Category: Investments

The Time has Come! The last Basic Investing Post!

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

Time to wrap up everything I’ve said about investing in the last 3 months. Don’t worry, this isn’t my last investing post but it is the last basic investing post. I’ll review everything I’ve taught you, so get ready for a looooooong post. Seriously, get comfortable because you’ll be here a while.

Let’s start with my first (technically second) investing post, What is a Stock?

Basically a stock is a very small part of a company. If you own a stock you actually own part of a company. Yes, that means that you can actually own your favourite companies!!! Below is the video I posted on my What is a Stock post.

February 12, Who is Dow Jones? What is the Nasdaq?

The Dow Jones, the Nasdaq, the S&P 500 and so many others are called indices. Indices are an easy way of tracking how the overall stock market is doing. If the Dow Jones goes up, you could estimate that most stocks on the stock market will go up too. Almost all indices work differently so most people have a preference and use only the one they like the best.

February 13, What is a Ticker Symbol?

To explain it simply, a ticker symbol is an easy way to find information on a companies stock. Ticker symbols are usually 1-5 letters long and to use it just go to a website like Yahoo! Finance and type it in to find all the stock information you could ever want.  Some famous Ticker Symbols include AAPL (Apple), GOOG (Google), and MSFT (Microsoft).

February 14, Trading Time

As you hopefully remember, you can only trade stocks at a certain time on certain days. I personally think it’s annoying but it does have it’s benefits. This time is from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM in New York, so you may have to adjust for your time zone. You’re also only allowed to trade stocks on weekdays, which means no trading on weekends or holidays. 😦

February 15, Stock Brokers

Stock Brokers are the people that make buying stocks possible. There are both online stock brokers and stock brokers who are real people. I would recommend buying stocks from an online stock broker as they are much cheaper and quicker than real life stock brokers although real life stock brokers can provide important knowledge that online ones cannot.

February 17, Bears and Bulls 

Bears and Bulls are probably the weirdest stock market terms that exist. A bull market is good, it means that, on average, the market is trading up. A bear market is the exact opposite. If it’s a bear market than the market is trading down on average.

February 19, Dividends?!

Dividends are a companies way of saying thank-you for being a shareholder. Basically as a dividend you get a few cents per stock per year (or 3 months, depending on the company). Not all companies offer Dividends, but they are a great reward for being a shareholder.

February 21, Blue Chip Stocks

Blue Chip companies are the big brands in the world. They are probably the safest investments there are and although they won’t go up as fast as some lesser known companies do, there is a very high chance that they will go up over time.

February 21, Stock Splits

Stock Splits are a strategy by businesses to make it easier for everyone to buy stocks. If a stock split happens than the amount of stocks everyone has will double but the value of the stocks will halve. By doing this people can afford more stocks and people with lower budgets can buy them more easily.

February 22, Private Vs. Public

Some companies sell stocks while others don’t. A company that choses to sell stocks is called a public company while a company that choses not to sell stocks is private. Subway is very famous for not being publicly traded.

February 22, Comic Relief

Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4GZfvXx9Js

February 23, The Foundations of a Great Company – Coca-Cola

February 28, Shares Outstanding

Shares outstanding is a simple stock market term used to determine the amount of shares in a company are on the market. You can use this to calculate how much of a company one share is worth. So if a company has 100 shares outsanding, 100 shares is worth 100% of the company while 1 share is worth 1% of the company. If you don’t understand, read the entire post by clicking on the link above.

February 28, The Stock Market in the Past Five days?

February 28, Market Cap.

March 5, Getting to Know Your Quarterly Report

A quarterly report is a report that all business in the U.S. and Canada are required to publish every 3 months. It outlines almost every business activity that happened in the past 3 months and is very important information when considering investing.

March 12, Foundations of a Great Company – Mattel

March 15, Long Term Vs. Short Term

To explain it simply a short term investment is an investment that is intended to only last a short period of time. A long term investment is an investment that is intended to last a long period of time. Long term investments are safer but they require a lot of time. Short term investments don’t guarantee profit but they only last a short period of time. Both are important to learn about when investing.

March 18, Stock Market Simulators

March 21, Volume

Volume refers to the amount of stocks exchanged in a single day. So if the volume is 1 000 000 the amount of stocks bought/sold in that day was 1 000 000.

March 23, Diversify Your Portfolio 

Diversifying your portfolio is a simple way to ensure you don’t lose money. By buying stocks from several different companies you save yourself if one of your stocks goes way, way down.

March 28, Apple

March 30, The News, Your New Best-Friend (Sort of)

Using the news is a simple way to find new companies to invest in and decide when to sell.

Whew! That’s a lot I just covered! I’ve decided to publish the second part of this post later so stay tuned for that.

That’s all for now, Ben

Drips

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drips are just another one of the many stock market terms out there an they’re a simple way to accumulate more shares in a company. Some businesses  offer Drips (Dividend Reinvestment Plans) so that you can buy stocks directly from them, rather than from a stock broker. By using a Drip you save a lot of money because you have to either pay a very small fee or no fee at all, unlike if you buy stocks from a stock broker. Sadly, there are some negatives to Drips. Not all companies offer drips, and even when they do the business sometimes requires you to already own one or more shares in that company.

Want to know what companies offer Drips? Go to http://www.giveashare.com/drips.asp to see a list of some of the business that offer them.

That’s all for now, Ben

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

Investment Knowledge

Look how much knowledge you’ve gained about investing since you started reading my posts. If you’ve read every post that I’ve published on the Stock Market, then you’re almost ready to buy your first stocks! This week I will finish writing about some of the absolutely essential information you’ll need and then you’ll be ready to buy your first shares in any company! I’ll even give you some more investing tools to work with on Friday. So stay tuned for the final posts about the basics of the stock market.

That’s all for now, Ben

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

Foundations of a Great Company – Microsoft

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

Company Name: Microsoft

Ticker Symbol: MSFT

Founders: Bill Gates, Paul Allen

CEO: Satya Nadella

Honestly, I’m not much of a Microsoft person. I’d prefer to have everything Apple. But looking at some of the company information I started to realize how great of a company it is.3ec2fc1e-697f-416f-b75b-5bd2638f9110_22.png

Microsoft was founded on April 4th 1975 by Bill Gates (You’ve probably heard of him) and Paul Allen. In 2013 Bill Gates was one of the richest people on earth. Microsoft is known for their computers but the also make tablets, smart watches, and phones. As of 2016 Microsoft had 118 584 employees and was worth $438.98 billion which really shows how large it is. Some of Microsofts subsidiaries include Skype technologies (Skype), Nokia, Mojang (Minecraft), and over 100 others. The CEO, Satya Nadella, was born in India on August 19th 1967. He learned electrical engineering in India and he learned about computers and business in the U.S. Microsofts annual revenue is $93 580 000 000 and it has over $176 Billion in assets. Microsoft has an awesome logo which is important in any industry and has some great products. Microsoft is in charge of Microsoft Word which I use constantly. They’re also in charge of Bing which is almost as good as Google. If I were you I’d definitely invest in Microsoft right away!

That’s all for now, Ben

 

 

Proxy

On By BenIn Investments - Ben, UncategorizedLeave a comment

When you buy a stock you’re not allowed to have any say in company matters whatsoever  (Just Kidding). When you buy stocks you actually have a lot of say in company matters. You get to vote on something called the BOD (Board of Directors). The BOD gets to decide who the CEO will be and have the opportunity to hire top company managers. The more stocks you own the more you get to vote, so a person with one stock gets one vote, while a person with 500 sticks gets 500 votes. Every year all shareholders in a business are sent something called a proxy (although sometimes it’s sent to you online). Usually this proxy comes with an annual report and information on the Annual Shareholders Meeting, a meeting where the shareholders and people like the CEO meet to discuss important company events and communicate accomplishments and challenges from the last year. It’s kind of like the annual report but in person. If you live anywhere near where this is held you should definitely consider going. Anyways, when you get your proxy ballot you get a list of about ten people who are running for the BOD. You then get the choice to vote for them, against them, or abstain your vote (Pretty much means you chose not to vote). Most people vote for everyone on the list but some do a lot of research to decide who will benefit the company and who won’t.

Yesterday I got my proxy ballot from Mattel so I thought it would be the perfect the time to  write about Proxy’s.

IMG_3320

It looks kind of boring but some proxy’s look like this.

proxycard_a.jpg

Also kind of boring (I never said they were supposed to be interesting).

That’s all for now, Ben

 

Long-Term Debt

On By BenIn Investments - Ben, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Debt! An extremely scary word. Debt is what a company owes to another company. Generally this means that someone (usually a bank) gave them money with the expectation that they will pay back the money within a certain time frame. Lot’s of companies have debt, and a little bit of it is okay but a lot can be dangerous. Always look at the amount of debt a company has before investing. Try comparing the debt to other things like total assets and last years sales to see if the business could easily pay it off quickly. Debt is just another one of those things you’ve got to learn about before investing.

That’s all for now, Ben

Get to Know the CEO

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

The CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of any business is definitely the most important person involved in the success of that company. They’re responsible for almost all big business moves and have control over the entire company. When you find a corporation you’d like to invest in, you’ve got to learn everything you can about the CEO. This can include simple things like their name and age but also stuff like their education and previous occupations, which can have a huge effect on how they run their company. Below is a checklist of the minimum things you should learn about the CEO before investing in their company.

  • Name
  • Age & Birth
  • Birthplace and Where they were Raised
  • Education (University education is the most important.)
  • Previous Occupations
  • Accomplishments
  •  And Other Qualification as CEO

That’s all for now, Ben

Don’t Be Discouraged

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

Stock market trading can be hard, but don’t be discouraged. Every skill in the world requires practice before success. Just don’t give up and keep investing. Don’t worry if you lose money, it’s all part of learning to invest and is a very important stage in the skill. Remember to do your research and don’t give up. Eventually you’ll develop a strong strategy that will almost always guarantee success.

The News, Your New Best-Friend (Sort of)

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

The stock market is always changing. One minute a great stock could be at $3 the next it could be at $15, and a few more minutes later it could be at $1. You’ve got to learn to find great stocks quickly in the stock market and know when a stock will go up or down. To know when a stock price will change you have to look at a lot of different factors, but the most important of these is the news. If a news article is published highlighting the great ways you can get in touch with others using social media the stock price of companies like Facebook and Twitter will likely go up. And the opposite could happen too. If a news article comes out warning readers of the dangers of eating fast food, the McDonalds and Wendys stock price could go down. Try flipping through a newspaper or searching through a news website often to get a feel for what industries will be affected by the articles and to find great new industries to invest in.

That’s all for now, Ben

Check out some of these news websites. CNN, The New York Times, USA Today, and BBC News.

Apple

On By BenIn Investments - BenLeave a comment

 

Last week Apple announced several new products including the iPhone SE and a new iPad. If you look at the charts for the Apple stock, you’ll see that it has been steadily rising in the past month in anticipation of the announcement event. These kind of real life events are a huge influence on the stock price. It’s very important to focus on real life things when you’re looking for stocks to invest in.

That’s all for now, Ben