From the category archives:

Brokers

  • Technical Analysis better than Fundamental Analysis?

    Fundamental analysis studies products, markets, management, earnings, market share (among other factors) of a company.  Fundamentals help investors spot undervalued opportunities. (…)

  • What is Technical Analysis?

    Technical analysis is a way to study investments only using prices.  By comparison, fundamental analysis is a way to study the value of an investment using practically everything else.  Prepared as charts, some forms of technical analysis use (or incorporate) trading volume and moving averages, rates of change, among other measures.  But the primary measure for technical analysis is price. (…)

  • What is Fundamental Analysis?

    There are two basic ways to analyze investment opportunities:

    Fundamental analysis, and
    Technical analysis. (…)

  • Big Changes Ahead for Oil?

    We saw a pretty significant signal recently from the oil sector.   A relative strength sell signal. (…)

  • Money Market Funds No Longer Insured?

    Taking Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers out of the commercial paper market is like taking the umpires off the field in a Little League game.

  • Protected: See A Chart in A Positive Trend

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

  • Point and Figure helps Manage the Risk

    Fundamental analysis will never tell you when to get out of an investment. Never.

  • Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google: good tools

    There's an old saying: People want to do business with folks they know, like and trust. Here is how to bridge that gap.

  • Analysts love it. So why is the stock going down?

    I look at the charts in your 401k plan continuously. If none of the charts are going up, here is our plan: we stay on the sidelines. Pretty simple.

  • Covered Call Writing: spotting a good candidate

    Probably the toughest part of covered call writing is finding the right idea.

  • NJ Bank returns TARP funds, is it a good investment?

    The Treasury Department said Friday that Sun Bancorp Inc. of Vineland, New Jersey, repaid $89.3 million, money it originally received on Jan. 9. They gave back the TARP money. Does that make it a good investment?

  • Getting help for your 401(k): the process

    How to get help with your 401k from Mullooly Asset Management. This process will also help you with your 457 deferred compensation plan — or your 403(b) annuity at work.

  • March 2009 Stock Market: What Could Go Wrong?

    The stock market has been posting gains the past few days. After two very tough months to start 2009, what could go wrong? Plenty, especially if you are focused on just the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

  • Auditors project deeper deficits for Obama budget

    Don't get hung up on the Dow Jones. The Dow Jones may not be a "relevant" yardstick for you to use. After all, it's only 30 stocks…and you might not own ANY of them.

  • Charles Schwab Advertisements are Great. Here's why…

    You're probably not aware of this, but in the financial services industry, firms and advisors are strictly prohibited from running testimonials of any sort.

  • Citigroup Considering Reverse Stock Split

    Many companies consider pulling a reverse stock split to avoid getting delisted. But many wind up taking that path eventually anyway. Can you imagine Citibank getting delisted from the New York Stock Exchange?

  • Jim Cramer: Exposed

    Someone is actually holding Jim Cramer responsible for some of the advice he has given, and also for the fact that CNBC has "morphed" into an entertainment channel.

  • Mark to Market Accounting: a basic analogy

    Banks (and brokerage firms) that own mortgage backed securities have been required — since November 2007 — to use mark to market accounting on these securities. Coincidentally, this was just around the time these mortgage securities started dropping precipitously in value. 2007 saw many mortgage firms get wiped out, and brokerage firms and banks holding these assets started realizing the volatility of these assets.

  • Mark-to-Market Hearings Today

    By re-inflating the value of many securities on hand at banks, this will automatically raise the capital ratios at these banks.

  • Tearing Apart the Headlines

    Did you know General Electric (GE) posted record revenues last quarter?  That has not really helped their stock, has it?   Remember always, price is the ultimate indicator, which is why I rely more and more on charts.  Fundamental analysts and company management can pontificate all day long about market share, earnings and revenues.  If the market doesn't like it, the stock is going down. (…)