Skip to main content

Top 5 must-do activities for Traders and Investors

People love markets for many things but the foremost one would be that it holds the promise and hope of making your dreams come true. Investors from all walks of life are attracted to markets and investments. But it is unfortunate that most people make it big in market. Is it difficult? No, it can’t be that difficult. People in olden days did much better at investments than with complex strategies, economics or software. Some, even made their fortunes on back some simple percepts like "buy low sell high".

This is just an attempt at pointing out some of the aspects that we need to have as investors. This, of course, is not a complete list or even a correct list. These are just some pointers hoping investors can take can some guidance from them.


Top 5 things to do for investors and traders

1. Study the companies

Know the companies thoroughly. You don’t have to read the annual reports backwards but you need to be comfortable in explaining your decisions, if required, with ease. If you are having trouble in explaining your investment decision then perhaps it was a half-baked investment. Please do your homework before you place the order with your broker.

Even a non technical person can look into company from many perspectives to understand more about it. Knowing about the management, history, products, brands, company news and press releases, basic numbers like sales etc in itself builds a good foundation.

You can study further in detail about the competition, financial statements, prospects, risks and management perceptions, vision etc too without much technical or accounting knowledge.

You will get most of the information in the company websites, Google finance or Reuters.


2. Study the Industry

If you are buying a house, the first thing criteria and perhaps the most important is the locality. Similarly no matter where and how the company is placed, the industry it operates in has highest level of impact on its prospects and risks. Buying a good company in a bad sector may be like buying a great house in avalanche prone zone.

Investors need to be aware of the industry atleast to the basic extent. In the boom periods when the industry is recognized already by the market the outlook becomes top-down i.e. trying to find the companies in particular industry. When the markets are in doldrums and bearish mode, the names of good companies with qualities like cash flow, dividends etc are heard in conversations, the basic approach becomes bottom-up i.e. decide on the company and look at its ecosystem. There is not fixed way of doing something, but what ever studies is to be done is to be done sincerely and with care.


3. Peer Group comparisons

When you are deciding on buying some company, consider its peer group. Are you missing a better company among its peers? Or are the peers suffering from some affliction which this company too might be affected with? Just like the industries, the study of Peer group gives you lot more information on how companies operate or cope in various circumstances.

If you have data / resources to study the peer group in other countries then it would be great indicator on the risk and probabilities.


4. Portfolio Management & Money management

Portfolio management and money management are perhaps the single most important activity among all the five. Prima facie it does not appear to be of much importance. But if there is something that will have most direct influence on your portfolio it is how you decide to structure it and how much risks that you are willing to take.

The importance of money management cannot be understated enough. The quantum of allocation across various industries/sectors/ companies will decide how your portfolio behaves in good and bad times. It determines how much return it gives in best or worst estimates.

These two are the toughest tasks to master. And unfortunately there is no 'perfect one size fits all' strategy.


5. Entry and exit strategy

Investments are accompanied by risks. Immaterial of how much study has gone into the stock selection; risks are always inherent in an 'expectation'; as in expectation of the company's performance, or some particular event's happening or some scenario going in favor.

Therefore it is important that investors know when to walk out of the deal. Investors should always enter the deal with clear sight of what is bearable and beyond which they can’t bear the risk of one stock taking down their portfolio.

Exits are fortunately always for bad. Exits should also be made when a definite target or objective achieved or a planned event has run it full course or attributes of similar vein.

It is perhaps the easiest one to conceive but when the time matters, the hardest one to execute.

Comments

  1. Das kostenlose Webseite - zum Flirten, fuer Dating und um Freunde, Partner oder einfach nur nette Leute zu treffen. Kostenlos anmelden und Partner finden! Jede Bildanmeldung erhaelt zudem ein Geschenk.

    [url=http://www.time4love.ch] [img]http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/35/l_db5c0e0476cf480287402723ab12707b.jpg[/img]

    partnersuche
    be2
    partnervermittlung
    swissfriends

    [/url]

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi every person,

    I identified surff.blogspot.com after previous months and I'm very excited much to commence participating. I are basically lurking for the last month but figured I would be joining and sign up.

    I am from Spain so please forgave my speaking english[url=http://avbehindthescenes.info/].[/url][url=http://feedwaqua.info/].[/url][url=http://whatweknowdu.info/forum].[/url]

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cognitive rules of business presentations

In his recent book, Clear and to the Point, Kosslyn explained that the four rules of PowerPoint are: The Goldilocks Rule, The Rudolph Rule, The Rule of Four, and the Birds of a Feather Rule. Here's how they work. The Goldilocks Rule refers to presenting the "just right" amount of data. Never include more information than your audience needs in a visual image. As an example, Kosslyn showed two graphs of real estate prices over time. One included ten different numbers, one for each year. The other included two numbers: a peak price, and the current price. For the purposes of a presentation about today's prices relative to peak price, those numbers were the only ones necessary. The Rudolph Rule refers to simple ways you can make information stand out and guide your audience to important details -- the way Rudolph the reindeer's red nose stood out from the other reindeers' and led them. If you're presenting a piece of relevant data in a list, why not mak...

Monetary inflation, Spiritual devaluation

Its been sometime I have been trying to make some special people understand the evils of inflation. Inflation is an abstract subject most of us dont know about, let alone understand the technicalities amidst jargons. I have in my previous post have briefly touched the social part of inflation but never in a concentrated way. I understand what my friends mean when they say "tell me in layman’s language." It is not a heartening sign, that they avoid technicalities. But it could well be that knowing where they stand, their role and understanding the social changes in the light of inflation may motivate them to understand the term "inflation." This is just to highlight the brief points. First and the foremost, is there any link between inflation numbers and society. Yes. The relation is same as the relation between society and money. What is money? Money is an easy means of exchange. If I am selling my horses to a pig-farmer and I am not interested in taking pigs in ret...

Unprecedented External Demand Shock Underway

India’s export growth averaged 24.8% over the last three years, driven by strong global growth. However, over the last three months, export growth has decelerated sharply. While until recently the strong demand from emerging markets including Latin America, Emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa ensured that export growth remained healthy, over the last three months disruptions in the macro environment of these economies have been evident. Apart from weakening demand, exports have also been affected by the lack of availability of foreign trade credit and inventory liquidation. India’s exports declined by 12.1%Y in October 2008 compared with 10.4% in September and 26.9% in August. While we expect some improvement in the second half of 2009, exports are likely to be unusually weak over the next six months. We now expect exports to decline by 5.3%Y in 2009 compared with 12.7% in 2008 (estimated) and 23.1% in 2007 Excerpt source