Option trading basics

 The beauty of paper trading is that you get to test your ideas without risking real dollars. Learn from your mistakes at no cost. At the same time, follow these paper trades as if your real hardearned dollars were at risk  which should teach you how to monitor open positions . There’s an emotional and psychological element to trading that causes human beings to react differently when we feel something important  money  is on the line, versus how we trade when we feel no such pressures. Please take the simulation seriously, as it is a core element in the flow of this program.You will very quickly understand that call options can give you the right to buy a stock at a specified price for a specified period of time, and that put options gave you the right to sell rather than to buy a stock.
You will also learn that if you were very bullish on a particular stock, you wanted to buy a call option, because if  you were correct and the stock rose significantly in price, your call option would allow you to buy that stock well below the market price. You could thus buy low  by exercising the terms of your call option and buying the stock at the specified price  and then sell high by selling the stock that had rallied . And relative to your small initial investment, your profits could be huge. Of course, all of this favorable stock movement needed to occur before the option expired, and if the necessary rally in the stock did not occur by the expiration date you would lose the entire sum you paid for the option.

Roth IRA

Many changes in the year to come will benefit all wage earners regardless of income. If you are now in a regular IRA you
might want to consider changing to the Roth. You will need to do your research first and make sure it is right for you. You can make deposits that are not tax deductible. Your money can be withdrawn after 5 years without paying any taxes. You can also leave your money in the plan for as long as you want.You need to look at the tax you would have to pay if you move from a regular IRA to a Roth account. In 2010 you can spread the tax over two years.
  You need to determine the tax bracket you are in when you decide to retire. You should look at the difference in keeping your money in a regular IRA or moving it to the new account. It would be best if you can leave the money in a Roth for 10 years or more.
You would need to look at what the tax amount would be today compared to ten years from now.You
will need to pay a conversion tax if you decide to move your money but you will save a great deal in the long run. You need to look at how does this fit into my overall retirement plan.
  What you need to ask yourself is how many years will it be until I decide to start taking the money out. The more years you leave the money in the account the more it will build up. You can also leave the money in the Roth for your children or someone else. There are no mandatory payment requirements.

Don't confuse the IRA

You as an investor signs up for a self-directed IRA, the first thing he or she notices is the newfound investment freedom. Virtually any asset can be purchased with the IRA and the investor can effect the transaction by simply signing a check. However, with great freedom comes great responsibility. Since the investor will now be handling the IRA transactions personally, there's more room for error. Here are the top mistakes that investors should be aware of when dealing with their self-directed retirement funds.
Don't confuse the IRA with its checking account.
The platform for investing your IRA funds is the LLC and its accompanying checking account. However, this platform is for investment and business purposes only. It is not meant to be used as an access point to the IRA itself. All contributions and distributions should be taken solely via the custodian.

IRA investing self-directed IRA

initial public offering

An initial public offering (IPO) or stock market launch is the first sale of stock by a company to the public. Initial Public Offerings Why traders Have a tough time buying shares. The underwriters and the company that issues the shares control the IPO process.All companies with shares that are publicly traded on the stock market had an IPO at one point. There are six systematic steps that an option trader should go through when trading, regardless if the stock is an IPO or not.Without getting too deep into it, we should emphasize that it is wise to look for the Sympathy Move, meaning if one stock, mostly the leader, in a certain sector goes up or down, most likely it would bring the others in the industry with it. For instance, DNKN is in the Services Sector and Restaurant Industry. This data was also pulled out from the Yahoo! Finance page on the left side under the Company Profile, all at NO cost to us, the stock researchers.

Investment clubs

 Starting an investment club is fun and can be financially rewarding. Members of investment clubs usually have between 10 and 40 members, but normally have around fifteen trading members. When each investment club member joins the club they will deposit money into the club which earns them buying power when the club makes an investment. The investment club software will enter the amount invested and apply units for each member. Units can be figured such as for each $100.00 invested you will receive ten units. The clubs software will figure this automatically.
  The (NAIC) National Association of Investment Clubs can provide much of the trading information you need to know about starting your own investment club. The Web site has pages full on advise on investment clubs, you can go to "About Clubs" link on the front page NAIC site. Another web site with info can be found online at Investment Club Central. They provide a directory of resources about investment clubs from all over the internet. Go to "Articles" to learn more about investment clubs and operating one, they have club software that can be purchased to set up the finance of the club and stock analysis. Yahoo has Investment Club Central is its directory of Web sites of investment clubs.

Stock and Forex Investment Clubs