|
The resources on this page have been designed to help you develop an
understanding of how to stay safe when investing online.
Stay diversified.
Once online, many investors tend to concentrate on stocks, specifically
large-cap domestic stocks. While these stocks should make up part of your
portfolio, they shouldn't be ALL of it! Take into account your time horizon and
risk tolerance to develop a well-balanced portfolio of stocks, bonds, and cash.
Don't bail on mutual funds.
Most investors are in
mutual funds for a good reason. They don't have the
expertise to make their own investments calls on individual stocks. They also
are too preoccupied by work, family and other concerns to spend every minute
watching the market. So keep your mutual funds; it probably is an unwise move
for you to cash out your long-term fund holdings so that you can start "playing
the market" in individual stocks!
Costs may not always be obvious.
Even if online brokerage costs are lower than those of
full-service brokers,
they can still add up, particularly if you do a lot of buying and selling.
Online brokerages firms also impose a number of other fees and charges that you
should study closely. The federal capital gains tax is also something with which
you must reckon. Before you start buying and selling stocks or mutual funds
online on a large scale, you should give careful thought to what the tax bite
would be as a result of such trading.
Make orders work for you.
If you are going to do your own investing online, you need to learn how to use
the tools available to avoid potentially steep losses and to buy or sell a stock
at attractive prices. Here are three "orders" that you should use to your
advantage:
A MARKET order is an instruction to buy or sell a specified amount of a stock
(or other security) at the current market price. The advantage of a market order
is you are almost always guaranteed your order will be executed - as long as
there are willing buyers and sellers. Depending on your firm's commission
structure, a market order may also be less expensive than a limit order.
A LIMIT order allows you to avoid buying or selling a stock at a price higher or
lower than what you specify. A limit order is an order to buy or sell a security
at a specific price. A buy limit order can only be executed at the limit price
or lower, and a sell limit order can only be executed at the limit price or
higher. By contrast, a market order only guarantees you the best available price
-- not the limit order's specified price.
A STOP-LOSS order sets a sell price for a broker. When the price of the stock
drops below this level, it automatically is sold. Also: Take the time to learn
about "stop orders," "day orders" and "good-till-cancelled" orders
.Mind those market orders.
Limit orders are often used to guarantee that an investor will not pay over a
certain dollar level for a stock. If no limit is placed, the trade is considered
to be a market order. Placing a market order means you won't necessarily get the
price you see when you buy or sell online. Here's how that works: an investor
places an order for a fast-moving stock at $10 share price, but the order does
not reach the market until the stock's price is at $15 a share.
Problems are inevitable.
Trading online is not foolproof. There will be times when you can't access your
account. You could be away from your computer when the market makes a major
move. Your Internet connection could be down. The online brokerage firm's server
could crash due to heavy trading, unexpected software glitches or a natural
calamity. Know about the firm's alternative trading options. This could include
automated telephone trading or calling a broker.
Information is power.
If you are going to buy and sell individual stocks online, it is your duty to
keep as well informed as possible about what is going on with the company in
question. Don't just settle for the hype about hot stocks! Go to the company's
Web site and download its prospectus. Check out the company's publicly available
filings through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR system. Take
advantage of free services that allow you to get automatic e-mail messages
whenever there is news about your stock.
|
|
