Sunday, June 19, 2011

3 Steps To Profitable Stock Picking

By George Lowrence


Stock picking is a very complicated process and investors have different approaches. However, it is wise to follow general steps to minimize the risk of the investments. This article will outline these basic steps for picking high performance stocks.

Step 1. Decide on the time frame and the general strategy of the investment. This step is very important because it will dictate the type of stocks you buy.

Suppose you decide to be a long term investor, you would want to find stocks that have sustainable competitive advantages along with stable growth. The key for finding these stocks is by looking at the historical performance of each stock over the past decades and do a simple business S.W.O.T. (Strength-weakness-opportunity-threat) analysis on the company.

If you make a decision to be a short term financier, you want to stick to one of the following techniques :

a. Momentum Trading. This strategy is to look for stocks that increase in both price and volume over the recent past. Most technical analyses support this trading strategy. My advice on this strategy is to look for stocks that have demonstrated stable and smooth rises in their prices. The idea is that when the stocks are not volatile, you can simply ride the up-trend until the trend breaks.

B. Contrarian Plan . This plan is to have a look for over-reactions in the exchange. Researches show that market is not unvaryingly efficient, which means costs don't always meticulously represent the values of the stocks. When a company asserts a bad news, folks panic and price frequently drops below the stock's fair value. To choose whether a stock over-reacted to a reports, you must glance at the chance of recovery from the impact of the bad news. For instance, if the stock drops twenty percent after the company loses a legal case which has no permanent damages caused to the business's brand and product, you may be assured the market over-reacted. My information on this plan of action is to discover a list of stocks that have latest drops in costs, investigate the potential for a reversal ( thru candlestick research ). If the stocks demonstrate candlestick reversal patterns, I'll go thru the most recent stories to investigate the factors behind the present price falls to figure out the existence of over-sold prospects.

Step 2. Conduct researches that give you a selection of stocks that is consistent to your investment time frame and strategy. There are numerous stock screeners on the web that can help you find stocks according to your needs.

Step 3. Once you have a list of stocks to buy, you would need to diversify them in a way that gives the greatest reward/risk ratio. One way to do this is conduct a Markowitz analysis for your portfolio. The analysis will give you the proportions of money you should allocate to each stock. This step is crucial because diversification is one of the free-lunches in the investment world.

These steps should get you going in your search to consistently earn money in the stockmarket. They may deepen your understanding about the financial markets, and would provide a feeling of confidence that helps you to make better trading choices.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment