Stocks

Introduction

Trading has changed alot since the investors are able to trade online. The company information is easily obtained through online sources, and investors in general are keeping up with the news of the stocks they own through different media. Investment has become as common as shopping online.

There are usually two types of investment strategies commonly found in the market. One of them is long term investment also similar to the buy and hold strategy where an investor takes the long position to own a part of a company. This strategy is usually adopted when an investor thinks that the company is going to grow and be profitable in future. Stock prices are linked to three main factors: Profitability of the company, growth of the company, and the stability of the company. Most of the investors consider dividend as deciding factor for the price, but many companies with high growth opportunities do not pay dividend in cash.

The best strategy for investment is to diversify the portfolio. This could be done in two ways. One of the most common strategies is to invest in stocks from different industries to reduce the industry related risk. The second strategy is to invest in different country market to reduce the total economical risk for that particular country. This has proven to be very efficient strategy, but it is not very common. Some of the most common international stock exchanges are TSX and M-X in Canada, Euronext in Europe, TSE in Tokyo, LSE in London, and ASX in Australia. There are two major stock exchanges in U.S. They are NYSE, and NASDAQ.

Each stock is given a ticker symbol when they list in the Stock Exchange. This ticker is unique to a company, and investors can find information on the company just by using these symbols if they want. To get started, you can lookup the most active stocks in the market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is the monitoring agency, which is the regulator of the publicly traded companies. Investors can research on the company’s information and find out more about financial condition and plans of the companies. They also have investor education programs that can inform investors more about the checklist before investing in a firm.

Bonds

“A certificate of indebtedness issued by a government entity or a corporation, which pays a fixed cash coupon at regular intervals.” The coupon is paid on the face value of the bond, which is usually one thousand dollar.

Bond Basics – Terminology, ratings, and tutorials for the various types of bonds; Types of Bonds – Convertibles, junk, STRIPS, TIGRs, CATS, LIONS, TIPS, GSEs, Zeroes,

Mutual Funds

"A mutual fund is a pooling of investor (shareholder) assets, which is professionally managed by an investment company for the benefit of the fund’s shareholders. Each fund has specific investment objectives and associated risk. Mutual funds offer shareholders the advantage of diversification and professional management in exchange for a management fee."

The Following sites will give better insight and understanding in the Mutual fund market and how to trade them. To keep track of mutual fund and sceening mutual funds you can always use the following sites.

There are different kinds of Mutual fund depending on the securities in the Mutual fund portfolio. The returns and risk on different kind of mutual fund is different. The following websites will give insight on the different mutual fund families.