Watching those numbers roll by on the bottom of your television screen throughout a news channel like Channel NewsAsia or CNN might not make any sense to you. Probably, all you know is green arrows mean up, while red arrows mean down. You will even notice familiar corporates appearing on the bottom screen such as CapitaLand, BreadTalk and Singpost.
These figures are essential to many individuals who are investors, traders or stock brokers because they make their fortune through stocks. Most of the time, they will view the stock exchange to see how well their financial portfolio is doing.
Before you started trading or investing your hard earned money into the stock market, you first need to understand what stocks are. Stocks are a general term used to describe the ownership certificates of any company. Shares, on the other hand, refer to owning certificate of a particular company.
Today, there are lots of stock market exchanges around the world. Every day, investors, traders and stock brokers buy and sell shares of listed companies. With this reason, that is why the ticker turns green when goes up and red goes down.
Introducing Stock Market Exchanges And Indices
Dow Jones Industrial Average, also called DJIA, is the oldest and popular stock market index. A stock market index is a mathematical average over the performance of some listed companies. For DJIA, it tracks the performance of 30 listed firms including General Electric, IBM and Goldman Sachs.
The NASDAQ is a United States based stock market exchange. It is the world’s second largest stock exchange with over 3,000 listed companies. You can find stocks of Apple Inc., Microsoft, Facebook Inc. and Intel Corporation in NASDAQ. NASDAQ is also a stock market index known as NASDAQ Composite Index.
In Singapore, the Singapore Exchange Limited, or SGX, is an investment company which allows traders, stock brokers and investors to buy and sell securities. The index for Singapore is known as Straits Times Index (STI) which it tracks the performance of top 30 companies listed on SGX. Examples of such enterprises, or components, are Genting Singapore, DBS Group, Singapore Press Holdings and SIA Engineering Company.
Who Are Stock Brokers?
The individuals who manage the buying and selling are called stock brokers. Their job is to help their clients to place trades. This job is both rewarding and stressful at the same time.
Stock brokers can make a financially rewarding income and understand the stock market can be a substantial advantage for them. Paid on commission, stock brokers need to invest in shares that will ultimately turn a profit. It can be stressful because stock brokers will need to manage their client’s portfolio, making sure their investments and trades are profitable.
For individuals, trading or investing in the stock market requires research and good self-risk management. It is important for people to speak to stock brokers or even attend courses by reputable schools to understand the financial markets better.
Where Can I Learn About Trading In The Financial Market?
If you are interested in trading or investing, I would recommend the Online Trading Academy Singapore (OTA) which I have attended on July this year. The Online Trading Academy started their way back in 1997 in the United States where 180 traders from OTA traded half a billion dollars daily.
In 2011, OTA focuses on financial trading education. Today, OTA has a community of over 200,000 investors and professional traders. The school covers a wide spectrum of trading methodologies and asset classes such as Swing Trading, Short Term Trading, Options, Futures and Currencies.
During my trading workshop with my instructor Aaron Yeo, I have learnt about the importance of supply and demand. Through the candlesticks chart pattern, I can clearly identify the signals where banks and institutions started putting their cash into the market.
Despite I have picked up this simple trading technique, it is important to manage my risk-to-reward ratio well to prevent huge losses. If you are keen to learn to trade using just candlesticks instead of lagging indicators, you can register yourself HERE.
Feel free to use my promo code: LemonFilm and pay only $59 (U.P $199 excluding GST). My promo code will valid until Dec 2017. Have fun learning!
Address of my training
Online Trading Academy Singapore
Aperia Mall, #03-09
12 Kallang Avenue
Singapore 339511
