Companies issue stock to raise money to finance business operations.  Stock represents ownership in a company.  Thus, if you are a stockholder, you own part of a company.  A stock certificate shows how many shares you own.

Click here to read about the importance of savings!

Investing in capital goods occurs when businesses purchase capital goods in order to increase the productivity of workers.  This investment always involves some risk.

Financial institutions encourage people to save by offering interest on savings. They loan these savings to businesses and consumers. Banks compete with one another to attract savers and borrowers. The goal of the bank, like any business, is to make a profit.

People often put their savings into financial investments like stocks, bonds, or certificates of deposit. Some of these are more risky — but have the potential of a much better rate of return — than less risky investments.

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Summary Options are exciting investment “vehicles,” but to be used profitably, you need to understand what they mean and what they can or cannot do for you. You have now scratched the surface of the option world. You’ve now reached a level that gives you some ammunition and skills to play the basic options game. Read More…

Put and call interest does not involve the banking definition of interest, but the market excitement – or lack thereof – regarding puts or calls for a security. Before you start thinking we’ve all lost our analytical minds, try to understand that market prices for stocks and put/ call options The right, but not the Read More…

 Any discussion of options and option prices would be incomplete without a mention of the Black-Scholes The most generally accepted option pricing model. option pricing model. Academics Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, in a paper they authored in 1973, stated their theory that an option was implicit to the pricing of any traded security. Referencing Read More…

Often used in relation to options, implied volatility is a calculation that compares the current market price of a stock with the theoretical value of the market price in the future, all to predict the true value of an option. This may sound like a risky probability equation – and it is – yet it’s Read More…

Volatility is a concept that involves all stocks and other securities. For good reasons, high volatility is most often viewed as a negative in the investment world since rapid movements in market prices inherently involve both wins and losses. In investment language, volatility implies two scary conditions for you: uncertainty and risk. For example, if Read More…

We noted earlier that 35% of option buyers lose money and that 65% of option sellers make money. Option trading comes down to the turtle and the hare story. Option buyers are the rabbits that are generally looking for a quick move in stock prices, and the option sellers/writers are the turtles that are looking Read More…

Now that you have a high level understanding of what options are, let’s look at option trading in a little more detail. When you get a quote on a stock you can also call up its option chain: First of all, you must realize that not all stocks have options. Only the most popular stocks Read More…

Whereas a call option gives the holder the right to buy the stock at a certain price, a put option gives the holder the right to sell the stock at a certain price. A trader that buys a put option The right, but not the obligation, to sell a stock at a certain price before Read More…

A call optionThe right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock at a certain price before the expiration date. is the option (remember, not an obligation) to buy 100 shares of a stock for an agreed price (the strike price The price at which the option contract can be executed.) by an agreed date Read More…

Generally speaking, options are used in many areas of business and investment. Employees of larger companies frequently get stock options as an incentive to stay with the company for a long time and help the company increase in value. A lot of real estate transactions involve the option to purchase additional neighboring acreage at a certain Read More…

Summary This lesson focused on hot topics in the investment world. Obviously, by the nature of discussing “hot” topics, conditions can change quickly, sometimes making hot topics cold and others newly hot. However, the issues in this lesson have been “hot” for some time and should continue to be important for the foreseeable future. Further, Read More…

The subject of arbitrage Taking advantage of price differences in at least two different markets by buying the same security at the cheaper price and immediately selling it at the higher price. is a bit confusing for the new investor, but you will undoubtedly hear the term as you start reading more and more about Read More…

Investor sentiment, sometimes also called market sentiment, typically relates to the stock market’s “attitude” towards specific securities, industries, or overall market conditions (bullish, bearish, or neutral. While of limited importance to a buy-and-hold investor, investor sentiment can be an effective tool if you decide to live in the fast lane by adopting a day or Read More…

Insider transactions and trading has become a sensitive topic in recent years. Most thoughts tend to be negative (images of Martha Stewart in prison mayspring to mind), giving the impression that all insider transactions are illegal or unethical. Not true. Technically, insider transactions involve an employee of a company trading his own company’s stock or Read More…

During the height of the dot.com explosion, a popular strategy – growth at any price – became the rallying cry for many investors. After the bubble burst, a more conservative strategy known as growth at a reasonable price, or GARP, became and remains a popular investing action plan. Paying a high price for a rapidly Read More…

The most popular investment strategy preached by brokers, fund managers and even famous investors like Warren Buffet is “buy and hold.” In its most basic form, this strategy believes that you should only buy stocks of solid, well managed companies that will deliver profits for decades to come; furthermore, that you should hold onto these Read More…

Penny stocks are often popular with the newer and smaller investor. These investments are classically defined as any stock that sells for less than $5.00, traded outside the major exchanges, and often traded on the OTCBB (Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board Stocks that trade on the NASD with tickers that end in an “.OB”, but have no Read More…

Swing trading Identifying “channels” or “tunnels” of price movements on a stock’s chart and then buying when the price gets to the bottom of the channel and selling when it gets to the top, usually over a few days. is identifying “channels” or “tunnels” of price movements on a stock’s chart and then buying when Read More…

The buying and selling of investments (stocks, futures, stock options, commodities, currencies, etc.) within the same trading day, so that all positions are closed before the end of each day, is called day trading The buying and selling investments (stocks, futures, stock options, commodities, currencies, etc.) within the same trading day, so that all positions Read More…

  Your first order of business in looking at current investing trends is to see if the hot trend is worthy and justifiable, or whether it is just a mania leading to a bubble. While it can be profitable to ride the bubble as it is getting started, it is extremely important to make the leap Read More…

Alright, everyone, take a deep breath and relax. You’ve just been assaulted with a lot of information. Don’t panic. As you view real-world examples of these charts, you’ll become more familiar and comfortable with their interpretations. This and other sites will give you all the additional information you need to continue your current journey and prepare Read More…

In the 1980s, John Bollinger developed a new technical analysis tool to measure the highs and lows of a security price relative to previous trade data. These “trading bands” help investors track and analyze the “bandwidth” of stock prices over a period. The object of Bollinger Bands is to identify a “relative” definition of high Read More…

Support Support in a stock chart forms at an area where the stock’s price seems to not want to move lower. This is due to the presence of buyers at this lower target price. and resistance Resistance in a stock chart forms at an area where the stock’s price seems to not want to move Read More…

RSI is the acronym for “Relative Strength Index.” The RSI was created in 1978 by J. Welles Wilder to compare the strength and magnitude of a stock’s gains and losses in recent time periods. The simple formula converts this winning and losing data into a number ranging from 0 to 100. To keep the analysis Read More…

Moving averages The Moving Average is a line on a chart that smooths out the recent price history by calculating the average price over 30 or 60 days (or any number of days). are among the most popular and – important for the newer investor – easy to use and understand trading “tools” available to Read More…

Often called the most accomplished mathematician of the Middle Ages, Leonardo Fibonacci is best known for his “numbers”. It is a sequence starting with 0 and 1, after which every third number is the sum of the previous two numbers. A Fibonacci “sequence” is 0,1,1,2,3,5,8, etc. The Fibonacci “ratios” are 23.6%, 38.2%, 50%, 61.8%, and Read More…

This is the acronym for “ moving average The Moving Average is a line on a chart that smooths out the recent price history by calculating the average price over 30 or 60 days (or any number of days). convergence/divergence.” Got it? OK, here’s the simple explanation. This graph shows the difference between a fast- Read More…

Candlesticks are a type of stock chart developed in Japan. Instead of lines, a vertical block, which looks like a candlestick, is used to symbolize a day or week’s worth of price action. Candlestick charts track price movements of a security over some time period. An interesting combination of a line and a bar chart, Read More…

 A wedge in the financial universe describes a triangular shape formed by the intersection of two trendlines, which form the apex. The wedge need not be upward facing and can easily be an inverted triangle. The “falling wedge” is often called a “flag” since it more resembles a pointed flag more than a typical triangle. Read More…

You’re probably aware that trendlines are important to all of your research on potential purchases or sales of securities. Base numbers are equally important to understand the true meaning of any trends you identify. Depending on the type of chart you are viewing, you’ll also want to establish a solid, unbroken trendline of your own Read More…

A double bottom chart will look like a “W.” It indicates that the stock hit bottom market price, had a quick – albeit brief – uptick, and decreased again to turn a “V” shape into a “W.” The two reverse peaks should be around the same floor price and the time period should be similar Read More…

A breakoutA breakout occurs when a stock’s price moves up quickly above former resistance levels. occurs when market prices move through and continue through former highs/lows that had formed ceilings or floors in the past. Commonly called levels of “ support Support in a stock chart forms at an area where the stock’s price seems Read More…

Don’t you love the terminology that pictorially associates these charts with their graphic representations? The Head and Shoulders is an extremely popular pattern among investors because it’s one of the most reliable of all chart formations. It also appears to be an easy one to spot. Novice investors often make the mistake of seeing Head Read More…

The Cup with a Handle pattern is one of the best-known stock chart patterns. The Cup patterns follow outlines that simulate an inverted semi-circle (U-shape), indicating a price fall, a bottoming out, and a price rise. Afterwards, there tends to be a rather unstable period marked by a sell-off generated by investors who acquired the Read More…