Lights of the Stock Market!

There Are Red Lights, green lights, blue lights and spot lights. There are orange lights, pink light and flash lights. There are search lights and micro lights. And the one you must obey is the stop light.

If you don’t stop when the light is red you could easily have an accident and lose everything you have, even your life. These different types of lights alert us to possibilities and dangers. Is there a light that goes on that tells us whether the Stock Market is going up or down; one that is green to invest or red to sell? They aren’t very obvious, but they are out there. You only need to become aware and learn when the signal flashes.

It doesn’t take long to learn to drive an automobile, but it does require much more skill to handle an 18-wheeler. The professional driver has taken to time to learn his profession. He knows what all the lights mean. Not only the red and green, but the yellow and blue as well. There are also many light signals inside the cab that he must be aware of all the time if he is to have a safe passage.

Stock Market Signals may not be red or green or any color at all, but they are there and are obvious to one who wants to learn. The one who wants to learn is the investor who wants to protect his capital from loss and to make enough money to retire in a comfortable life style.

The most obvious signal is the 200-day moving average! You can find one of the best market signals printed every day in the Investor’s Business Daily Mutual Fund Index. When the index is above the 200MA line you are in the green and should to be invested. When it is below the 200MA line you the red light is on and you want to be in a Money Market Fund. When those signals flash and you learn to act you will become very wealthy over the next 10 to 20 years. You will not lose your money when the market is going down.

It you take the time to go back in history, say 20 years and treat the S&P500 Index as a dollar value you will quickly see that buying and selling on this simple method would have made you a ton of money. No, there is not very much trading involved. You will only be buying or selling about once each year. It will not take much of your time and you will sleep better, especially when the market is crashing and your money is safely tucked away.

Currently the green signal is on to be invested according to the IBD Mutual Fund Index. The red signal will come on that tells you it is time to sell when the index plunges below the 200MA line. Pay attention to the signals. You don’t want to lose everything!

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To Your Online Trading Success,

A Professional Stocks and Forex Market Trader

Dan A.

Stocks Investment: What Is a "Retained Earnings" Account?

A Special kind of account, called "Retained Earnings" is an interesting and important account. Most business people know it better as "Net Profit". Net Profit is, of course, your total income less your total expenses. For example:

Sales: $1600.00 USD

Cost of stock: $1200.00 USD

Operating expenses: $300.00 USD

Net Profit: $100.00 USD

So, after this series of transactions $100 profit is made. Since net profit is usually the same as retained earnings (they are not always exactly the same and this point is discussed later) and retained earnings is a liability, then it would seem net profit is actually something we don't want...Of course, this liability is a special case. It is not money owed to our suppliers, but money owed to "us" (since the company must issue its profits to its owners). In this case, from our perspective, this is a "good" liability. In reality of course, the company may decide to keep the profit as a reserve because its managers are expecting additional expenses next month, and so on. The Net Profit or retained earnings may be eaten up before the firm gets a chance to issue it to its owners.

From an accountant's perspective, operating a general ledger involves shuffling numbers between sets of asset and liability accounts. Obviously, the higher the numbers on the assets side, the better. These types of accounts are referred to as balance sheet accounts.

One of the key concepts that accountants use to ensure that they don't miss anything when updating account totals is that of balance. Every monetary transaction involves the interaction of at least two accounts. Let's write the above example out again in a form that an accountant would be slightly more happy with:

Sales: $1600.00 + (increase by)

Stock levels: - $1200.00 (decrease by)

--------

$400.00 -

Operating expenses $300.00 (deduct expenses)

--------

Net Profit: $100.00

In the above all the amounts that make up the transaction have been accounted for. Sales have been increased by $1600. We therefore need to offset this $1600 against other accounts that balance to $1600 also. This was achieved by deducting $1200 worth of stock (or increasing the cost of the sale by $1200 depending on how you look at it), increasing operating expenses by $300 and Net Profit the remainder. The principle of balance will be discussed in greater detail in the next section when we get to debits and credits. For now, lets continue to look at retained earnings.

The major problem dealing with only asset and liability accounts is that while they tell us how much we owe and how much we own, they don't tell us how we arrived at this situation. If the retained earnings account holds $10,000 what did we do right to arrive at this figure or if the balance is negative $3000 what did we do wrong?

In order to determine how the final total was made up, it is common accounting practice to expand the retained earnings accounts into income and expenses. Income, revenue or sales are usually thought of as assets and expenses, overheads or costs are thought of as liabilities. However, they are not quite the same thing. We don't really owe money to the "vehicle maintenance" expense account, we owe it to Joe's garage, for example. Likewise, we don't strictly speaking, get money from a sales account, we get it from a customer's account when they pay their bills.


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To Your Online Trading Success,
A Professional Stocks and Forex Market Trader
Dan A.

Getting Prepared for The Trading Day !!

With the Great Challenge of Facing the Stock Market each Day and the hope of pulling money out of it on a regular basis, a trader can do few things more important than prepare adequately. It should be no secret that many of the brightest minds in the world are at work to make their living in the stock market, and such competition cannot be taken lightly! Furthermore, while traders should not be in the prediction business, we must certainly have a game plan.

As time progresses, a trader will inevitably learn from his mistakes. This experience is the foundation for laying out a game plan in preparation for the Trading Day. Merely being a student of the market and of one’s own results will teach a trader to react certain ways to market conditions or events. It is this foundation which should be built upon in order for the trader to elevate his game to the next level (and it IS a game).

In order to develop a trading plan, a trader must begin with his personal style in mind. Swing trading involves a plan that may evolve over the course of a few days to a few weeks, while day trading can be faster-paced and more spontaneous. Personality, patience, and profit objectives will play a large role in which style of trading one may wish to employ, but the trader should choose his method as he plans for success.

Once the trading style is known, the trader must take into account current market conditions. Are recent days or weeks characterized by lasting trends, or by narrow ranges and choppy action? Knowing the answer to this question will put you miles ahead of many other traders who walk in each morning without taking current conditions into consideration. The market will catch you off guard as it changes its rhythm or volatility, but recent history serves as a guide until things change. This means choppy, low-volume, range-bound markets should likely be approached with smaller positions and the expectation of taking profit more quickly and in one piece. A trending market with larger range days and greater volume allow the trader to take bigger positions in hopes of scaling out in pieces as the market moves in the trader’s profitable direction.

Whether After the Market Closes or early in the day prior to the market’s open, some time should be spent determining an IF/THEN strategy for the upcoming session. Some traders may subscribe to a swing trading newsletter or converse with other successful traders, while others prefer to do their own research. One excellent way to find the following day’s trading list is to screen for stocks which meet custom criteria for price, volume, volatility, etc. An affordable stock charting software program will quickly narrow a large list of stocks down to a specifically filtered handful of trading candidates. The DoublingStocks Inc. 'MARL' is one such program, and it will scan thousands of stocks in just seconds or sort them by more than 100 included criteria or unlimited custom criteria. By screening for a handful of potential trades, the decision-making process is simplified and a plan is easier to carry out.

Consider finding a list of trade candidates for both the long and short side of the market, setting specific entry and exit prices, and then simply execute that plan. IF the long candidates rise to your entry prices, THEN purchase them. IF the short candidates break the levels of support you see, THEN short-sell them. IF none of your trade candidates trigger their entry prices, THEN do nothing! This kind of game plan will allow you to effectively respond to market conditions without having to predict direction or hope to be bailed out of losing positions. Approaching the market with the IF/THEN mentality also will help the trader to execute a plan, rather than fight the emotional urges to find excitement or force trades. Sometimes things will work exactly as planned and other times the market will whipsaw you right out of positions. Meeting the market with a game plan and sticking with it will undoubtedly allow the trader to work with less stress and emotion, which are two of the worst negative forces that traders face.

Feeling Well Physically is a very important trait which must be present for a trader to profit. Staying healthy and rested allows the trader to work with a clear mind and focus on the task at hand. Additionally, personal relationships can play a large role in a trader’s effectiveness. When life is rocky away from the trading screens, the successful trader must be willing to cut back on trading size or even back away from the market entirely. A prideful ego will not only cause rough waters on the home front with relationships, but it will also damage the trading account! A clear conscience allows quality rest and a fresh start each morning for returning to the market sharp and ready. Make the most of your weekends to catch up on personal to-do’s and relaxation. When Monday arrives, if you aren’t at your best, don’t expect your trading to be!

Finally, as the morning breaks and the market’s opening nears, follow a routine to get into the proper state of mind for following your plan. This may include reading up on current events, reviewing your charts one final time, grabbing your morning caffeine, or listening to your favorite song. Whatever it is, find what works for you when it comes to getting into the best mindset to extract profits from the market. Remember, the competition is serious and fierce, sharp-minded, and most of all, prepared. You should be too!


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To Your Stocks Trading Success,
A Professional Stocks and Forex Market Trader
Dan A.