Online Investing Daily

Are you ready to invest in the stock market? When do you know it’s time to start and how do you know your ready? Is it really a good idea to put all that money in the market? Are you worried?

If you wait to invest until you feel ready, you will never get started. If you never invest your money, your wealth will not increase and you will not stabilize your financial situation and future.

Investing isn’t about when you feel ready. You need to first start by learning everything you can about it, and then you just have to take the plunge and get started. Don’t worry about the overall risk, think about your future.

To begin investing in the stock market, you have to learn everything you can about the subject first. Do not put your money in any kind of investment you know nothing about. You could lose a lot of money.

If you aren’t interested in putting a ton of time into learning about investing and the stock market, you do have another option. It will take a lot of time and effort to learn what you need to know, especially if you know absolutely nothing to start with.

You could invest in mutual funds. These will save you a lot of time and effort. Even when you learn everything you need to know about stocks, you still have to keep researching to maintain your portfolio.

That is why mutual funds are great. If you aren’t up to learning all about stocks and doing stock research, you don’t have to with mutual funds. You can leave all the learning and research to the fund manager.

It doesn’t matter if you invest in mutual funds and spend 5 minutes a month thinking about it or if you spend several hours a week researching your own stocks. As long as you are investing for your future.

Don’t let the stock market intimidate you. If you let it get the best of you, you aren’t giving it a chance to make you a lot of money, which it can do. Take advantage of what the stock market has to offer.

Why should you be investing in the stock market? The sooner you start investing, the more money you will make. If you really want to make a lot of money with stocks, you need as much time and money as you can get.

If you start investing now, you will have more time for investing than if you start tomorrow or in one, five, ten, or more years. Your money will have more time to earn and compound if you start right away.

You need to study and learn all you can about investing in stocks and investing in general before you start investing. If you aren’t sure you want to invest yet, that’s all the more reason to learn and study. You will learn about what you really should be doing.

When you are investing in stocks, you need to do your research first before making any purchases. This is very important and this step should not be skipped. You need to know how to differentiate between a good investment and a bad one.

You also need to make sure you keep your investments well diversified. Never buy stock of just one company. This is a lot of risk with practically no chance for a higher return. If that stock does bad, so does your entire portfolio. If that company goes bankrupt, you might lose all your money.

Do some research and come up with a good diversification strategy. Invest in several different companies and make sure they are in different industries. Keep some money in cash so that when a good stock opportunity pops up, you have the cash to buy.

If you only get one good piece of information out if this, it should be that you know you should invest in the stock market. Don’t worry about the short term swings, understand that you will make money in the long term.

This the second part of the series on the discussion of principles of investment in the stock market. This is the continuation of a four part series. We previously discussed the first principle. This involves realizing that the stock market is just another investment vehicle. You must realize that there are other vehicles of investments before you decide to invest in the stock market. In this article the next two principles will be discussed. Please visit my blog if you want to view the entire article.

2.) Investing in the stock market is a roller coaster ride - The advantage in the stock market is that when it goes up, big profits are often made. But when it drops fast, big losses are made also.

The general strategy is to sell when the market is up and to buy when the market goes down. About two years ago when I started investing, the Philippine Stock exchange index was only about 2000 + points. I’ve seen it go up to 2500 points and slide back to the 2000 level in the middle of 2006. It slowly and steadily climbed up to the 3200 level in the 1st quarter of 2007 and dropped in a very short period of time during the last days of the 1st quarter of 2007. It climbed steadily to a high of 3700+ points in July 2007 but slid back below 3000 points a month after. By October 2007 it climbed steadily to its highest at 3800+ points. A month after it dropped to 3600+ points.

There is only one conclusion that can be drawn here, that is it is really a roller coaster ride. Huge Profits and losses are made during those times that the market is up or down.

3.) Long term or short term ? - You should determine what type of investor you are. Ask yourself the question on whether you are a long term investor or a short term investor. This question is very important and should be asked by every serious new investor. The reason for such is because it affects whether you should buy or sell a certain stock.

If you are a long term investor, meaning that you hold your stocks for 5 to 10 years or more it means that you believe in the company that you are investing in and that you have extra money for other things because you can afford to put in your money for a long period of time.

The advantages of long term investing is that they do not have to worry about the cumbersome day to day technical analysis that has to be monitored. There is no problem if the stock is held for a long period of time because long term investors believe in the fundamentals of the company. On the other hand a short term investor cashes in within a months time to 6 months time. If you are a short term investor, one thing that has to be considered is the monitoring of the day to day activities of the market.

Short term investors have also to consider if they can afford to put in their money for a long period of time however the time element is not as long as that of the long term investor. This is so because during the short period wherein you buy and sell stocks, you might incur losses during this time so you may decide to wait longer a little bit more.

When I first invested in the stock market I said to by myself that I will be more of a long term investor. There are stock that I invest in that I consider as short term. However most of the stocks I hold are considered as medium and long term investments.

This is the third installment on the discussion about basic principles in stock market investing. In the previous articles, we discussed about the first three principles of investment. First, the stock market is just another vehicle of investment. Secondly, investing in the stock market is a roller coaster ride and thirdly, you must determine what type of investor you are. We continue with the next 4 principles in part 3 of this 4 part series. If you wish to view the entire article, please visit my blog.

4.) You must realize that investing in the stock market does not take a lot of money but if you really want to make an impact on your portfolio you have to place in a substantial amount. - You don’t need millions or hundreds of thousands of pesos to invest in the Philippine Stock market. You only need at least P 20,000.00 to somehow play it out. I started out with only this amount. In fact you can invest if you only have P 10,000.00 but for me that is too small an amount. For example Jollibee (JFC) shares cost only 51.50 per share as of today. The board lot (which is the minimum amount of stocks that you could invest in) is 100. 51.50 x 100 = P 5,150.00. This is the only amount you need to be a stock holder of Jollibee. Let’s say in 1 year time Jollibee stocks climbed to P 100.00 per share, you have gained P 5,000.00 more. But if you had invested 200 shares you could have gained more than just investing in 100 shares.

5.) The key to growing your investment is consistency - Don’t be contented to stay small. Aim high ! Aim to play with the big players. You must have the discipline to slowly but consistently invest a part of your income to the stock market. By doing this your portfolio will grow since you have more capital to invest. I did not just stop at P 20,000.00, I slowly added to my investment. Consistent investment is a good habit to develop.

6.) You must learn to minimize your losses and maximize your profits - If your stock goes down, remember that the loss is only on paper. There is no actual loss until you sell your stock at the “losing” price. Hence the best way is to never ever sell at a loss. That is why it is important that the money that you invest in the stock market is considered as really “extra money” and not your emergency fund. If you invest your emergency fund or your savings you will be forced to withdraw sell your stock at a loss. Similarly if you sell your stocks and you profited from the sales, or you received dividends, utilize the profit or the dividend to buy more shares of stocks.

7.) The stock market is not a get rich quick scheme - In all investments always take note of the principle that money takes time to grow. Those Investments that give you very high rate of return in a very short period of time are most likely investments that make other people rich, not you. Most likely it will take several months or even years in order for you to really profit in the stock market, especially in the Philippine stock market. There are times that it will just take weeks or days to really make a killing. However these are rare occasions. This usually occurs in cases like when there is a consistent bull run or that there is an unusual drop or climb of prices in a short length of time for various reasons.