Bull Markets and Bear Markets

If you are new to stock market investing, two terms you will hear thrown around a lot are “bull market’ and “bear market”. What do these terms mean and what does investing have to do with bulls and bears?A bull market is when most people feel positive about the stock market and want to buy stocks. It is during long bull markets that the stock market keeps going up and up. A bear market is the opposite and is when the stock market keeps going down no matter what. It is during these times that people lose sleep and continually wonder whether they should be selling their stocks.During a bull market, you can probably make money from almost any stock.

make money from almost any stock. Everyone will want to give you their stock pick and chances are the stock will go up. All the pundits on TV will be pumping out their stock picks and you can most likely make money on any of them. Even your hair stylist may want to give you a stock tip.If you start investing in stocks during a bull market you may get over confident. You may make money right away and think it is easy. This is something to be weary about if you are just starting to invest in stocks. It is not easy and things can turn around in a day.During a bull market, everyone wants to sell. The stocks you own may go down 4 out of every 5 days. You will be confused and want to sell and wonder whether you should. Remember 9/11 when the stock market went down huge and kept going down for months after? Do you sell or do you hold? Will the stock market ever turn around?

Do you buy more at a lower price?

These are just a few of the questions that you will be faced with in a bear market. It is easy to invest in good times when everything is going up. The bear market times, on the other hand, are what seperates the pros from the amateurs. It is what you do during the down times that can make or break your investing year. Most of the time the market is somewhere in between a bull and bear market. Usually the better stocks go up over time and the stocks of companies doing poorly go down. It is best to always try to pick stocks of companies that are doing well or will do well. Of course that is a skill that not too many posess. The stock market can be a confusing and scary place for beginners that takes a lot of time and experience to get used to.

Hot Stocks to Invest in 2009

The stock market should present you with a wide variety of NEW hot stocks in 2009. Many of them are going to be new technology stocks that come from the nanotech, biotech, financial, energy, healthcare & communications sectors.
Most of them might seem promising, but the truth is that a good number of these trading & investing opportunities could be extremely risky, while others are simply not as good as they look. That’s why it’s very important to know how to choose among the best especially if you want to day trade them. 
When you know how to pick and approach the best hot stock trading opportunities, you are able to generate a consistent and respectable amount of money in a very short period of time.

Experienced day traders recognize that trading hot stocks on momentum can be the fastest way to make money in the stock market, especially on uncertain times like these.
You don’t necessarily have to trade momentum hot stocks all the time. But you can learn how to take advantage of them when you encounter the best opportunities for going long or for shorting them to make money when they are poised to fall down.
If You decide to day trade stocks just keep always in mind that for a trader to survive and be consistently profitable, its necessary to keep things as simple as possible.

Investing – Assessing The Risks

Each of the many different categories of investing that you can choose from have their own risks! As such they will suit different people with different requirements. This article looks primarily at the risks of the main different types, without delving into technical analysis or professional opinion.
Categories And Their Risks
A: Investing Money In The Bank – Risk Low
Barring major economic melt-downs there is little risk with this approach. However the returns are poor to pathetic and this is not really a serious investment strategy
B: Investing in Managed Funds – Risk Low To Medium (conditional)
These funds are perhaps considered amongst the safest of investments. But this doesn’t mean you can never lose money with managed funds, but generally because the funds are pooled together with those of other investors, there is a significant amount of buying power.
In addition, professionally managed funds have the benefit of providing access to an aggregated investment portfolio that offers numerous investing opportunities that individual investors would not normally be able to access. 
Managed funds allow investors the ability to pick their preferred risk portfolio, diversify and spread their risk, and access international markets. As well, managed funds afford a level of convenience not found with more complex and hands-on investment vehicles.

C. Trading the Stock Market Yourself
You can either trade online or through a registered stock trader. The benefits and gains can be excellent, but the risks are self-evident. Unless you really know what you’re doing, you can lose a substantial amount of money, particularly if you’re using margin lending.
The best advice is to make sure you have a very comprehensive level of knowledge and try out your skills with some dummy trades before you put your money on the line.
D.Currency and Foreign Exchange (Forex) investing.
Similarly to stock market trading, significant amounts of knowledge and experience is needed in this area of investing to avoid substantial risk, but many people produce large monthly incomes working from home using this approach.

Understanding Forex Statistics

Once you become somewhat familiar with how the forex market works, and you understand to a point what is involved in trading on the Foreign Exchange Market, you would want to start to gauge market trends in order to profit from your business ventures on the open market.The name of the game is statistics, and the first rule is that you must be aware there is no such thing as a sure thing on the forex market. While you can never be 100% sure at any given time of the next move that will be made on the market as a whole, being able to read statistics and interpret them will place you ahead of the pack in regards to “guessing” what will happen next.Forex trading is a lot like gambling. If you can keep track of the cards that have already been played, you are more informed, statistically, regarding what is likely to be dealt next, meaning you can place a bet with greater insight than someone who has no clue what has already been played. With the forex market, if you have information as to what has already occurred over the past few days, months, or even years, you are again placed in a better position to more logically conclude what will happen next. You simply learn the pattern and follow it to the end, reaping the financial rewards.Charts And ChartistsWait, did you think you were going to have to research and map out the market’s past all by yourself? Of course not! There are people who get paid to do that sort of work. They monitor the market hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly so that they can provide big-time traders with the same knowledge mentioned before. The more a trading company knows about the market, the more money they can make.The best part of this is that you have access to the same information as these VIP clients.

Chartists, who are essentially market analysts that publish their findings in easy to read charts, produce what is referred to as a candlestick charts. These charts are basically a combination of a line graph and a bar graph that show the trend of various stocks, indexes, or other interests over a specified period of time. Therefore, you can easily determine if the currency is on an uptrend or if it is taking a downturn, when the last major change occurred, and how long it is predicted that the currency pair will continue on the current path.If your broker does not supply you with these charts, then you should easily be able to draw them yourself with the modern day charting software or trading platform that you get from your broker. These software platforms can draw most charts for you by entering a couple of parameters and viewing the result.It is recommended however that you learn at least the basics of charting and statistics before you start trading live.