MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTING

John L Leibiska
MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTING

WHEN MUTUAL FUNDS ARE YOUR ONLY CHOICE I recently discussed the idea of diversifying within your 401(k) or other defined-contribution employer-sponsored retirement plan. In most of those plans, mutual funds are your only investment choices. Mutual funds were a good idea, for their time. They allowed small investors to have diversified portfolios. They offered professional management of the funds. That frees investors from having to do as much work to study their investment choices. There are now better choices, in the form of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), that do the job of mutual…

Start Investing Easily

John L Leibiska
Start Investing Easily

How to Start Investing Easily With Just $100 Investing your money into the stock market and bonds isn’t something you do later; it’s something you start doing as early on in your life as possible. Why? To give your money the most amount of time to work for you. You see, if you save $100 in your sock drawer, 30 years from now when you go to check on it, you will still only have $100. Conversely, if you invest $100 in a mutual fund, even if you never made…

Trading Charts: Periods

John L Leibiska
Trading Charts: Periods

TRADING CHARTS: COMMON CHARTING PERIODS There are four types of trading charts commonly used by investors: Monthly Charts Weekly Charts Daily Charts Intraday Charts The different chart types illustrate a few ways price movement is expressed over a period of time. Now we will reverse that and examine price movement over different periods of time. You will notice that your view of a particular market can change drastically only by switching to a different time horizon. Monthly Charts These are trading charts that illustrate the movement of price over a…

The Law of Demand

John L Leibiska
The Law of Demand

The law of demand and it’s application The law of demand and it’s application to fundamental analysis of commodities rests upon an understanding of consumer behavior. The factors which characterize consumer choice and how the market place reflects individual consumer responses are key components of this economic theory. Understanding what factors have affected demand in the past will help to develop expectations about demand in the future and its impact on market price. Demand for a particular product or service represents how much people are willing to purchase at various prices….

Gaps and Gap Analysis

John L Leibiska
Gaps and Gap Analysis

What are gaps and what do they mean? Have you ever wondered what causes gaps in price charts and what they mean? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Just in case, a gap is an area on a price chart in which there were no trades. Normally this occurs between the close of the market on one day and the next day’s open. Lot’s of things can cause this, such as an earnings report coming out after the stock market has closed for the day. If the earnings were…

Longtime Dividend Payers Trio

John L Leibiska
Longtime Dividend Payers Trio

This trio of longtime dividend payers is offering up tasty yields, but are they good deals? A dividend yield alone doesn’t tell you the full story. But when you see reliable longtime dividend-paying companies like ExxonMobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), Helmerich & Payne, Inc.(NYSE:HP) and Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) offering up yields near the high end of their historical yield ranges, it’s time to do a deep dive. The real question investors need to ask is: Are the big yields a real bargain? Pain in the oil patch The situations at Exxon and Helmerich both have the same root cause:…

Bulls, Bears and the Farm

John L Leibiska
Bulls, Bears and the Farm

Bulls, Bears and the Farm On Wall Street, the bulls and bears are in a constant struggle. If you haven’t heard of these terms already, you undoubtedly will as you begin to invest. The Bulls A bull market is when everything in the economy is great, people are finding jobs, gross domestic product (GDP) is growing, and stocks are rising. Things are just plain rosy! Picking stocks during a bull market is easier because everything is going up. Bull markets cannot last forever though, and sometimes they can lead to dangerous situations if stocks become overvalued. If a…

Professional Forex Trading Strategies

John L Leibiska
Professional Forex Trading Strategies

Nial Fuller’s Professional Forex Trading Strategies About Nial Fuller: I’ve been trading the markets for over 10 years now, and I have learned every lesson you can imagine along the way. Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that ‘simple is better’. This is the main point I try to convey to my students and it’s why I don’t use a ton of indicators or messy trading systems. My primary mission after becoming a successful trader has been to help other traders “see the light” of simple price action trading….

Trading Discipline Waste Of Time?

John L Leibiska
Trading Discipline Waste Of Time?

Is Trading Discipline a Waste Of Time? The greatest economist that ever lived was John Maynard Keynes. (All the Austrian School economists, indulge me for a minute). But besides saving capitalism and setting the foundation for our modern world, Keynes was a damn good trader. Here is how Keynes performed during the depth of the Great Depression managing the endowment of King College. He managed to increase it tenfold over a period of twenty years. As you can see, for a pointy headed academic, Keynes was a very skilled trader….

What Is An Option?

John L Leibiska
What Is An Option?

For Options Beginners, What Is An Option? You heard the hype on TV infomercials. You may have seen full page advertisements in the newspaper or received mail filled with get-rich-quick promises. All you have to do is pay a few thousand dollars and attend some seminars. Forget it. That’s not a sound method for learning about the advantages of using options. But, what is an option? Options allow an investor to reduce risk and provide an improved chance to profit from stock market investments. But first, it’s necessary to understand the basic…