Happy Fourth of July!

The Fourth of July is on Friday and the stock market will be closed to observe the national holiday.  The stock market this week has been very hot and many stocks saw substantial gains and let’s hope this continues to the end of Thursday.

The last month the stock market has been boring and gains have been flat but it seems that this week it has started back on track for a steady growth but we shall see if it continues over the next few weeks. Within this bull market don’t get over confident make sure that you still cut your losses quick and take your profits when acceptable.

People have been skeptical that the stock market can sustain the pace that it has over the last 3 years and believe that a re-correction or crash is imminent.  I believe that the economy recovery is steady the government/fed is attempting to keep the economy boosted.  Until the government to get caught up with all of the QE they have been doing this bull market should sustain itself.  Everyone should be careful in investing and watch for things that could affect your stock/ the stock market in general.  I hope that my blog has hopefully helped you learn these things.

The fundamentals are still always key to your trading successes and don’t veer too far away from them unless you are cretin about your position/the direction the stock is about to go.  Let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to cover.

Enjoy this article before you go.

Everyone have a happy and safe Independence Day!

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Saving is Difficult

I have realized that people have very hart time saving money.  The people I have met at my jobs and friends I have outside of work I like to get to know them financially.  I will have the financial talk with them ask them how much they are saving per pay check, what they contribute to their 401k, and I make them aware of the Employee Stock Purchase Plan that our work offers.  What I have notice from the three years that I have worked there is that the majority of people don’t save much money.

Money should be saved for emergencies, vacations, investments, and whatever else an individual might want.  I will make my co-workers aware if our conversation goes that direction as they just might not know of what benefits that our employer offers. 

I would like to take my time to go over a way that I have found to work for me for saving some money:

I have found that linking all of my accounts has been a wonderful way for me to control my funds.  I link my checking with my savings, then my checking to my stock trading account.  Whenever my paycheck get directly deposited into my checking I will automatically have it take out a designated amount that goes to my savings and trading account.  Once the funds are out of my checking I attempt to forget about it so that I don’t think about putting it back into my checking where I spend it.

Utilize other budget technologies that are available.  There are many online tools that banks and other sites offer.  These tools can track what you are spending your money on and you can take a look back on your spending and see what you can cutout to start saving instead.

The benefits that your employer offers can be a good idea to look into.  Employers will match up to 10% of what you put into your 401k per paycheck.  The match is much like free money, but you won’t see it until you are older but you will definitely need that money saved for retirement.

The other benefit that employers might offer is an employee stock purchase plan.  Employee Stock Purchase Plan the individual can take out a designated amount to take out of the paychecks and usually after 6 months of that account accumulating money they will purchase stock of your company at a discount for you.  With the discount you are already making money even if you decide to sell the stock immediately or you can hang on to them to hope to see growth in the account.

 Saving can be difficult and it takes a lot of discipline for someone be able to cut back on something and start saving for the future.  Money should be saved as people don’t know when an emergency might arise and that extra cash could be very important.

Check out these links below for saving tips:

23 Beginner Savings Tips
30 Tips for College Students
Saving for Single Parents

Dow Jones Hitting Record...But How Good is the Economy Honestly

The stock market has just hit record highs as of Tuesday and appears that it will continue to hit highs as the Dow Jones Industrial has set 23 record high closings this year alone.  The Dow Jones is nearing 17,000 is mind boggling for many people as some might not see the economy the way that the Dow is reflecting it.  The Dow Jones bottomed near 6,500 near the worst of the 2007 recession.

It wasn't long ago a huge market crash sent the stock market into a downward spiral that devastated almost everyone in the United States and almost everyone in the world was affected.  Housing prices were declining thus owners defaulting on mortgages intern foreclosure numbers skyrocketing.  Not only where people being affected by their home values declining rapidly but they were getting affected by the decline in the stock market. 

Not everyone owns stocks outright it can depend on wealth and investment knowledge of the individual some may prefer to keep their money in a safe spot that is liquid and not having to worry about loss of value.  Instead of people owning stock nearly every individual has a retirement fund, IRA, and a 401K.  During the 2007 recession people watched the values of their hard earned retirement go down the drain sometimes loosing 65% of what they once had.  Watching this happen in front of their eyes people nearing retirement where devastated. 

Thankfully for us we have endured what has been seen as the worse of the great recession and we can hope that the economy keeps turning.  Jobs have started to come back to the US slowly and I can hope that they can continue to come quickly so that when I graduate in May 2014 I will not have to be unemployed or under employed.

Wall Street Scam

I would like to invite everyone to checkout my page that talks about a stock market scam that has been has been around for some time but not many beginners know about it so I hope you check it out so that you don’t fall trap to the stock market scam and lose money.  It could be anyone that is doing this from wealth individual to 13 year old history has shown us that both are very capable of pulling this stock market scam off.  I hope my page is very informative to you.

Here is a quick summary of what the page is about but please head to the page and read a little but more it the promoted stock scam that happens more often than one might think.

Here is the link:  Promoted Stocks (A Big Problem)

The scam is the promoted stock or some call it the pump and dump.  Traders and investors have lost a lot of money while the people behind it are making millions in some cases.  The SEC has a difficult time tracking and regulating these scams so the often get away with them for a very long time until justice gets served.

Take the time and read the page so you can be educated and you can educate your families/friends that are also beginning in the stock market.

I want to thank everyone for coming to The Wall Stock Journal I hope that you are learning from what I have posed and as always comment or email me so we can be in contact an start the community of traders.


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Weekend Studies (Sneeze Page)

It is Friday and the stock markets, work week, and schools are coming to a close for the weekend.  This might be a perfect opportunity for you to do some studying and research in the stock market and review some of the pages that I have posted for you to checkout.

The links will redirect you to my older post some from this week and some previously.  I hope that you can get some of the information that you have been looking for and learned a bit along the way.  I have learned a lot since I have started this blog and I will continue to pass on the knowledge and insight that I have.

Below I have grouped my posts into like ones

The Stuff You Need to Know:

Getting Started Trading

Largest Publicly Traded Companies

Stock Market tips:

Tips For Investing In Stock (Check out the link)

60 Stock Tips For Investors

Stock Research:

Seeking Alpha a Very Useful Source

I hope you have enjoyed my blog so far and I will continue to post and continue on our journey to teaching you so you will know the ins and outs of the stock market.  I want everyone to be able to make money.

Next week we will keep build on what I have posted and I am hoping to add some more technical post in the very near future. 

Email me or comment on a link so I can keep a contact with my readers.

Have a safe weekend,

                The Wall Stock Journal

Tips For Investing In Stocks (Check out the link)

The stock market can be a very dangerous place to put your money if you don’t know what you are doing so I am going to continue supplement my information with that of others for the beginning traders because I know a lot of people who have fallen into many of the traps and have started trading before they were ready. 

I have found a post that gives some insight and more information. 

Click on link below to view:

Tips for Investing in Stocks

I encourage everyone to check out this link.  I agree with the most of what this author is stating.  I can’t give you enough tips for investing. 

The author clearly lays out many mistakes that many people make such as

 Number 7: “You can’t tell how expensive a sock is by looking only at its price.”  There is a misconception that the price of the stock reflects how well the company is doing.  This is false the stock price isn’t used to compare stocks there are other factors such as how many share are outstanding.  (Example:  Apple vs Google)  Apple just did a stock split as did Google.  Apple stock did a 7 to 1 split taking the stock from $600’s to the 90’s.  Google’s stock split was more complex as they added a new stock with a different dividend payout but the stock went from 1000’s to $500’s on a 2 to 1 split.  The shares of stock that you are holding would just multiply accordingly.

Number 10:  “It’s smarter to buy and hold good stocks than to engage in rapid-fire trading” A trader has trouble judging the market or the move of a stock on a day to day basis.  I would suggest that you purchase stock from healthy companies and hold them for a longer period of time. 

Check out the link and let me know if you have any questions and want me to elaborate on any of them for you.

Tips for Investing in Stocks 

The Wall Stock Journal

TD Ameritrade and ShareBuilder Reviews

In my two years of trading stock I have used two trading web-site.  I have used ShareBuilder and TD Ameritrade.  In this blog I will break down why I like these platforms for my trading.

ShareBuilder:

ShareBuilder offers a very easy to use site that is straight forward.  This user friendly site makes even the least tech savvy person look like they know what they are doing.  I would recommend this site for starting off and small account individuals.  The transaction fee on ShareBuilder for a trade is $6.99 with no monthly fees.

The thing I like the best about Share builder is that I can transfer funds to my account very easily.  It links my bank account and my ShareBuilder account so funding my account is about as simple as it gets.  If I need to take money out of my account is just as simple.  ShareBuilder has a good mobile application that you can use that is also very easy.

The research on ShareBuilder is just alright it’s easy to navigate but they don’t offer a lot of extra insight on the stocks.  ShareBuilder could improve that aspect of their sit but other than that I don’t have any complaints.

TD Ameritrade:

TD Ameritrade to me seems to be one of the best trading web-sites available at this time.  TD Ameritrade has a good website with lots of research tools offered.  Funding your account is fairly simple.  The transaction fee is $9.99 per trade with no monthly fee. 

My favorite feature is the trading platform that they have to offer.  It is called Think or Swim, you down load it to your computer similar to a program and it has so many tools that you can use to optimize your trading experience. 

TD Ameritrade offers a play money option on the Think or Swim platform.  This is a great tool for beginner traders and also someone attempting to figure out the Think or Swim platform as it can be intimidating at first.