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• Thursday, 29 July 2010

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• Stop-Loss Orders: An Effective Investment Safety Net - 29 October 2009

There are many investment tools designed to take some of the guess-work out of a potentially volatile way of earning money. But what about when you've made your decision with regard to the stock you want to invest in? Is there a way to make that particular stock safer? An invaluable stock market investment safety-net which is sometimes overlooked, is the 'stop-loss order'.

• Gather in the Stops: An Investment Strategy - 26 October 2009

While large numbers of stock market investors leave their portfolios in the hands of investment advisors while remaining passive with regard to stock market manipulation, these very investment advisors and active stock market players have a number of investment strategies they employ to manipulate the market, hopefully to their advantage. One of these strategies is to "gather in the stops", referring to stock market stop orders – an arrangement to buy or sell a stock when it hits a predetermined price.

• SEC Form 10-K: A Mine of Valuable Information - 22 October 2009

In the current economic climate, stock market investors need all the help they can get in making sound investment decisions. An invaluable decision making aid is the Form 10-K that public companies must submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) within 60 days of the end of the fiscal year. This document, which can run into more than 100 pages, provides a comprehensive summary of a company's performance during the past fiscal year. While companies are obliged to make their Form 10-Ks available to the public, the annual report issued to shareholders as standard practice seldom contains as much detail as the 10-K, making this official document much sought after by investors wanting to gain meaningful insight into a specific company's worth as an investment.

• Third Quarter Reporting Continues Driving the Market - 19 October 2009

As we head into the third week of October, reporting of third quarter results is set to start speeding up, with investors having great expectations spurred on by better than expected reports thus far. Of the 135 Standard & Poor's 500 companies due to report this week, some of the more high-profile include Apple on Monday, with Tuesday featuring Caterpillar, DuPont, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, United Tech and Yahoo. Wednesday sees reports from eBay and Wells Fargo, with Thursday's highlights including 3M, Merck, AT&T, Amazon and American Express and Friday featuring Microsoft. The S&P 500 has rallied close to 61 percent since hitting a 12-year low on March 9, while the Dow has rallied by nearly 53 percent, topping the key psychological level of 10,000 twice during last week.

• The Dow Breaks the 10,000 Barrier - 15 October 2009

Although many see it more as a psychological breakthrough for investors rather than a technical achievement, the fact that the Dow rose above the 10,000 point mark for the first time since October 3 last year had a buoyant ripple effect on stock markets in countries other than the United States, with Japan's benchmark Nikkei jumping by 1.8 percent. The advance on Wall Street was led by positive results from JP Morgan Chase, but was broad based with a total of 25 of the 30 Dow components increasing. These included Fortune 500 companies Caterpillar, Chevron, IBM, Hewlett Packard, United Technologies and Exxon Mobil.

• Investors Hopeful for Dow to Pass Five-Digit Mark - 12 October 2009

Friday saw stock market indicators closing at their highest level in a year as Alcoa kicked off the third quarter earnings season by reporting an unanticipated profit. Additional factors behind the surge in stocks included a rally by Intel and IBM as well as better-than-expected economic data which is seen as an indication that the US recession is coming to an end. The Dow Jones industrial average reached 9,864.94, being an increase of around 4 percent, at close of business on Friday, while Standard & Poor's 500 stock index closed at 1,071.49, an increase of 4.5 percent for the week, and the Nasdaq composite index ended the week at 2,139.28, being a gain of 3.99 percent for the week.

• Fundamental Analysis in Investing - 8 October 2009

A dictionary definition of the word "fundamental" describes it as "being an essential part of, a foundation or basis" and this is certainly true when it comes to fundamental analysis in investing. When the market is flourishing, even an uninformed investor has a good chance of making some money, but in today's economic climate, the more reliable information an investor has and understands, the more likely he is to reap some rewards. So what does fundamental analysis involve?

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