"Pitfalls Of Internet Trading"

The Vast Internet Trading Market

"Pitfalls Of Internet Trading" The internet has brought the speed, power, and wealth of possibilities of internet trading right into our living rooms. The online trading craze has brought the power of day trading to a whole new level and never before has so much access and opportunity been possible.

The trend caught on like wildfire and spread throughout fledgling internet communities and grew into a basic of acceptable trading strategy within a few short years. The protocol for day trading had changed, and while there was a small percentage of die hard brokerage buyers, most people grew to love the advancements. They loved the advancements so much that a lot of people never slowed down to discover the pitfalls of internet trading until after they had lost large sums of money.

Internet trading had developed wealth for some people in a very short amount of time while for others who leaped before looking it proved to be their greatest downfall. Just like everything else in history, should you choose to not learn from it then you are condemned to repeat it. Learning the "pitfalls of internet trading" from the mistake of others is like paying attention in history class.

Fast Trades "Pitfalls Of Internet Trading"

The internet has brought about an era of lightening fast trades. The speed of which trades can be executed is actually misleading. Some people believe that because the speed of executed trades has dramatically increased that there is a magical formula that means your mouse cursor now has the power to buy and sell stocks on an immediate basis. This is not an accurate overview of the speed of executed trades.

Your mouse clicks to an order that is still connected to a broker. The speed of executed trades hasn’t really increased, it’s the speed in which we communicate with brokers that has increased. The broker receives you order immediately and then he runs about doing his job which is finding you the absolute best price for your order in the shortest amount of time possible. There is still time for the market to fluctuate during this time, sometimes even drastically depending on what you’re trading.

To help prevent error related to the speed of executed trades, it is recommended that you use a limit order to protect yourself from loss while your broker is running about doing his job. A limit order limits the cost that your broker is permitted to buy your stock so that any fluctuations on the market can not compensate for your original decision.

Low Commissions "Pitfalls Of Internet Trading"

The internet revolution has also changed how much we compensate our brokers. We have ultimately made their jobs easier and thus an internet broker can expect his commissions to decline. At the same time he is capable of executing more trades on his clients’ behalf so he has the opportunity to make more money than before.

What some people fail to realize is that there is still a commission. Since you are still requesting a broker fulfill your needs he still gets his share. The low commission structure of online brokering does contribute to the benefits of online trading, but beware when choosing a broker that the low commission structure doesn’t interfere with the broker’s ability to provide a good service for you.

Not all brokers were happy with the notion of a lowered commission structure for online trades. Just like anyone else trying to make a living, brokers are busy chasing the big fish and often leave the little fish hanging out to dry. While it is human nature to attempt to earn the most money possible for your time, the lower commission structure of internet trading has led to poorer service for the small investor in some firms.

Other firms however, seem to understand there is great potential for remarkable profits even with the lower commission structure. Where else can you pause once an hour, gather up several small investor trades, spend ten minutes executing the trades and then return to the larger investors’ needs. These small commissions can add thousand of dollars to a weekly commission check.

Specialty Brokers "Pitfalls Of Internet Trading"

Once upon a time, a brokerage firm could choose its specialty and sometimes even land higher commissions based on their trading specialty. Online trading has led to remarkable competition among firms and no longer do day traders really utilize a specialty. Most investors are looking for the convenience of executing all their trades with one broker instead of carrying different accounts with various brokers for various trades.

Now there are numerous commodities brokers executing forex trades and forex traders who are trying to trade penny stocks. In the beginning of the internet revolution of online trading, specialty brokers who were trading in everything without being properly equipped were costing their clients quite a bit of money. Over the years training has become much more intensive and most brokers are no longer interested in carrying a specialty. Use caution when finding an internet broker. While a specialty broker may very well come in handy if the only thing you are interested in trading are penny stocks, however over time most investors want at least a little diversity in their portfolio.

Specialty brokers still have their place among internet trading. They can be a wonderful asset to a company who want their clients’ special needs addressed by an expert. Most trading firms do not restrict their specialty brokers to just their specialty.
There are a few firms who carry only specialty brokers. In these firms, the specialty brokers are restricted to their specialty and any orders that come in are divided up among the specialty brokers in order to maximize their talents. This idea is quite effective although these firms lose time in their rate of execution.

Brokerage Firms "Pitfalls Of Internet Trading"

Choosing a brokerage firm does not have to be an insurmountable achievement. A little bit of homework can determine whether an online brokerage firm can handle your needs. Asking a few basic questions can go a long way in determining whether an online brokerage firm is what you are looking for.

We already covered the pros and cons of specialty brokers. Understanding your own financial goals will help to determine whether you are interested in trading with a specialty broker or not. If the only stock that interests you is commodities then you may want to choose a specialty broker. If you want something more diversified then you probably want to go with a firm that requires a more rounded education from their brokers.

When comparing commission rates remember that the lowest is not always the best. While there is something to be said for you get what you pay for, find out what it is you are getting when you are paying. Are the commissions flat rates or are they based on the size of your trade? A struggling firm may suddenly have a commission “sale” and drop their commissions to nothing for a period of time. Use your own discretion before deciding this is a good opportunity. Look at their trading history. Is this just a promotion to get them over a hump or have they been continuously struggling?

Read the fine print when it comes to the firm’s policy on executing enter and cancel orders. A bad policy is bound to cost you money. Read the fine print on the firm’s policies on broker mistakes, web site crashes, and of course, margin accounts.

How accurate is the information you are receiving either via e-mail or ticker bar? Are the stocks quotes in real time or do they have a delay? Does the broker send blanket e-mail notifications (most do) or are they tailored to the type of investments you are interested in?

The basic answers to these questions can determine whether a firm is right for you. Remember that you will most likely never talk to an actual person so all of this information should be readily available right on the website. Online trading does not offer the personal touch of a traditional brokerage firm. Don’t expect phone calls from your broker to discuss your portfolio. If you are uncomfortable being a faceless number instead of a unique investor, online trading is not something you are likely to be satisfied with.

Online trading has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. Most people who transition from a tradition broker to the convenience and speed of online trading are quite happy with the principle even if they find themselves dissatisfied with the firm. You can eliminate the disappointing firm experience by doing your share of due diligence before proceeding.

If you are still hunting more in depth information regarding online trading I recommend the website for unbiased reporting on online investing. www. Onlinetradingideas.com provides accurate and unsolicited information regarding online trading and navigating the world of online finance. The website is dedicated to educating the beginning and average investor in order to create personal success and financial health. Onlinetradingideas is a valuable resource in your journey towards personal investing independence. Be aware of the "Pitfalls Of Internet Trading"and avoide them if you can AT ANY COST.

Stock Trading 101

Looking for Basic Resources

I do not consider myself to be an incompetent individual. However when it comes to the stock market and trading stocks I have always known that I am in way over my head swimming in a sea that I just don’t belong. I have dabbled in stock trading from time to time, but I certainly never really got it right.

After a great deal of frustration I finally sat down at my trusty computer and hit the internet looking for information to bring me to the basics of stock trading. What I found rocked my world and completely opened my eyes. I landed on www.onlinetradingideas.com website and had instant access to all the stock trading information I could ever handle. The best part about the website was that it was written by unbiased authors and the informative stock articles were hand selected by the webmaster. Thus, I was not amidst a frenzy of advertising that meant nothing to me. I could focus immediately on learning the secrets to day trading.

Anyone who wants to understand the mysterious secrets behind day trading seriously need to go and check out the site. You don’t have to pay to read, you simply click the article you want and get busy learning everything you can.

Simple Strategy for Day Trading

One of the first thing I ran across was a very informative article on coming up with your basic strategy for day trading. They took me way beyond the basic knowledge of buy low and sell high. I had no day trading strategy. I just figured you picked a stock you were familiar with and hoped it did well and sold it when you thought it really couldn’t do much better. Turns out my lame strategy for day trading would have ended up costing me a lot of money.

After I set up my basic strategy and felt I had a firmer grasp on how the stock market really worked, I continued on with my education. I went on to learn about momentum trading. I figured just from the word I could figure out what that meant. Turns out I was about half right, and that momentum trading is a hot and fast way to find yourself in profit. It’s definitely effective and there is quite a bit to learn about momentum trading. Luckily, the articles and resources were informative enough to really get me going with enough understanding and confidence put a little money where my mouth is. Day trading here I come.

Understanding what stocks to look for and how to take advantage of them in momentum trading takes a little trial and error, but very little. It is laid out for you step by step and you can find answers to your questions before they even cross your brain. After reading the materials provided on picking stocks and putting them to practical use, I could see where I had been making huge errors in the past. It was liberating to make a few solid choices and run with them. I felt like a stock market whiz.

Basic Understanding: When to Trade

Now I’m feeling like a pro. I understand my very basics of stock strategy and even how to pick better stocks. The wind is my back and I have visions of quitting my day job and sitting in front of the computer all day long and just trading stocks. My significant other kindly pointed out that a person has to do something for more than a week to be a professional, and I reasoned myself back down to realistic expectations and hit the website for more juicy nuggets of knowledge.

I am now perusing the topics and I remembered seeing a section on when to trade earlier in the week so I hop on that and start absorbing. Again the basic principle of buy low and sell high still applies but there was so much more to it than that. I learned about when to hold an overnight trading position if I believed there was a possible gap and how to position myself for success by locking in my profits and taking advantage of momentum trading. The information on timing your trades was so valuable that I read it until I had it memorized.

I was now tuned to look for opportunities and carry my day trading to the next level. In fact I even found something called Level 2 day trading! I was so excited. As I picked apart the after hours tactics and settled in for an hour of learning I checked in my stocks and realized that for the first time ever I had made a profit in the stock market!

After I stood up and did my little happy dance I wanted to know what my next step was supposed to be. I had found profit in the stock market and couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to pocket it or use it toward more profits. A mouse click later and I was into the pages dealing with making the most of short stock opportunities.

Short stock opportunities appealed to me. I am not a patient person and the faster I can get something done the more often I do my happy dance. Short stock opportunities seemed like they were tailored exactly to my personality. For the next few weeks I focused hard on short stock opportunities and then once again tried to convince my better half that I was now a professional. The voice of reason and logic came barreling through again and I was quick to realize that while I learning to trade stocks effectively there was also a never ending sea of information out there all gathered into one website that I could very well never learn it all. And that was a good thing.

As much as I was pining to call myself a professional day trader, I never wanted to stop learning. The more I could learn about day trading the more confident I was and the higher quality decision were leaving my fingertips and running off through cyberspace. The high quality decisions I was learning to make were impacting our financial world quite healthily, and I was happy to keep going back to the website to learn more.

Day Trading is Not a Perfect Road

I was certainly doing my happy dance regularly, but let’s be realistic for a moment. Not every decision I made was perfect and there were a few instances where I lost a few bucks. The happy dance remained because I was still able to make quality decisions in the face of having made a poor one. And the truth be known, I made very few poor ones because the information provided on day trading was solid and reliable.

There are some basics, like learning which stocks to avoid and learning when the good trends are about to crumble that take more time and experience to learn. Sometimes you just have to go out there and make a mistake. Luckily for me I wasn’t making terribly costly mistakes. They could have been had I attempted the same trades without all the valuable knowledge I was gaining at “onlinetradingideas”. This website literally gave me the power to make my own financial decisions and become a much more self sufficient day trader.

The most helpful section I read was learning to trade without making it a full time job. Although I was having fun, nobody wants to spend their entire life in front of a computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I wanted the small milestones of success, but I also wanted a life. I wanted bigger milestones of success, and I wanted to keep my life. I spent a good amount of time perusing other websites looking for stock trading information. There were other sites out there that had adequate information, but they all basically had me sitting in front of my computer all day every day in order to place my tickets and get my stocks in order. I still had a day job for crying out loud.

I soon realized that no other website was going to introduce me to success as quickly or reasonably as www.onlinetradingideas.com. Here I had the opportunity to pull ahead of the pack utilizing my two favorite methods of momentum trading and short stock opportunities.

One single website provided me with the information that I needed to learn how to efficiently and effectively trade stocks, keep my day job, pull ahead, and learn from the pros. I’m still working toward calling myself a professional day trader and I think I might get the title for my birthday. The articles have introduced me to phenomenal, life changing information, and there are ample links to more information right on the web pages themselves. There’s no monopoly of information, just a genuine desire to teach people like me how to break ahead in the stock market.

High Yield Investing

What does High Yield Really Mean?

High yield investing has taken on a totally new dimension since the introduction of the internet and the basic personal computer. In the United States, a high yield account is considered to be anything over 5% monthly. Of curse as the old adage goes, the higher the yield the larger the risk. This is true. You can not expect to earn more than an average percentage rate with less risk. It just doesn’t make sense.

When discussing high yield interest accounts, are we talking about a savings account that produces a 5.4% annual percentage return? Well, yes. And no. It depends on who you are and what you consider to be possibilities and realistic.

By now most of us have heard about investment programs that claim to be able to produce ridiculously high returns. Traditional investors cringes when they hear terms like 25% per month for one year plus the return of principle, and they nearly quiver when they hear claims of 300% in eight weeks. Certainly these high yield investment programs must be scams. How can it be possible to produce such returns in such a short amount of time? And why isn’t everyone out there doing this if it can really happen? If these high yield investments hold any water then in just five short years we could wipe out poverty and homelessness and no child would ever go to bed hungry or sick again!

Are High Yield Investments Scams?

Believe it or not this question is not a simple yes or no response. It can’t be. The short and safe answer would be yes, they are scams. However, it is important to understand what they are and why they have not all been shut down by the government if they are nothing more than a way to steal your money.

High yield investment programs are not a place to try to earn an income. They are extremely volatile and unpredictable. People can and do make money from them, and sometimes it’s a significant amount of money. But don’t get excited and start rushing out to re-mortgage your house just yet.

Read every single disclaimer on a high yield investment program website and they will all say the exact same thing. High yield investing comes with the risk of losing money. Never invest more than you can stand to lose. Why? Because every high yield investment program will eventually crumble and those with money invested are going to lose.

High yield investment programs are based on principles similar to gambling. While most of do not, there are people in the world who make their living traveling around to casinos and gambling. Is it a scam? No. In fact most of us at least respect the fact that the individual is competent enough at playing casino games that they can earn a living at it regardless of how we feel about gambling ourselves. The same applies to earning a living from high yield investment programs. Most investors do not even consider them real investments and scoff at those who attempt to earn a living through high yield investing.

Most people who are able to fund their lifestyle and earn a living through high yield investment programs started in using one of two methods. They either jumped in with both feet at the first program that sounded good to them and lost everything they invested or they researched high yield investment programs until their fingers went numb before ever investing a dime. Either way, both parties came to the conclusion that to come out ahead in high yield investments programs they would have to do ample research and completely understand the system and principles before they were going to succeed.

Earning a living through high yield investment programs takes a system that is easy to implement and follow to prevent early closing and hefty losses. This system takes a lot of due diligence and of course, some very specialized knowledge about forex trading and even gambling.

Reading the website’s method of investment can tell the average high yield investor a lot about the security, or lack thereof, for any particular program. Most will admit to trading in forex, which any average investor can do with a little knowledge and research. Some will tell you that they are trading in commodities as well and some admit that they are also gambling with the investors’ money, literally. Any website that says they are gambling using fool proof methods of winning should absolutely be avoided at all costs. There is no fool proof method of gambling.

High yield investing is probably something to be avoided altogether, although that is an individual choice only an individual investor can make. However, if you choose to get involved with a high yield investment program and you loose your money, that was your choice as well. Just like it is possible to loose money in the stock market, you are likely to loose money in high yield investments. An investor that looses money in the stock market doesn’t typically file a lawsuit against the broker, so why are people so quick to file lawsuits and complaints when they loose money in high yield investment programs?

The answer is unpleasant but for the most part it is true. Greed. We can accept that there are poor investments out there and should we loose three or four thousand dollars in a bad investment we accept it as part of the potential outcome of investing. Yet because we got excited and our minds started spending the money we were hoping to see through a high yield investment now suddenly the people who run these programs are thieves. High yield investments are investments even if they do border on scams and you run the risk of losing your money. Remember the basic principle of any investment? The higher the return the more likely you are to lose your money.

High yield investments are incredibly risky and some of them are actually scams. Scam artists are everywhere and if there are people in the world who are willing to fork over thousands of dollars in the unrealistic hope that they can turn it into ten of thousands of dollars in a relatively short period of time then there will be people who are willing to steal that money from potential investors.

People are willing to donate their money to any valuable cause, so there are people who are willing to set up phony charities to steal donations from giving people. That certainly doesn’t make every charity a scam and people aren’t going to stop donating to charities of their choice. Just as there are individuals who will take advantage of people’s kindness and desire to give to charities, there are individuals who are interested in scamming money from people who are trying to improve their financial portfolio through high yield investment programs. That doesn’t mean every single high yield investment program is a scam.

The one thing all high yield investment programs do have in common is that sooner or later they will all fold, even those that start out being profitable. Just because a high yield investment program starts off producing the returns that it proposed in the beginning doesn’t mean that it will continue to do so over a long period of time. This is how the high yield investor gets dramatically burned. One or two programs that delivers for a period of time doesn’t mean it’s time to quit the job and devote all the available resources to high yield investing. It means that one or two programs are doing well. They will not do well forever and sooner or later they will crumble. That is the nature of high yield investing.

High Yield versus Conservative Investing

Which investment strategy is right for you? Only an individual investor can answer that question for their own interests. Some people can tolerate the significant risk factors while others prefer the stability of the more conservative and conventional methods of investing. Some people are more willing to take a gamble than others, and by all means high yield investing is a form of gambling.

There are dramatically fewer scams in conventional investing. Some people will always believe that high yield investing is a scam and there is nothing that will convince them otherwise. Just because some people are able to be successful doesn’t mean that a program is not a scam. And just because something is a scam doesn’t mean that some money can’t be made anyway. Does it make it right or real or worthwhile? Again this is something that each individual investor needs to determine for themselves.

For solid investment advice and a clearer path to investment success, independent advice and research is the best way to go. For all kinds of independent investment advice, stop by www.onlinetradingideas.com for comprehensive investment strategies, advice, and independent research. This site is particularly useful for making the most from conventional trading ideas and profiting from forex trades without having to enter the realm of high yield investment programs.