The stock market is an interesting outlet with unlimited possibilities. If you are thinking about getting your feet wet in the stock market, you are taking a risk that could lead to the ultimate goal, which is prosperity. The stock market is vast and everybody has a ‘secret’ but if you listen to your gut and use common sense, you CAN be successful.
A major component to successful investing is to ‘diversify your portfolio’. You’ve heard that a thousand times right? What it means, is to buy stocks from many different companies from many different sectors. Sectors tend to fall as a whole, so it is imperative that you do not have all your eggs in one basket.
I personally, got into the stock market after reading a book called “The Richest Man in Babylon”. The book in a nutshell, describes paying yourself at least 10% of your earnings and then investing that 10%. If you continuously follow that principle you will eventually be wealthy and sufficient. I look at the stock market and any moves I make as long term, realizing that the market is too volatile to make a quick buck. Not saying that it isn’t done, its just not why I’m interested.
I started out looking and researching on Yahoo finance for different companies which I believe would continue to expand. Some examples are Mcdonalds, Walgreens, Harley Davidson, Wells Fargo, Citi, etc. The list goes on and on and I enjoy using my own strategies to figure out which stocks will continue to increase. I use symbol lookup under the yahoo finance section to figure out ticker symbols for the companies that come to my mind. Then, once you click on the symbol it will give you all the basic information on that stock. Over on the left, I look at the “technical analysis”. This, I’ve found to be the single most helpful tool in deciding which stocks to buy. I look at the 1 year and max chart for that company. A graph will come up, and I only take the stocks which have continuously increased, and that have a low volatility. Sounds easy right? Well it is!
Once I get my list of the stocks I would like to purchase, based on the technical analysis, I log on to my TDAmeritrade account online. I purchase as many stock as I can based on my for mentioned plan of investing 10% of my income. I’ve had very good results because I look at the investment as long term. I have a friend who considers himself a day trader and he is constantly stressed out.
I will now reveal some of my own stock picks and would urge people who are interested to check out their tech analysis. Some of my favorite stocks are as follows: WFC (wells fargo), UTX (united tech), ECL (ecolab), PEP (pepsico), BDX (becton dickinson), HOG (harley davidson), COST (costco), C (citigroup), XOM (exxon). Hopefully these will give you a starting point and hopefully some of my tips help on your way to investment success. Good luck and happy investing.