forex fire

Although some brokers may allow you to invest as little as three dollars to execute a trade, this kind of investment is suitable only for an academic interest. These small trades allow the investors to get a feel of the online stock trading. They allow them to understand the level of freedom and flexibility that online stock trading offers.

Online stock trading, like any other business, requires a sizeable investment to become a viable source of income, more so, if you want to make it a full time source of your livelihood.

Like every other business, stock trading has its own pitfalls which may land unwary investors into trouble. Ignorance cannot be made an excuse for losses and failures.

An informed and careful planning can minimize the losses and maximize the gains. Some of the salient points that you must understand before opening an account with any brokerage firm are:

1. There are hordes of online brokerage firms that offer attractive terms to lure the customers. Some brokerage firms offer lowest trade commissions, but over- charge you on other counts such as inactive account maintenance fees. Still others may insist upon very high minimum deposits.

If a brokerage firm offers lower charges on almost every account activity, try to search out the reasons for this type of all round munificence. Either there may be some trap, or, the offer may have really genuine reason.

Some brokerage firms have lower overhead charges which they distribute to their customers. For example, most brokerage firms receive their market data on rent from the data vendors like Reuters or Bloomberg. They, naturally, transfer the costs to their clients in form of higher commission charges and so on.

There may be other brokerage firms which have some agreement with the market data vendors and save by not having to pay rent for market data. This leads to huge savings to them and they transfer these savings to their customers by charging less fees and commissions.

These inside secrets cannot be found out by cursory search. You have to devote some time and energy to thoroughly search the website of each brokerage firm before opening your account and parting with your vital financial data.

2. You may have to abide by the terms and conditions laid down by your broker as well as NYSE and AMEX market data display services. For this you are required to check the appropriate boxes at the end of each agreement. You must read these terms and conditions carefully before checking the boxes. They are not mere formalities. Ignoring to understand them may lead you into problem at a later stage.

3. If you find it difficult to do the entire search by yourself, you can hire some investment advisor. You can save a lot of expenditure over the long time by making one time payment to your investment advisor.

4. ISP services that run the online trade sometimes break down. These technological glitches cause lots of trouble at crucial moments, more especially, when you are trying to place an order. The delay in execution may cause you losses in form of increase in the price of the stock if you have placed a buy order, or, in form of decrease in price if you have placed a sell order. You suffer both ways due to delay in execution of your order. You must talk to your brokerage firm to make sure that they accept the telephone instructions to buy and sell the stock in the event of any collapse occurring in the functioning of the ISP services.

5. If you want to trade on multiple stock exchanges, says, like NYSE and NASDAQ, you must ensure that your online broker has the technical capabilities to meet your needs.

6. Trading in online stocks is always fraught with risks. Be prudent in your investments. Do a thorough research and invest in the stocks of the well-managed companies. Unless you are a day trader, hold the shares for some time and do not sell them in panic if, sometimes, the price of your stock falls suddenly. Price fluctuation is a normal feature of stock trading. In all probability the price of your stock will rise over the time.

7. Develop the habit of investing regularly irrespective of the occasional slumps in the stock market. The other alternative is to reinvest your dividends in reinvestment plans.

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Money.

Indy, or Indiana Jones was one of my favorite heroes. Remember the movie about the Holy Grail and the scene where he has to choose between the holly grail and his life? And although it seemed that he lost from his touch the Holy Grail he gained his life! What is more important than survival first? Investments are no different than the eternal search for the holly grail! If someone finds the system that is 100% foolproof then here we found within seconds the next billionaire at the cover of all major economic magazines!

Stop for a moment! Look around you! Is there a chance for someone to discover the one system that beats everything else all the time and make someone extremely rich? And if someone becomes so much rich why would he or she want to share the secret with others? Why? After all if more people learn about this idea it will eventually be useless as some will try very early to get a spot and the effectiveness will go from 100% towards zero as fast as a super car accelerates from 0-100 Miles per hour what is the point? Come on give us a synopsis!

Some systems and trading ideas are better than others indeed. But no one is the best! Investing is a very fascinating thing! For start there are a lot of options from the traditional stocks to more risky ones such as options and also other alternative forms such as real estate or hedge funds. Have you ever thought that since the idea of the holly grail is that it is unique that could it be possible that such a system if it existed it would be impossible to fit for all occasions? Investing in stocks is much more different than investing in real estate or precious metals. But the marketing which is something very powerful these days wants us to believe that there are gurus everywhere fallen from the sky as angels!

Ok so Dear God, if not the holly grail please pass me the best guru to make me rich! Silence again. Why? Investing builds on some major steps.Education,training,experience,solid risk management, control of emotions, balanced life and motivation. Yes motivation and action. Being an Economist I discovered very soon the idea and passion must say of learning how to invest properly and hopefully make it a career.

But what someone needs is also passion. It is no fun watching the ticks of stocks movements or forex quotes. But if someone tries to make money out of it there is a cost. And the best way to pay this cost is to be a pioneer. Experiment with what you know or do not know about how the markets work. Put the odds in your favour making your analysis. You do not need to buy each book claiming that it has the one system that will make you rich or subscribe to a service or newsletter paying thousands of dollars per year. Be open-minded. Why pay a lot of money when the real cost could be much less? Is it impressive to cost you a few hundreds or thousands of dollars for their access to the Holy Grail that does not exist? Why to share it with you and split the profits?

On the other hand paying for research and guidance at a reasonable price is definitely not a bad idea if you trust the author and offers extreme good customer service. But once you learn how to invest even with the most basic way why would you need a mentor anymore? Have you ever wondered that if you win and make profit the key to success is consistency? Think of it. If you only could make lets say 5% each month and compound this amount each month then if you can do this for 10 years each month an initial amount of 10,000 will reach the amount of 348 times higher that is 3,5 million dollars. And if that investment is in stocks and add some quality meaning dividends earned then it could be much more. Ok 5% each month each month for 10 years may seem irrational to you but my point is to use it as an example. Change the numbers and inputs. Do your own homework and research.Diversify!Apply very good risk-management criteria. Have a passion for it. And a dream and a goal. My goal is to learn as much as possible about the financial markets and be a good trader. I may not become a top one but at least this is my holy grail : Consistency and Compounding. Keep it simple. All the best to your efforts and trading results.

http://www.themoneycosmos.com

Economist,MSc In Economics
Level II candidate in the CFA Program
http://www.themoneycosmos.com