal that after every crash the utility stocks index never manage to reach back to their old heights. Instead of parking your dollars in shares for a long and doubtful period, it is better to buy and sell over shorter periods of time pulling out and trading in according to what the stock exchange market prices indicate.

One must not mistake ‘market timing’ trading as speculation. Here the investor has a different goal. He is like the businessman who buys and holds goods as per the trends in the market. He will want to sell the latest goods in the market when they are still in demand and get rid of those that are no more in fashion.

Even high-quality stocks and shares have suffered from the bear market. ‘Buy and hold’ approach does not appeal to those who find reading the market regularly and keeping themselves alert at all times an exhaustive exercise.

But once you master the art ‘market timing’ by keeping your ears to the ground and acting on the signals, you will realize you have made your gains while others were simply waiting.

About The Author
RNCOS (rncos.com), formed in 2002, offers outsourcing solutions for your business needs and aims to put an end to your information pursuit. We provide e-publishing solutions, which constitutes articles, newsletters and content for magazines and bespoke work. At RNCOS, we provide you complete e-publishing solutions and online help. We offer the best in technical writing, editing, and illustration for digital and printed documentation. For further information write us at info@rncos.com

by: David Chandler

Well maybe that's overstating it a little, but it's certainly one of the most important.

It is…(drum roll please)… “the need to be right”!

Now that probably wasn't what you were expecting. You might have thought it was going to be something like not picking the trend or putting too much money on a single trade or one of a dozen other things.

But I can assure you, from bitter experience, that this one attitude causes more problems than most other things you might do as a trader. And it's worse for men! Something to do with ego or testosterone…

You see our whole society is based on the importance of being right. The need to be right.

Your parents rewarded you when you are right and told you off when you were “wrong”. They probably still do this now that you are grown up!

>From your earliest days at school you are taught that being right is the most important thing. Isn't that what tests teach you? And this is reinforced through the rest of your life. Your boss probably reminds you of this just about every day!

But some of the best things occur when we aren't right. Like the time you take a wrong turn. Either in your travels or in your life. And you end up at this amazing place or with this amazing person that you never would have, had you done the “right” thing.

Plus there's not a lot of point beating yourself up when you aren't “right”. Because, as we all know, it's going to happen pretty regularly!

Coming from Australia, I don't know a lot about baseball. But I do understand that batters get paid a lot of money to miss hit the ball an awful lot! Think about that. Top baseballers step up to the plate every day knowing that they are more than likely not going to get it “right”. Yet they are confident and successful because they know that over a season they are going to get it right often enough.

Don't Beat Yourself Up or the Market Will join In!

I went to a speed-reading course many years ago. I didn't learn how to read faster (!) but I did learn an attitude that has stuck with me ever since. It is - “Focus. No attachment to the outcome.”

This guy was telling us about how he taught elite sportsmen to achieve their best (hope he was better at that than teaching people how to read fast!). He explained that the trick was to get them to keep taking the shot (or making the jump or whatever) without getting upset with themselves if they got it wrong.

The key was for them to focus on what they had to do in that moment, not on the outcome.

Maybe I have lost you? But the point I'm trying to make is that you need to go into each of your trades with your focus - not on being right - but on following your trading system.

And then the key is to not beat yourself up if you “get it wrong”. Because if you have followed your system and you know the system works over time, you have done the “right” thing.

Once you have confidence in your trading method your only focus is on following the signals.

“Focus. No attachment to the outcome.”

By the way, try this approach in other areas of your life. It really works! My golf was much better once I stopped getting angry at myself for every lousy shot.

Deadly Attitude in the Market

In the stock market you can't afford to hold onto the need to be “right”!
When trading, you cannot be right 100% of the time. In fact, you can be right only 50% of the time and still make lots of money. But this means you have to be wrong an awful lot!

The market will do what the market will do - no matter what your opinion might be. If you are holding a stock and you expect it to go up in price but it starts to go down, what happens?

If you are like me, a little voice inside says something like “…but this wasn't meant to happen!…it can't do this to me!… I know I'm right - it's just a temporary set back; it will come right, I'll just wait it out…

This “voice of reason” is your ego. You can't bear to be wrong, so you justify your decision to yourself. You must be right! You tell yourself that you know what's going to happen…the market's just confused…it's just got it wrong! (totally illogical reasoning - the market can never be “wrong” - but it makes sense at the time!).

This deep-seated, primordial need that we have to be right can destroy you in the stock market. It will make you put too much money on one trade. And it will make you hold onto stocks that you should have sold days or even weeks ago.

It will mean you will miss opportunities you should have taken because your view was the opposite of what actually happens. And you can miss getting extra profits from a trade because you were convinced that “…it couldn't possibly go any higher…”

By being aware of this “need” you can overcome it - over time! You need to get to the point where you “want what the market wants”. Not what you want.

Just remember.

“Focus. No attachment to the outcome.”

The above comments are offered for educational purposes only. We are not providing you with financial advice. We are simply sharing with you what has and hasn't worked for us personally. If you wish to trade or invest in the stock market you should obtain advice from a registered licensed advisor.

About The Author
David Chandler For your FREE Stock Market Trading Mini Course: "What The Wall Street Hot Shots Won't Tell You!" go to: http://www.stockmarketgenie.com

by: Richard Stoyeck

Why is it that some people only buy one or two stocks? Others may have 15 stocks but have 50 percent of their investment assets in just one of those 15 stocks. In Wall Street we refer to this type of behavior as concentration. Some firms call it over-concentration. When this happens in a brokerage firm it is always considered dangerous. It is so dangerous, in fact, that if the brokerage firm is using a concentrated stock position as capital, then the market value of the security in question is given a haircut. This means that the full market value of the security is chopped by some fixed percentage in any capital computation. In other words, if you are over-concentrated, you don't get full value.

Some of you may have margin accounts. As you know, StocksAtBottom.com advocates cash ownership of stocks. If you own stocks on margin, it is our opinion that you will get sold out on margin. Normally in a margin account you put up 50 percent of the value of the stock you acquire in cash. If equity falls below 35 percent, you get a margin call. Now, brokerage firms love it when clients have 15 or 20 different stocks in a margin account. If there are some bonds in that account, guess what, they love it even more. Why? Because brokerage firms know that stocks represent risky investments.

Something can always go wrong in any one situation. Maybe something can go wrong in any two situations. It's tough to see something go wrong in 15 situations. That is the essence of diversification. SPREAD THE RISK AROUND. It makes a lot of sense. Some investors own 50 to 100 stocks. This is because they think they need that many to achieve the investment goals that they set out for themselves.

In business school at a master's degree level they teach you that to achieve true diversification you need to own something approaching 14 equity positions. It has been the experience of StocksAtBottom.com that 6 to 10 different equity positions is sufficient to achieve diversification. The one thing we know for sure is that it's not one stock or two stocks. Own one or two and you get killed.

Putting all your eggs in one basket

We advise all investors to own several stocks and to own more than one sector. Own more than one type of investment (that means equities, bonds, real estate, cash, you get the picture) or you will have problems. Sectors refer to stocks with broad themes. Examples are:

* Energy
* Semi-conductors
* Housing
* Auto
* Consumer
* Airlines
* Personal Computers
* Technology in general

If you own 10 stocks, but they fall into only 2 sectors then you really have not achieved diversity in your portfolio. You see, when they come to get Ford Motor, usually General Motors is not that far behind. By the way, it's great on the upside to own everything in one sector when that sector is going your way. There's probably not a greater high in the world than when everything you own is going up. On the flip side, when you are overly concentrated in a sector that's heading down, lower and lower every day, there is no worse emotional low. The depression can be almost unbelievable.

There's also the issue of owning more than one type of investment. There are equity investments, which are stocks. There are real estate investments, and bond investments. There are also venture capital investments, precious metals, and others such as oil and gas. To a large extent, you achieve diversity in your investment strategies by owning different types of investments, as well as investing in different sectors.

Let's go into a few real life examples. We at StocksAtBottom.com believe we have already made the equivalent of a lifetime of investing mistakes, so learn from a few of ours.

Arrow Electronics

It was Christmas week in the early 1980's. One of us was sitting at Bear Stearns as a limited partner at the time. We were doing very well as stockbrokers. It was the period of full commissions (no discounting), and clients were doing 10,000 share trades in $50 dollar stocks. Taking home an income of $500,000 to $1,000,000 in a year was no big deal at the time.

We were loaded up on Arrow Electronics, a NYSE company in the semi-conductor sector. Business was fantastic, the future was bright, and things could not have been better. Since we were involved on the banking side as well, we had an open line of communication to the company. We knew we had a good thing going.

The telephone rang on one of those beautiful days prior to Christmas when New York City is the place to be, Rockefeller Center all lit up with a 50 foot Christmas tree and all. "Hello." A harried response, "There's been a fire at the Tarrytown Hilton Executive Center, a lot of people are dead." "Okay, that's terrible, how does it affect me and by the way, what's for lunch today?" "Buddy, you don't understand," the dead pan voice says. "What don't I understand?" "The entire executive leadership of Arrow Electronics was in that fire." All of them, every one of them had been killed by this monstrous tragedy.

It was the worst Christmas imaginable for the wonderful families of this dedicated group of execs. The families never recovered, the company never recovered in terms of the people that were left, and the stock took years to recover. It plummeted from $32 per share to $4 per share in a matter of days. The recovery was slow and hard, it was agony all the way back on this particular stock.

Arrow Electronics is an example of putting all your eggs in one basket. It is an example of owning just one stock. SAB does not care how much you know about a company, things can go wrong and do go wrong. You simply cannot own just one company because the risk on the downside is too great. YOU MUST DIVERSIFY IN ORDER TO SPREAD THE RISK.

Goodbye and Good Luck

Richard Stoyeck
http://www.stocksatbottom.com

About The Author
Richard Stoyeck’s background includes being a limited partner at Bear Stearns, Senior VP at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeb, Arthur Andersen, and KPMG. Educated at Pace University, NYU, and Harvard University, today he runs Rockefeller Capital Partners and StocksAtBottom.com

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by: Linda Wainman

New traders search for their Holy Grail because they get a sense of control when they use entry signals to open their positions. They want the point they choose to enter the market to be the point at which the market is doing exactly what they want it to do. If they can find this point, a novice trader will often feel like they have some sort of control, not just over the entry, but also over the market. Unfortunately, there is never a time when a trader has control of the market.

Once you are in a position in the market, the market is going to do whatever it wants to do. No one can control the direction of the market, or the extent of its movements. There is only one component of your trading system that you do have control over, your money management. Here is the true Holy Grail of trading.

Money Management:

Van K. Tharp, PhD, a world renowned leader in the unique area of professional trading says that 'Perhaps the greatest secret to top trading and investing success is appropriate money management'.

The most important factor in successful futures trading is money management.

The ability to take a loss and trade another day is the key to survival--and ultimate success-- in the futures trading arena.

A successful futures trader should be more an act of survival in the early going than scoring winning trades.

Successful traders set tight stops to get out of losing positions quickly; and they let the winners ride out the trend. On the balance sheet, a few big winning trades will more than offset the more numerous small losers. Good money management allows for that to happen.

Day trading is not a get rich scheme. It is serious business where you could lose everything within minutes because of wrong information. Before jumping into day trading, remember to do your homework first. Go to seminars on day trading, use simulations if possible and practice reading market indicators. To be a successful day trader, you do not just need luck. Knowledge and experience counts.

Pick a few classical chart patterns and specialize in trading with them. You must have discipline and patience to wait for the patterns to develop correctly using only markets suitable for you size account. Additionally, you must apply strict risk management and have great tenacity to let your profits run on the good trades.

Since strings of losses are inevitable regardless of your approach, you must control risk so you are not wiped out by consecutive losers. Experts agree that for proper risk management, you should limit risk to no more than about 1-2% maximum of your account equity. Make sure that no one trade is really going to affect your day trading float, positively or negatively.

While novice traders spend all their time working on entries, seasoned traders know that the really difficult decisions in trading involve exiting profitable positions. Letting profits run on good trades is absolutely essential to long-term success.

Winning traders understand that winning in the markets means "cash flow". More cash must come in than goes out, and anything that affects this should be considered.

ANYTHING that affects bottom line profitability should be considered as a viable area of study to improve performance.

The single best way to protect your profits is to lock them in. Really, you can either lock them in, or you can lose them.

Sometimes, if you think the market could travel a long way, some good money management advice you might want to follow is to plan several levels where you'll take profits. Firstly, take off half at a given target, and move your stop to entry. Alternatively, take off half your position and hold your stop at break even point, so nothing is lost and you also may not be taken out of the trade too early.

Always have your exit strategy in place before you make a trade.

Never, never, never add to a losing position, and every trade should be taken with professional care and planning.

Losing traders focus on winning trades and high percentages of winners. Winning traders focus on losing trades, solid returns and good risk to reward ratios.

When winning traders have a bad trade they spend time figuring out what happened and then they adjust their current methodology to account for this possibility next time.

Keeping losses small keeps your capital intact so that when a trade does become profitable, you can make big gains.

A winner runs his trading business wisely-carefully managing his fixed and variable costs of doing business and making capital investments which provide a worthwhile return to his business.

A loser is sure he's almost worthless as a person after 5 losses in a row.

The most successful traders have a methodology or system that they use in a very consistent manner. Often, this revolves around one or two techniques and market approaches that have proven profitable for them in the past.

You need to make protecting your capital and developing money management strategies your priorities if you want to be successful.

While successfully trading commodities with limited capital presents the highest challenge in trading, you can do it if you recognize the problems and construct a trading plan to accommodate the realities.

You need to position yourself so that you can endure long strings of losses, and maintain your day trading system.

If you can survive some losses in your day trading, the profits will come.

CONSISTENCY is a key factor to profitability.

Money management rules include defining your trading float, setting your maximum loss, calculating your stop loss, and most importantly learning how to choose your position size. Once these rules are in place in your system it's important to follow them. They are a critical part of any effective trading system. Money Management rules are the Holy Grail, the magical object that will bring you success in the market.

About The Author Linda Wainman is author of the "Keeping It Simple Day Trading System". Get the exciting details from http://day-online-trading.com