Constructing an All-Weather Mutual Fund Portfolio

Equity mutual funds perform differently in different time periods as investment styles and sectors come in and go out of favor. While screening tools readily provide performance data and make the task of identifying top mutual funds relatively easy, there is more to constructing an all-weather portfolio than screening for the top funds.

Understanding Mutual Funds: Part I

What is a mutual fund? How do they work? How do you choose the best one? This article is the first in a series that will concentrate on what a mutual fund is and the basic types there are to choose from. The following articles will assist you in understanding how they work so you are armed with the knowledge to ask the right questions and make the right decisions.

Is the Sun Shining for Sun Microsystems?

If you invested in the technology sector during the late 1990s, you probably became very encouraged from the amazing capital gains you earned during this time period. Sun Microsystems (SUNW) is no exclusion this system, reaching record highs in of 80.00 in 2001. However, like most of the rest of the technology sector, Sun experienced losses hurting every investor still stuck with the overbought equity. However, five years later as the dust has settled, does Sun pose itself to be a reasonable investment?

Trading Options - What Are The Basics?

Many people are turning to the stock exchange to make some extra money on their savings, or to even replace their normal income. Options are another tool you can use to trade on the stock exchange, and can be used for normal stocks, futures and indices. If you spend some time learning about how trading options works, it's possible to make consistent, good returns on your money.

What You Need To Know When Trading Derivatives And Futures

The Derivatives and Futures Market is the most potentially profitable market in the world. But it can be the most distructive one too!

The Advantages of Options Trading

Do you think Options are Risky? Did you know that Trading Options is actually less risky than just trading a stock by itself...that's right!!! Many investors are missing out on extra money every month because they are not fully utilizing the power of Options Trading.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

IMF was created to faster economic growth and to decrease the unemployment level in different countries. IMF’s purpose is to provide the financial assistance to developing countries that seek it. There are economic policies that enable this initiative. IMF was created in 1944 along with World Bank and it provides aid to countries to pay back the already outstanding debts that the country has. However, countries often can’t pay back the debt to IMF itself and are forced to borrowing more money from the Fund.

Successful Options Trading Strategies

When it comes to giving people the hope of becoming a millionaire overnight, the stock market excels. Every day we see evidence of stocks that have flown upwards as if they had wings, providing investors with a windfall of profits. It's inevitable that catching one of those stocks just before it takes off is an exciting possibility, inspiring the beginning trader to take the plunge.

Online Discount Stock Brokers

The online discount stock brokers can also be divided into three groups. The first one is the classic discount broker which offers extremely cheap order execution through a simple and easy to use software platform. The second type of discount broker offers additional services upon request, for instance phone orders at extra costs or access to research information. The third type of online discount broker targets professional private or institutional traders who need advanced order execution and direct access to different markets and order routing ways.

What Is The Single Most Important Reason A Stock Moves Higher?

Supply and demand causes individual stocks to move higher or lower in the long haul. But daily events are dominated by overall sector and market health. Remember this and it will help you enter trades at a much nicer price!

Why Do People Trade Options?

If you've been looking at different ways of making money from the stock market, than at some point you'll come across the idea of options. Many people trade options successfully, and it can be a great way to increase your returns once you have some experience in the stock market. But let's look a little more closely at why people find trading options so profitable.

Alcoa: A Buy or Sell?

With the big aluminum giant ready to report earnings on the 10th of October, Alcoa (AA) hopes to bring favorable numbers to a company that should indicate how the Dow Jones should be behaving and whether the recent rally is true or not. The problem concerning Alcoa however is how the futures market has been reacting over the previous month or so. Possibly, the commodity of aluminum is not affected as other future trading products such as oil or natural gas, but nonetheless aluminum over the past six months has been falling relative to its high prices a few months ago.

Markets: Rotation and Relationships

Relationship between stock, bond, and commodity markets.

Penny Stocks Basics

What makes penny stocks so interesting for some investors? Penny stocks trading includes high risks but can be extremely rewarding. Penny stocks can move several hundred percent within days. But there also disadvantages.