Stock Index

• Chris1988

  9 Mar 08, 11:28

  anybody have any advice/tips to give on playing stocks?

  the things to look out for and all.

  i don't really know the basics of this but i hope to develop at least some knowledge on it.

  hope the fellow people from sgForums can help me with this

• xavier1979

  9 Mar 08, 11:52

  Visit those forums dedicated to stocks, but do your own homework before committing to any investment.

  For the basics, look no further than your local library. There should be a good selection of books that you can pick up and learn from.

• Paradise Lost

  9 Mar 08, 12:26

  Originally posted by Chris1988:

  anybody have any advice/tips to give on playing stocks?

  the things to look out for and all.

  i don't really know the basics of this but i hope to develop at least some knowledge on it.

  hope the fellow people from sgForums can help me with this

  In my opinion, there are many tips and advices related to stocks as they come from various professionals with contrasting outlooks. I'll just fire off some general advices since its the basics that you require before attaining more in-depth knowledge.

  1) Understand your motivation before buying a certain stock. Understand the difference behind buying a stock for its intrinsic value (the business fundamentals) or for speculation purposes.

  2) Set aside a fraction of your wealth for stock investing, not equivalent to your entire savings. I know this might sound oxy-moronic but in reality, there are lots of people out there staking their life savings in the stock markets.

  3) If your speculating, ALWAYS have a stop-loss strategy. (Take it from me as I myself suffered from this fundamental error once). If your investing for its value, don't let irrational panic force your hand.

  4) For intrinsic valuation, understand the "tools of the trade", i.e. P/E ratios, Book-to-market ratio, Divident Policy, Macro-economic conditions pertaining to the industry, Mosaic theory etc.

  5) For non-intrinsic valuation, understand what technical analysis is about, i.e. Candlestick, double-bottoms, stochastic variables, psychological barrier etc.

  6) Read the news everyday, form your own opinions but don't get overly-consumed on rumours (even though they might have a huge impact on the market psychology regardless of it being right or wrong).

  Well, these are some of the general advices I can think of from the top of head. No doubt theres more but nonetheless, hopefully these would spark your interest in the stock markets and prompt you to read up more and increase your knowledge.

   

• whiskers

  12 May 08, 18:35

  Well as starters start to trade on paper first.... get the hang of it.... ask questions.... and stock market is like fishing, you have to be patient, you have to wait to the right time to strike, dun be too anxxious to get into the market.

  well if u are those that have no time to monitor the market, then just invest on blue blue chops, eg singtel. and let it sit for years to come