How’s your stock investing doing? Have you been successful in the past ten years? Or has your 401K or personal investing account been sucked dry the gyrations of the stockmarket over the past few years?

Are you looking to get started with your first time investments? Or are you now dipping your toes back in the stock market because you want to rescue your current investment from its double digit losses?

Either way, you are going to need the right tools to help you do successful stock trading, aren’t you? And in these crazy times, this goes doubly so, after all…

Let’s face it: It’s been a Roller Coaster Ride

The past twelve years have made successful stock trading difficult for most people: a quick look at the chart of the Dow Jones from 1998~2010 reveals only part of the reason why.

Chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12 years

Summary 1998 ~ 2010

In January 2000, the market peaked and started sliding as the Dot Com Bubble came to an end in panicked selling as the air was sucked out of those stocks. But it wasn’t until the last quarter or 2001 when the Dow Jones hit its first of four troughs at around 8000 points.

In March 2003, we then saw a bull market that ran the stock market index from just south of 8000 to a peak of 14093 in October 2007, a rise of almost 75% or more. But of course, that represented a double top, indicating markets had nowhere to go but south.

Within 2 years, the market had headed south of 7000 as institutional sellers flooded the market with sell orders and found few buyers. Prices plummeted to a 12 year low before rebounding as the fear subsided, and confidence returned.

With 20-20 hindsight, those doing successful stock trading would have made a killing. Would have. Why didn’t we? In truth, volatile times make certain types of trading more profitable but wipes out portfolio values where more traditional buy and hold investing approaches hold sway.

For those investors tossed by the waves of uncertainty, buying high and selling low has only compounded the difficulties of their portfolio surviving the unsettling storms of the times.

A Personal Example

During this twelve year stretch, my own portfolio invested soared to $21,000 then dipped then soared then dipped to nearly 1/3 of that amount. Right now, it’s treading water at a little more than 54% of its high point, and I’m sure that total performance has been much worse.

Many investors also saw their portfolio value in the money and on sale during these ten years, and it didn’t help a lot seeing the hard-earned savings disappearing in a puff of virtual smoke. I know. I’ve been there.

What’s your excuse?

And, like me, you’ve probably been either too busy or too scared to know what to do during these volatile times in the past ten years. Too busy because your career or profession precluded you from taking the time to really study your investment strategy; too scared because, if you were at all like me, you found out that stocks can really go to $0. Thanks, AtHome.

I’ve been writing about stocks, personal finance, and investing for more than four years during this time, and I’ve tried to get a handle on the basics. That combined with extensive reading and owning my own business have helped me to focus on the real essentials of investing.

And yet

… even now, I’m convinced that if you (I?) can manage successful trading stocks, then you will find that they are a rewarding part of your investments for the long term, whatever trading style you choose to adopt.

However, for many people, investing is like a lottery: you buy a stock because you like the stock name, the product or the boss… but very often there is no real rational between the purchase of these stocks. In the end, it’s a lottery. But it needn’t be that way, if you know how to …

Choose your investing strategy

Broadly, stock trading strategies can be divided into those bought after a technical analysis of the stock and those purchased as the result of a fundamental analysis. So what’s the difference?

Fundamental analysis is usually based on analysis of historical and present data, with the aim of trying to determine both current and future value of the stock. Assessments of stocks using this means are a favorite of investors like Warren Buffett; and are often used to determine whether the actual or ‘intrinsic’ value of a company is currently undervalued or fairly-valued or over-valued.

As an example, looking at the chart above, you may determine that dow jones stocks were somewhat overvalued prior to 2008, but were on sale during much of 2008-9.

Technical analysis, on the other hand, looks at the future direction of stock prices through the study of past market data, especially pricing and volume. While there are many schools of thought, the general goal is to determine the direction and strength of a future stock price by looking for patterns in the stock price movements.

A quick look at the chart shows in 2007 a double top pattern, where the index twice reached a high of around 14000, and to technicians as a bearish signal in the market.

Whichever of these strategies you eventually decide to adopt,

The Stock Market Reaches Into Everyone’s Lives

such as how the stock market seems to impact everything in our daily lives; and how everything in our daily lives seems to have an impact on the stock market.

Think about it…

…every day you spend money. Everyone spends money differently than the next person. And everyone spends it on different things. The one thing that unites our spending is…

…you guessed it, the stock market. So, next time you pull into a gas station or are at the check out line at the grocery store, think to yourself how your purchase will affect the stock market and how the stock market affects the product or service that you will be purchasing.

There is Risk

With each different type of trading, there is a different amount of risk. When you buy a stock long, you can only lose the money that you put in. There is a little bit more risk with selling short.

Buying Short and Selling Long

Even with that risk however, I have come to prefer (along with many others) short selling. There are two reasons why I prefer short selling. The first is that stocks can go down faster than they go up.

The second isn’t necessarily a preference to short selling. I just like to know that I have the option to make money when I think a stock is going to go down. And not just when its going to go up.

So, with buying short and selling long there is not much risk. However, with more advanced trading strategies you will encounter more risk. So, you should be comfortable with the basics before you dive in to these other methods of trading.

The other advanced forms of trading that you may want to check out when you master the basics include stock options and buying on margin.

Stocks, Options and Margin

Investing in stock options is a more advanced form of investing. Individual investors issue options and other individual investors purchase them. The issuer is betting that a stock will do something and the purchaser is betting that it will do the opposite. This is a very lucrative investment strategy but one that takes lots of practice to master.

Finally, buying on margin. This is as simple as it sounds. Buying on margin is when your borrow money from your stock broker in order to purchase more stocks. If you borrow money elsewhere, say a bank or a friend, it’s pretty much the same thing. And it is just as risky. Of course, like with any time you take out a loan, you will want to get the best rate possible.

A Solid Investment Vehicle

Win the lottery and people will most kindly inform of all the ways that you could invest your money. There are many different legitimate investments and not a few that are shady. But, I have come to find that stock trading is one of the most rewarding and educational ones you could pursue.

Early Days

Successful Stock Investor came into being in early 2010, and is one of the sites from SiteBuildIt by the founder of the site, Ezra Salken. In late May, the site was purchased by InvestorBlogger author, Kenneth Dickson.

In a few short months, Ezra researched and created over 40 pages of excellent content on many aspects of investing and trading stocks for beginners.

So I was fortuitious to find this site for sale. Ezra and I both shared a background in investing for ourselves, in my case since 1998. And we have learned along the way from the many mistakes, market conditions and investing resources we encountered.

What’s coming up?

In the coming months I will regularly add content on all aspects of stock investing and stock trading for beginners, especially content from InvestorBlogger’s site that is better suited to this environment.

I’m looking to add information and profiles of company stocks, esp. the Dow Jones Industrial Average companies, some S&P500 companies… though in fairness, not even I could do just to all the companies out there, and there are hundreds of thousands around the world.

I’ll look at investing strategies, both long term and short term; resources – websites, books, newsletters, and more; and different investment options that are available to us.

Two Voices: Two Writers

As you read through this site, you will notice that the pages contain two ‘voices’. This is the result of two different authors (Ezra and myself) working on the pages. Don’t let this put you off! I will try to mark my own pages as distinct by adding my signature at the bottom: suffice to say – all pages created from 6/1 will probably be mine!

And so it remains for me to wish Ezra luck in his new ventures, and I’m sure he’ll drop back from time to time. Check out his new site, Scorpio Traits.

The Dow Jones Stocks are one of the most quoted indexes in the world, and are often used as a barometer of not just the US economy, but to an increasingly large extent the world economy. But the Dow Jones wasn’t always this important.

Dow’s Early Start

The origins of the Dow Jones Industrial Average were at the end of the 19th Century when Charles Dow, the founder of the Dow Jones & Company, created the index to measure and track the value of just 12 stocks from the best industries in America.

While this wasn’t the first of Charles Dow’s indexes, it became the best known and has influenced Wall Street, Main Street and Washington for more than a century since its creation.

While the formula is something of a complexity and is based on the Dow Divisor (currently approx. 0.13231925), the index is referred to as an average of the price of the components. The math involved is statistical, and perhaps a little obscure.

Currently, the DJIA consists of 30 stocks, all of which Successful-Stock-Trading will be examining in the coming months. So readers will be able to follow up on some of the highlights of each company’s history, current situation, and performance.

The Components of the Dow

The Components, 30 in all, are listed below. Please note that the list contains all the current members, but that from time to time the actual composition of the Index may vary.

Recent additions to the index in the past two years include: Kraft Foods, Inc. after it was spun off from Philip Morris (aka Altria). Travelers Companies and Cisco Systems in 2009 replaced two venerable names from the list: General Motors and Citibank.

Investing with the Dow

There are quite a few strategies to investing with the Dow Jones stocks: from buying individual components to buying the entire index in an ETF.

ETFs

There are several ETFs that aim to match the price movement in the Dow Jones. One popular choice is the Diamonds ETF, first introduced in 1998 from a family of ETFs known as SPDRs. I’m currently holding some Diamonds in my stock account, and regularly get updates and dividends paid out (usually monthly).

Souped-up ETFs

You can also buy DJIA ETFs that promise to either match the daily performance of the index or do the exact opposite upto 300% of the change.

There are other strategies that involve buying a weighted short list from the components that are undervalued, and holding them with their more generous dividends payouts and potential for price increase in the stock value.

Dogs of the Dow

One of the most famous of these strategies is the Dogs of the Dow first made popular by Michael O’Higgins in 1991.

It goes thus: Investors in the Dogs of the Dow strategy believe that large companies do not often vary their dividend simply to reflect current market values, and that the dividend is akin to a measure of the value of the company’s worth. In contrast, the stock price itself can vary considerably through the business cycle.

Therefore, dogs of the dow investors will buy those that are relatively undervalued by stock price, and will receive more upside potential as well as a reasonable regular and stable dividend. Rinsing and repeating the process will lead to higher longer term returns than just buying the full index.

Of course, events in 2009/10 have proved that even substantial companies, like Citibank, GM, and others can find themselves undergoing exceptionally bad cycles in which bankruptcy (as in GM’s case) becomes the only way to save the company.

In those extreme cases, stock investors usually lose their shirts. Fortunately, this higher risk usually rewards more patient investors as well. If you are interested in finding out more about this way of investing, check out the Dogs of the Dow Website which has very complete stats and information on current incumbents.

Updates: Coming through 2010

I’ll be expanding this page and its related content on a regular basis as I find more information and products. I’ll also be updating the list of Dow Stocks, too. So do remember to bookmark this page, and check back each month or so.