Stock Trading Insight

So far today in the morning trading hours, the markets are on a tear. The DOW has been up big since it opened and if things continue in this manner, we will have a great day and the DOW should close above 9000 today.
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Talks of the stimulus plan has caused some positive trading throughout this morning’s trading.
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With the moves that have happened this past week in the markets, many think about moving their capital out of the equities out of some of the less favorable sectors and look for the tried-and-true sectors during a recession period.
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We heard last week that we are officially in a recession, but the real question hasn’t been answered. That question is “how long have we been in a recession?”
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With that in mind, you have to take into consideration that the smart money have been positioning themselves in those sectors for sometime to protect their assets.
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An article that I found today talks about the fact that the time to get into some defensive plays, like consumer staples has past and you may want to do something else.

The article is from CNN Money.com, I hope you you find it interesting.

Tags: Economy, Getting Started In The Stock Market, Investments, Stock investments, Stock market for beginners, Stock market news, Stock trading

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Henry Paulson And The Recession

Henry “Hank” Paulson was the CEO of Goldman Sachs for many years. He has too many friends in the financial sector as well as on Wall Street. The man should never have been selected by President G.W. Bush, but he was and at the time everyone thought it was a great idea.
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Why was it a great idea? Because at the time the markets were recovering from the tech bubble collapse in the Stock market. He was also one of the guys who help redesign the hedge funds (another reason we have this financial meltdown) as well as pushing the idea of sub-prime mortgages. The Democrats loved him because he was full-filling the “American Dream”, getting everyone into the house they wanted, no matter what.
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It’s now come to a point that he’s out-lived his usefulness in the Treasury Department. He’s been having press conference after conference in just the last couple of weeks that shows that he doesn’t even know what to do for the economy while still trying to help his cronies within the financial sector.
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I’m counting down the days until Paulson will be out of the position. The job will now fall on Obama’s choice for Secretary of Treasury. Timothy Geithner will fill that position next month. The man has a long history with the economy and the Treasury department as well as being in charge of the New York Federal Reserve. Timothy Geithner has made a name for himself on Wall Street and some of the rallying in the markets last week was most likely due to the decision.
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Unfortunately the rally the only last so long in what is now “officially” a recession. That’s right the news was released Monday. The economic advisors and experts have now made it official. Like anyone with a half a brain couldn’t see that two months ago.
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The markets typically show the signs of a recession before it actually is made official. With that in mind, it’s nice to think that a recession is usually 8-12 months long. Looking back the markets have been showing signs of it for at least four months, which means that we can be half way through this mess already.
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As I’ve been saying for the last to months, build up some capital (40%-60% of your portfolio) and wait for the right time to buy to build a new position in the stock market. That time is just about upon us, so I say when the DOW reaches 7500 points again, start putting your money to work behind all that research that you’ve been doing.

Tags: Economy, Federal Reserve, Financials, Government spending, Stock Market, Stock market news, Stock trading, Treasury Dept.

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A List Of Penny Stocks

Everybody wants to trade penny stocks. The reason for that is that they have the reputation of having big percentage gains (or losses) in any given day. You can make (or lose) a load boat load of money real quick.
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A list of penny stocks can be found almost anywhere on the internet. Why not, these companies need to raise capital so they can expand their business or even to buy the needed equipment so their company can grow one day be one of the big dogs. There are so many penny stocks out there that are traded everyday, but where are they list? On which board do they trade?
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Most of these stocks are traded on the secondary boards, OTCBB (over the counter bulletin board), Pink Sheets and a few others.
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The main reason that they are so popular is because they are cheap enough where the average person can afford them. How cheap? Well, a stock is considered a penny stock when it’s price per share is less than $5. Many of them are actually less than $1 (they really are penny stocks).
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Just because they are that cheap doesn’t mean that you’ll make a ton of money. Some of these stocks will sit at those levels for months and in a few cases, years. Many amateur traders or newcomers feel that these stocks are on their way up and also feel they can’t get any cheaper. That can’t be further from the truth. If you look around on some of these lists of penny stocks, you will see some even trade in what is referred to as sub-penny. Stay away from these types of stocks. Only one out of thousand will ever get out of this range.

If you want a list of penny stocks, go to Yahoo Finance and type in pink sheet or OTCBB, you will get a list of stocks that you can pick through. Be careful and do your due diligence on the company before investing.
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P.S. Want to learn more about the stock market? take a free two week trail with Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

Tags: Buying penny stocks, Getting Started In The Stock Market, How to make fast money, Stock market for beginners, Stock trading

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T Boone Pickens Update

For those who believe in alternative energy and expect big things from the industry may have to hold on a little longer. Throughout this week T. Boone Pickens has been going around speaking at events as well as being interviewed on CNBC on Wednesday saying that because of the credit crunch, his big plans for huge wind farms will be delayed.
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The financing just isn’t there and with falling prices natural gas that are used in power plants as well as oil prices hitting levels that haven’t been seen in over a year and a half are making his projects less economical.
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As I’ve writen before here on this blog, Pickens started a campaign to help the U.S. reduce their need for foreign oil. The plan is for major investment in the wind energy and the conversion of natural gas for vehicles
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He has said that this is just a temporary setback due to the financing of the project. When he spoke with the New York Times he was quoted in saying. “When we were looking at the project, we felt like we could do it with 30 percent equity and 70 percent debt.” The 70 percent debt is where we’re having a little slowdown.”
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Mesa Power, a company that he founded was given the job to oversee the massive wind farm in Texas that would be able to power over 1.3 million homes. The company has placed the orders for the first phase of the project. A total of 667 turbines from General Electric will be able to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity that will power more than 300,000 average homes.
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Originally that part of the project was to go online in early 2011.
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This is just part of what we’ll see for the next several months with the condition of the credit crisis. So buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Tags: Alternative energy, Buying penny stocks, Economy, Financials, Getting Started In The Stock Market, Stock trading

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Stock Market Scams

photo by azrainamn
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In these trouble times of the stock market no one is really sure what stock is going to break out and post some beautiful gains. Of course there are many out there that will offer you their services. I’m here to tell you, beware of wolves on sheep’s clothing.
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When you go ahead and type “stock market” or anything similar to that in Google search, you will get several million returned pages. The results are astounding as to the different types of sites you will find. many of them are site designed to get you to buy into their program or at least to leave your e-mail.
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The one and only purpose to these site are to make money off of you not to help you make money in the stock market. In some cases you will find that they offer you “tips” after you subscribe to their service. Sometimes it’s a monthly service, but mainly it’s by the year. The reason why many of them don’t do it by the month is because after the first or second month you would cancel once you see that you’re not making gains in your portfolio.
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The other way these sites will make money off of you is a little more shady that the other. These are the sites that will go ahead and say that they will send you daily notices for no charge. You only have to give them your e-mail. The way that they make money is that they will send you “tips” on stocks that they are already in or that they’ve just recently pumped up. Showing you graphs and charts showing that the stock is at the break out point. What they don’t tell you is that they are the ones pumping it.
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If enough people jump into the stock it will cause the price to rise, at which point they start dumping their position leaving you and others hold the bag.
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There is one stock right now that I’ve been watching because of one of these services. I learned about it through Twitter. I will not disclose the person or the stock for obvious reasons, but I will tell the rest. The person posts on Twitter the the particular stock has moved X amount on X amount of volume. This stock jumped 66% that day, the next day it jumped 125%. In the last week it dropped 95%. With these moves the stock now sit 56% below from where the person started hyping it.
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Just in case you were wondering what type of stock has movements that big in percentage. Penny stocks move like that all the time. That is why you shouldn’t invest more than 10% of your portfolio to penny stocks. You can lose all that you invest in these kinds of plays.
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To make matters worse, the Bid price never rose above the starting price until two days ago where it went to the height of the hype just long enough for one entity to dump several thousand shares. That is also why the stock is now down more than it was in the beginning.
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In the mist of all these types of people out there, there are those that are legitimate and very helpful. The only one that I would at this time recommend is Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

Because of who he is and the influence that he has, he is not allowed to invest in the stock market himself. Instead he has a portfolio that the money goes to charity. We have an affiliate program with him that offers you a free
two week trial. I suggest that you give it a try. What the heck, it’s free.

Tags: Buying penny stocks, Getting Started In The Stock Market, Stock investments, Stock market for beginners, Stock trading

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Bailout And Rescue Plans

What is the difference between a bailout and a rescue plan? There really isn’t one. It’s just a matter of how you want to get the message across. The AIG bailout is what they were calling it, but then the government was getting too much slack for how it was being presented.
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So when Hank Paulson went to Congress to get $700 billion to save the financial sector and the credit markets, he first called it a bailout. Then Congress went ahead and didn’t pass the bill, which in turn caused the stock market to plunge. By the end of the week they repackaged it and pitched it as a rescue plan.
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Either way you look at it, it’s still the same thing.
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Now it’s General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Ford Motor Corp (NYSE:F) turn. What will happen is still not clear. There is still two and a half months before Obama takes office. President Bush and Obama sat down yesterday in the oval office to discuss several things that need to be hashed out. Rumor has it that the auto industry was talked about, but neither of the men will reveal what was discussed, even though it seems that Obama’s aids have leaked the information out.
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If we are to save this economy we will need to save jobs and create new ones. Letting the the two auto companies to fail and possibly close some or all of their factories will not help this country bounce back any quicker.
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If we can go ahead and save the white collar jobs of Wall Street, why wouldn’t we save the blue collar ones of Main Street. What’s your opinion on this topic? I’d like to know.

Tags: Economy, Federal Reserve, Financials, Government spending, Stock market news, Stock trading, Treasury Dept.

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The Obama Effect In The Stock Market

Now that Barack Hussein Obama has won the election, what will it do to the stock market? At this moment no one is really sure. I will say that since Tuesday morning the Dow has lost 600 points, that’s a drop of 6% in one week.
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During the campaign, we heard that a new President will save this economy as well as the stock market, President bush has ruined this country and many other negative comments.
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We are to believe that President -elect Obama is exactly what this country needs to bring us back from the disaster of the last eight years. it’s not a new President that this country needs, it’s fiscally responsible policies that will save it and nothing else.
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The markets are showing us in the last week that they are still not confident in what is presently going on in Washington. When Obama spoke last Friday, the DOW dropped 100 points, it did gain back those loses by the end of the day, but not any more.
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Obama’s camp announced this morning that they would be making any more cabinet selections this week, which again gave more reason to feel confident.The markets were up big again today when the bell rang (+200 on the DOW),but started selling off immediately where at 1:00pm it gave back 300 points. Since then it has started to climb, but who knows where it will close at the end of the day.
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There is still to much fear and uncertainty in the stock market and we should all be ready for anything. I don’t see good thing in the rest of this year and I’m prepared for it. If I’m wrong, well then the worse thing that will happen to me is that I’ll miss out on some gains, but if I’m right I’ll save myself alot of trouble.
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P.S. Want to learn more about the stock market? take a free two week trail with Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

Tags: Economy, Federal Reserve, Financials, Getting Started In The Stock Market, Government spending, Security Exchange Commission, Stock market for beginners, Stock market news, Stock trading, Treasury Dept.

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Patience And Timing Are Everything

Today the latest retail numbers were released and I’m sure most of you (if not all) weren’t surprised. Let’s be for real, the economy is in the crapper and to expect any retailer (except Walmart of course)to post good numbers in this quarter or even the next.
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The results were devastating and to make matters worse, the rumor out today was that there are more hedge funds redemptions. This is just a continued de-leveraging of the markets. Unfortunately no one really knows how many more hedge funds are going to drag down the stock market. This type of roller-coaster ride is far from over.
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Expect that each time the markets make up some good ground like they did in the last two weeks, hedge funds will take profits and dump their positions. So my advice to my readers are to do the same. In this type of volatility, anyone invested in the markets need to be more of a trader than a investor. Take caution and profit where you can and hold on to a good portion of capitol on the side for when days like this take place.
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There quite a few companies that their stocks have taken a beaten. If you are prepared with capitol, you can pick up some shares at a great discount. As a matter of fact there are too many that fall into this category. Too bad that it would take me about a month to list them.
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I’m sure many of my readers have their selection of stocks that they favor which have dropped in share price, so take your time and if you do get caught in the red, be patient and leave your emotions at the door.

Tags: Economy, Getting Started In The Stock Market, Hedge Funds, Stock market news, Stock trading, The Week Ahead

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Sell-Off’s And Rallies

photo by petrick2008
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As we see with the way the stock market performed today, the sell-off kicks back into high gear. Investors are still concerned about the condition of the economy no matter who won the election.
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The rally that took place over the last week in alternative energy was erased today with the sell off. First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) which was up $70 in the past week gave back $24 (-13%) in today’s trading.
The rest of the sector did just as bad with Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP) taking the biggest hit of almost 21%. Suntech was trading last week at $11 and gained almost 90% before today’s beat-down. The one stock in the sector that escaped the abuse of today was Biofuel Energy Corp (NASDAQ:BIOF) which gained just over 28%, take in mind though that this stock is a penny stock and gains like that are quite common.
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In the financial area of the stock market, the sector was another wash-out with nearly if not all of the stocks lost ground. Out of the ones that I really keep an eye on, the best performers still lost over 5%.
Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM), a stock that I’ve talked about before here on this blog took the biggest hit, losing over 25%. Last week the stock traded as low as $2.85 (where I picked up 200 shares) and yesterday hit an intraday high of $8.40, a gain of almost 200% in just a few days.
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I’ve been saying it for some time now, but you need to be ready for when the stock market will turn (good or bad). If I didn’t sell out of AGM when I did, I would have lost some great gains. Don’t get me wrong, I did keep some shares (since I’m now trading with their money). When you get big gains like the one I just spoke about, you need to remember not to be greedy and SELL.
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*DISCLAIMER* At the time of this post Billy is long AGM and has no position in FSLR, BIOF and STP

Tags: Alternative energy, Buying penny stocks, Financials, Getting Started In The Stock Market, How to make fast money, Investments, NASDAQ, NYSE, Stock investments, Stock market for beginners, Stock trading

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Election Day And The Fate Of The Stock Market

I’ve been very busy today and that’s why this post is being done much later than I usually do. Between voting and listening to all the election news, it’s been been pretty hard to keep up with the stock market today. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been able to follow the major stories in regards to the markets and I’m surprised to see that it was a good day for the three indices.
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The DOW and NASDAQ were both up over 3%, while the S&P 500 is up 4%. Considering that it’s election day with a lot of issues about our economic future, it was a great day in the markets. Some of the sectors did much better than others. Health care doing the worse of all of them. Consumer staples also didn’t fair as well as I would have thought with the DOW gaining 305 points.
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Alternative energy stocks did very good today and that comes after a great bounce for the sector in the last 5 trading days. Let’s look at the leader in that sector, First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) which was trading at $107 a week ago, had a intraday high of $178.60. There was a major move for the entire sector during that same period. Speculation is that the sector was oversold and it took awhile for investors to start taking a stake in the sector again.
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According to the experts, an Obama win in the election has already been calculated into the markets. The only thing that may become a problem for the markets is if the Democrats take control over in the Senate as well as Congress. If that does happen I would imagine that the markets will move downward throughout the rest of the week.
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The oil and gas sector did the best today as in regards to the sectors. Overall the sector gained over 6.5% today. As for the price of a barrel of oil gained over $6 closing over $70.

Tags: Alternative energy, Economy, Stock Market, Stock market news, Stock trading, The Week Ahead

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