If you are considering trading stocks for the first time, this article should be of interest because it points out a few basic elements of trading that are essential for the trading newcomer to understand.

In using a title for this article that includes the words “stock market for dummies”, I do not wish to suggest the beginning trader is a dummy — he or she may well be smarter than I am in fact. I have used the term in the same way as successful publishers have titled their books of instruction on various subjects for entry-level readers. Similarly, this article is aimed at the entry-level traders in order to alert them to some basic stock market information they should become familiar with.

Instead of the title Stock Market for Dummies, perhaps a better title for this piece would be: Some Basic Guidelines for the Beginning Trader.

It is important to learn how the market works

There are plenty of suitable books, magazines, newspaper, and online sources available from which to gradually build a basic trading knowledge and become familiar with the terminology of the market. Read to acquire general information, not necessarily about specific technical or theoretical approaches, many of which are very complicated, but especially the news and lore of the market, where to find stocks to trade, how to trade them, and how successful traders operate.

Information Sources

There are dozens of books to choose from, but I always suggest the best for instruction are the several by William J. O’Neal, publisher of the Investor’s Business Daily. I also like books by Jim Cramer of TV’s Mad Money show, and books by successful traders and investors such as Peter Lynch, and others that provide practical advice and market insights. The Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper and the Wall Street Journal will also keep you up-to-date.

On the Web:

There are many web sources of information, including Marketwatch, Money.MSN, and Finance.Yahoo, that provide up-to-date news, stock quotes, and references to stock activities. For stock commentaries, and viewpoints of experienced traders, there are many other information sites such as SeekingAlpha that are worth visiting and from where stock tips can be obtained. Find on you like and trust and keep updated

No. 1 Guideline for survival:

One of the most frequently referenced guidelines for survival is to “Let the profits run. Cut the losses short.” That’s what it is all about, the techniques and ways of trading differ from trader to trader but the goal is the same, to maximize profits and minimize losses - and there will be losses, especially for the newcomer. Therefore, high on the list of things to learn should be the risk-management guidelines that will help limit the amount of loss if and when a trade does not perform as expected.

Additional basic guidelines and topics to learn about are:

1. About Trends, trade with the trend

2. Don’t average down

3. When entering a trade, know when to exit

4. The value of stock charts

5. Using the Stop Loss

And there are many more . .

A trading system is a methodology of trading. An investor who uses one system and follows a specific set of guidelines when making a decision, follows system trading, and will usually never deviate. A trading system is only one method of trading, and usual requires no thinking. It is possible to have one system that is governed by multiple system.

For example, to have 10 different systems, and select only one stock from each system every month according to the main system’s qualifications.

Someone that uses several Trading Systems is a multiple system trader. They have to either have an overall system that encompasses all of them, or make their own decision on which to follow. Doing so can be dangerous, as the purpose of system is to prevent human error. It is advised to be a system trader who trades one system at a time, or trade multiple systems within a larger core system, and avoid being a multiple systems trader.

Trading System - Trading can be awfully hectic without some kind of methodology. You can’t expect to take on the best traders in the world who have teams and resources at their disposal just by throwing around money at will hoping that it works. You need an actually defined system in order to be able to trade effectively.

Many successful systems are based on earnings and high potential for growth. Stockbee’s trading system often swings for the fences. As a result, it requires a solid degree of protection. Obviously you shouldn’t limit yourself to someone else’s system, you need to find one that is right for you.

There are two kinds of traders, technical traders, and fundamental traders, each has their own system. Of course there are some who use both.

Technical traders

Some system traders, are day traders. Others are swing traders. Still other people are more of a trend trader. Each will have it’s unique system. The system will be based on the technicals. Is it volume that triggers the buy? Is it price movement? A combination of both? Or perhaps it’s pattern trading.

Some people even have trading machines or robots that do the work for them. Others rely on pattern recognition done by a system. The method is to sign up for email alerts, or some form of alerts, then make a purchase based on the software’s recommendation. There are some people that screen down a stock based on strong fundamentals, and only trade those stocks, but trade them based on the technical chart patterns and volume.

They will sell based on a trend break, or rules on when to take gains such as 20% gain according to their system. They will set a stop loss based on their system as well. It might be 4%, or 8%, or it may be a trailing stop.

Fundamental traders

Fundamental traders might do things a little differently. They are looking for improving fundamentals, or stocks that pass through a certain screener. Zacks.com is a great resource if you want to rely on fundamentals. Earnings is always a big part of a system, and the Zacks’ ranking uses earnings revision to get in early when the earnings and company internals appear to be improving. Zacks’ has several screens, and their software allows you to screen stocks according to many different options.

Regardless of your trading system, one thing remains important in every single system. Money Management and loss protection.

It doesn’t matter what the upside is or win rate is, if you can’t protect yourself from major declines, you shouldn’t be trading. I don’t care if your system is 90% effective (no system is and if they say they are, they’re lying), and if the gain is 1,000%. If you put all your money on it repeatedly, eventually you will suffer a loss so catastrophic you will never be able to recover without borrowing money. By taking one loss, you hinder your ability to make money. That is more costly then the potential for greater gains that you would gain by taking additional risk.

Just to illustrate if your system causes you to take a 95% loss, you need a 2000% return just to make up for that loss. You cannot trade like this. No system is better then it’s weakest link. That weak link unfortunately for many people is the ability to manage money. Fortunately, it is a skill that can be learned, and doing so will make you a better trader. Better yet, if you do not wish to be a better trader, you can simply follow the rules of a system that contains a methodology on how to manage money and how much to invest before placing a trade.

I recommend that you either have a trailing stop or a hard stop. You can also buy a protective put if you are afraid of a stock bottoming out overnight and plummeting through the stop. Protective puts are like owning insurance. Unfortunately, you have to continue to buy the insurance as it eventually expires if you don’t use it. Don’t trade options without learning everything about them.

Some puts are not good for some strategies. Longer term trades and Investments will require long-term equity anticipation securities, or LEAPs, where as you may not need to risk as much capital for short term protective puts. A trailing stop should be usually 20%, where a hard stop should be more like 7%. Different systems will require different stops so take this with a grain of salt.

A good investor or trader actually will rarely need to ever be fully invested. There are people that trade on complete margin for a few times the entire year, and the rest of the year they’re on the sideline, but generally the best traders that have a career that lasts have lots of money on the side, even more so if they use options and are unhedged. If you are unhedged, that is only playing one side of the market, (all buys, or only playing one theme such as only playing inflation or only playing deflation), you need to have even more cash on the side.

The lower the win rate, the more money on the side you need, and the smaller your positions should be. Any good system won’t require you to analyze. Having to do a lot of the thinking can cause you to panic and make incorrect decisions. Most people aren’t cut out for that, and that’s why it is a smart thing for many to use a trading system.

If you trade within a system, you have a much better chance at placing winning trades. A trading system will have a solid record of success, evidence that it works and has been working, an understanding of the decline and proper money management planning. If you trade within a system, you can estimate your results, and by doing so attain measurable success consistently with a trading system.

Making money is not easy but stock markets provide a very easy way to do that and it helps that as a beginner you do not need huge amounts of money to begin investing.

For making money on the stock markets it is essential that you know the stock market lingo. It helps to know the basic terms as well as the basic understanding about how the stock market works.

The most essential to have in your knowledge book are the common stock market terms. You should have the knowledge of what is day trading and what is called the settlement period. You should also get familiar with all the stock exchanges NASDAQ, NYSE and ASE.

Another major aspect to learn is about the brokers and the brokerages. As a beginner you will have to decide what kind of brokers you would want to go with. There are discount brokers as well as full service brokers. Now these discount stock brokers will not give you any investing advice whereas the full service ones will give you all sorts of advice on investing. The fees definitely will vary for each one of these.

Knowing your risk profile will help you make sound investing decisions. For low risk invest in defensive stocks whereas for high risk and high gains invest in volatile stocks.

Understanding your risk profile is very important and that ability will usually come from the fact that as a beginner how much of extra money can you afford to lose.

As a new entrant in the stock market it is always wise to first check the waters by investing small quantities in good selected stocks and that will help you make sure that you do not lose a lot of money.

Simply put, the Stock Market is where stock market traders buy or sell the stocks of different companies. To elaborate, a company that starts growing would usually get several investors to put capital in the company for expansion and further growth. Many investors, who are on the lookout for viable investments, are commonly always ready to invest on companies such as these.

Several companies have noticed that there is a necessity of making an ordered system of making transactions, thus the start of stock market. It allows a convenient and accessible method of getting investors.

However, this kind of industry gives individuals a chance to invest their capital in a company involved in the stock market, which can give them profits and losses alike. Since then, it has continued to develop and grow depending on the needs of the participants. As a matter of fact, the trading process can now be done online with the help of the Internet.

A stock is a company’s raised capital by means of shares that permits the holders to acquire ownership equity. Stocks are generally defined as the shares collection of a company. They are traded by means of “exchanges”, with the New York Stock Exchange being the most popular among stock exchangers. Exchange is an agency that handles transactions between purchasers and sellers of stocks. The exchange ensures that the trades are safe and secure.

Stockbrokers are responsible for assisting in the deals and investments made by a trader and investor and he gets paid for his services. Both investor and trader are participants in the stock market and are comprised with the buying of stocks. The only difference is that the investors are engaging on investments involving enormous amounts of cash on safe stocks, even if takes long.

In contrast, a trader or a speculator is a person who is willing to put money on stocks that are fast-moving and garner profits in only a short time. With a trader, you are in more risks. Most of the investors are not ready to gamble on stocks.

To summarize it, stock market is just like a casino that makes transactions abiding by the law. The amount being traded everyday is at estimated at 65 trillion. Those people who invest on the stock market through purchasing stocks may be compared to gambling since there are no guarantees that the stocks will be productive.

Stock markets should provide the statistics, data and other information related to all the shares that is being traded on a certain exchange. These data, such as the bid and ask price, volume, opening and closing price and all the movements of the shares/stocks. These will serve as the basis of traders and investors on which stocks to place their money.

We all dream of the day when we can be in our house sitting on a sofa sipping nice tea along with an assortment of cookies and in the meantime you know that every minute there is money rolling into your bank account . Talk of good times and if wishes were horses then everybody would ride them.

You can amke money in stock market eitherby buying a stake in a good company and then trying to make that company profitable and then sell that at a later stage or you can buy stock of that company and sell that at a later stage ata good profit.

Start investing in a company you like on the stock market,once you own the shares you become the part owner of the company even through the part ownership may be only .002% of the company. But hey, you are still an owner and as you learn the stock market basics, take some risks, reap some rewards you can play bigger and become an owner of a bigger part of the company.

Before taking the plunge try to know how the stock markets work and what is the better way to invest in the stock markets. It takes some time and patience to understand and you will be a winner once you know how to play the game.

A share represents part ownership of the company and that ownehsip is called share. In simple English language a share is a portion which you can claim as yours. That is why share are called as such. Each share represenst the percentage of ownership that you have in the company.

Each share has some value based on the profits of that company and that means that you are netitled to that mush profits and well as dividends. If there are 100 shares each with value $1 then if you own 51 shares you are the majority shareholder of the company. Your holding will be worth $51 because the share price is $1.

Selling the shares is equivalent to selling your part of the company to the other. The reason that the other person buys those shares for more value from you is that for that money he thinks he will be able to again sell it for a better profit.

This is in simple terms what is a stock and what is a stock exchange.