Articles

Although they would not admit it, most portfolio managers take a core/satellite approach when managing their equity portfolios. The part of the portfolio that might mirror the overall market could be considered the "core" and the part of the portfolio that deviates from the overall market can be considered the "satellite" portion. When you hear portfolio managers say they are trading around their "core" bank holdings - or they are currently overweight oil stocks and underweight technology stocks, or they have a small cap tilt to their portfolios - they are essentially taking the core/satellite approach. But what about the average investor? Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide an easy way of implementing a core/satellite approach. We...

Amid thousands of stocks actively trading in global markets, a significant percentage are very thinly traded stocks, in other words, stocks that trade irregularly at low volumes. Investors should be aware of the considerable risks of trading in these low-volume stocks. One risk of low-volume stocks is that they lack liquidity, an important criterion in stock trading. Liquidity is the ability to be easily bought or sold in the market without a change in price. This means that a stock which is trading at $25 per share should be easily bought or sold in large amounts (say 100,000 shares) while still maintaining the price of $25 per share. For stocks, a good measure of liquidity is the average daily trading volume. In general, any stock...

In the world of investments, you'll often hear about stocks and bonds. They are both feasible forms of investment. They allow you the opportunity to invest your money with a specific company or corporation with the possibility of future profits. But how exactly do they work? And what are the differences between the two? Bonds Let's start with bonds. The easiest way to define a bond is through the concept of a loan. When you invest in bonds, you are essentially loaning your money to a company, corporation, or government of your choosing. That institution, in turn, will give you a receipt for your loan, along with a promise of interest, in the form of a bond. Bonds are bought and sold in the open market. Fluctuation in their values...

You should ignore analysts on TV, the radio, the newspaper and all other TALKING HEADS when it comes to investing! What stocks do they talk about? - The same old group, every day of every year - Why? Because they don't know any better, they are sheep like the general public, repeating what every economic textbook says and every other economist tells them to say. Everyday, the same companies are highlighted on the evening news - Why? They aren't going anywhere. Some of the stocks that make the headlines every night were leaders of the market 20 years ago. New cycles bring new leaders; this has been proven year in and year out. So many of these TALKING HEADS shout out about "buy and hold" but what are they really holding? They hold old...

Recently I showed some students a chart of the XLF which is the ETF for the financial service sector. I showed a demand (support) level and suggested this would be a low risk area to buy the XLF for a bounce, not a long term trade. After receiving many questions on this trading opportunity from people who bought the XLF as planned and from those who didn't, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the chart as the questions in the emails were all the same. As you can see below, price in the XLF touched our level on 10th January 2008. For those who bought it then, the trade had a gain of $2.00 in the past two days, congrats. You can certainly move your stop to breakeven at this point and consider exiting some or all of the position...

The eagerly watched for retest (of the prior lows) finally came to fruition on Wednesday of last week. Although, the ER2 (Russell 2000) didn't quite make it down far enough to touch the recent nadir. This was not the case for the S&P and the Dow. These two benchmarks actually exceeded their prior low points before the Bears finally decided that - enough was enough - and began covering or buying back their short positions. In addition, the market sell-off had gone far enough that the Bulls found a perceived "value area" in which they could put new money to work. This chain of events created a massive order imbalance that precipitated the violent reaction that is the rebound. Much like a rubber band that is stretched to its limit, the...

Welcome to the wonderful world of equity options. You may have heard that option trading is high risk, and indeed it is, for much the same reasons that spread betting is high risk. The instruments themselves are derivatives from the cash markets, and are highly geared, but options themselves were originally introduced to the US markets in the mid 1970s as a tool for hedging risk. In other words they were a form of insurance. You paid a premium, a bit like car insurance, which covered you in the case of an accident. In the financial markets you bought some protection in case the market went in the opposite direction. In this article we look at equity options, which are those derived from the cash market share or stock. In the early...

Having been trading stocks and options in the capital markets professionally over the years, I have seen many ups and downs. One story told to me by my mentor is still etched in my mind: "Once, there were two Wall Street stock market multi-millionaires. Both were extremely successful and decided to share their insights with others by selling their stock market forecasts in newsletters. Each charged US$10,000 for their opinions. One trader was so curious to know their views that he spent all of his $20,000 savings to buy both their opinions. His friends were naturally excited about what the two masters had to say about the stock market's direction. When they asked their friend, he was fuming mad. Confused, they asked their friend...

There are many good penny stock investments available, which could turn a small amount of capital into a small fortune very quickly. However, to discover these you need to know what to look for and what to avoid. When searching for that one big payoff, steer clear of the following examples. The Phone Salesman - Anyone who is attempting to sell you investments over the phone should be considered an enemy. They have high-pressure sales tactics, and effective, believable arguments. However, they are not doing you any favors, no matter how good they make an investment sound. They are operating in their best interest to dump over-the-counter stock on you, and the money you pay in will go into their own pockets, or the pockets of their...