Earning Season is always volatile to stock prices. Traders jerk in and out depending on the outcome of the report. For example, Texas Instrument (TXN) reported that its third quarter earning of 2005 rising 12% year over year. And yet, TXN fell after hour due to weak forecast. The game now is the expectation game. If the company beats, share price normally rise. If it doesn’t, share price plunge.

There are ways to beat the expectation game and reduce volatility to your portfolio. You do not have to wait for the press release and wait nervously whether your company beat or miss expectation. One way is to buy company with a modest expectation.. The definition of modest varies among individuals but to me, modest expectation has a forward P/E ratio of less than 10. What happens when a company with modest expectation miss expectation? While, share price may get clobbered, I don’t think it will move much. Why? Because P/E of 10 already incorporates a 0% EPS growth. Even if EPS stays constant for the next ten years, company with P/E of 10 will return its shareholder roughly 10% a year.

Another way is to pick company that has predictable cash flow and dividend payment. Investors hate uncertainty. Companies that pay dividends eliminate some of that uncertainty. For example, a stock has a 4% dividend yield and it misses expectation for the quarter. The stock might tumble, pushing the dividend yield up to 4.2 or 4.5 %. By then, a lot of value investors will be interested in owning the stock and the drop in stock price will be less severe.

Finally, the last way to reduce volatility is to pick up companies with cash rich balance sheet. Some companies may have cash up to half of their market capitalization. For example, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) has a market capitalization of $ 720 M. It has $ 300M in net cash, about 41.6% of market cap. With $ 300 M in cash cushion, it is hard to imagine the company to have market capitalization below $ 300 M. It is possible, but it is uncommon.

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It is called "dividend capture". This strategy is executed when a trader buys a stock just before the ex-dividend date, so that he or she will be a shareholder of record on the record date, and will receive the dividend. Because the stock falls by the amount of the dividend on the ex-dividend date, the strategy calls for the trader to then wait for the stock to move back to the price where he or she bought it before the ex-dividend date. At this point, the stock is sold for a break even trade. Thus the dividend is received, or captured by the trader with no further exposure to the movement in the stock price after it is sold for a break even.

When attempting to execute this short term trading strategy, look for stocks with high volume, and a relatively large dividend payment. Higher volume facilitates exiting the position without affecting the stock price. The high dividend allows for more profit potential. Use of a discount broker is also beneficial as it will reduce the overall cost of the trade, and increase the return of implementing the strategy. Please note that this is an aggressive trading strategy, and not appropriate for everyone. Study the concept. "Paper trading", or practicing the strategy before using actual money is always a prudent step when implementing new strategies into your portfolio of trading tools.

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The stock markets are at all time highs and just like the last time around when the market was at its previous high every one thinks that nothing can go wrong and there is just one way where the market can go which is UP. Nothing could be farther from the truth and this will be clear from the way the market behaves in the next few months. Here are a few tips that would hopefully save you from losing a lot of cash in the current frenzy.

Time and again investors have burnt their fingers in the markets and here are some tips to you so that you do not end up burning your fingers in this market.

The number one tip at this point would be to sell if you have stocks and not to buy them if you have cash. The golden principle in the markets is “Buy when everyone else sells and sell when everyone else buys”. Simple enough right? Not really. Why? Because of peer pressure pure and simple. When everyone else around you seems to be having a ball at the markets you would feel like a fool if you didn’t participate now.

OK so you can’t resist buying at this time then at least do yourself a favor and stay away from unknown Penny Stock and hot tips that your barber gave you. True that the stock has tripled in the last fifteen days but that was before people like your barber started buying the stock. Chances are that the Promoter of the company have started buying into the stock and have spread rumors like acquisition or a big export order to fool investors and sell out to them at a later date.

Another tip that would serve useful is to value a stock based on its future growth and not its past performance. For instance many investors say that I will not buy stocks of X company because it has doubled in the last year. Well it may have doubled in the last year but that should not be the thing you should be telling yourself. Rather you should ask yourself why has this doubled in the last year and can it do so again? There should be a solid answer to your question like the launch of a new product or reduction in the prices of raw material. And indeed if the answer is in the positive then by all means go ahead and buy that stock regardless of what has happened in the last year.

Another tip would be to remember what you are buying. Quite simply investors often forget that when buying a stock they are simply buying ownership in the companies. Most of you would know that nothing spectacular would happen in the company that you work for, in a month, they are not going to double their revenues and certainly not double your salary every month. Then why expect anything different from the companies that you are investing in. Why expect the prices to double in a month or two. Give time to your investments; don’t reduce it to a gamble. Only when you invest in fundamentally sound companies and then give the investments sufficient time to grow will you see some healthy returns on your investments. Ideally a minimum horizon of one year is a good time.

Hope these tips will prove helpful and you will make a lot more in the stock markets than you have already been making. Happy Investing!

www.indiamint.com

The author is MBA Finance and is part of the Mint India team. More about Mint is given below:

The Indian stock markets provide an excellent opportunity to diligent investors who are willing to spend time and effort on the stocks that they buy. Money is there to be made by people who are willing to spend time understanding the business model, risks faced and other nuances about the company that they are buying.

Increasingly the investor is becoming more sophisticated and has stopped looking for hot tips and stories about stocks, which can double overnight.

Mint is aimed at people who understand that stock markets are not a gamble but reward investors who work hard understanding the companies that they are buying and then give time to their investments to grow and generate handsome returns.

Mint’s mission is to help such people learn more about the stocks available in the markets, more about macro and micro economic concepts that impact the markets and more about the industry in general to enable the investors to make an informed and profitable decision.

Once in a while the technical indicators start making news. Whether it’s the VIX, or a moving average, someone picks up the story and soon it’s on CNBC or Bloomberg as the news of the day. So, as an investor one has to ask, "are technical indications really a reason to buy or sell?" In some respects the answer is no, since "investing" is something different from swing trading or day trading.

Let’s suppose you are in the same camp as we are and you think the long term outlook on gold is very positive. So, each time it dips below a certain value level, you add more to your portfolio, basically "buying on the dips". This might be quite different from someone else who looked at a roll over as a reason to sell out. Yet, both traders are looking at the same technical levels.

It’s very true that the market pays a lot of attention to technical levels. We can show you chart after chart, breakout after breakout, bounce after bounce where the only thing that made the difference was a line drawn on a chart. Moving averages for example are perfect studies in when large blocks of money will buy or sell. Watch the action surrounding a 200 day moving average and you will see first hand the warfare that takes place as shorts try and drive it under, and longs buy for the bounce. It’s neat to watch.

The question of the day is this " Are technical indicators such as the VIX a reason to get involved with a stock (or an average) because of what it says?" The answer is definitely maybe. Sorry, we know you were looking for more than that, but the fact is it’s a maybe, nothing more. If this market has taught you anything, it’s that it can do things that don’t appear rational, and do it for a lot longer than you would have suspected. When the VIX dipped below 20, everyone was looking for the reaction that "always" comes. Guess what? No reaction.

We were asked last week if we put much faith in the VIX. Our response is the same as it’s been for all the technical indicators. Use them as a tool to help adjust your view of everything that is going on, but don’t base your actions on any one of them by themselves. Sure it’s true that an oversold indication will often lead to a bounce, but when? If something has become oversold, then it makes sense that at some point it fell from "balanced" to oversold right? Right. Well why didn’t it bounce when it became "balanced?" Again, because things often take time to correct.

The VIX, Arms, moving averages, stochastics, DMI’s, and all thirty five or so indicators are useful tools that help us try and find places to move money. But not a one of them is actually accurate enough to base your trades on. What you really want to do is get several of them pointing in the right direction at the same time. That is fairly rare, but when it happens, the chances of success are greatly enhanced. Just because the VIX might be making headlines, and could even become self fulfilling as everyone focuses on it, it’s still just one indicator out of many and putting all your eggs in one basket is dangerous.

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The new high/new low ratio (NH-NL) ratio has been around for many years but different investors use this indicator in different ways. Some investors plot the ratio on a chart using the number zero as a neutral designation with positive numbers equaling more new highs than new lows and a negative number equaling more new lows than new highs based on a specified period of time. I have developed and used the NH-NL ratio in a completely different way from some of the more popular methods. I started to follow stocks making new highs while reading the paper Investor’s Business Daily many years ago. I didn’t use the news highs as an indicator but I only studied stocks to buy from the list. As I became a more experienced investor, I subconsciously started to gauge the market while noting if the new highs were increasing or decreasing. After the stock market bubble burst in 2000, I started to record the difference between the daily new highs and the daily new lows. I would enter them into an excel sheet along with the price and volume of the major market indices and study their relationship. Within two years, I was convinced that the major market tops and bottoms could be located easily by aggressively studying the price and volume of the major indices and studying the ups and downs of the NH-NL ratio. The general market indices often give investors false moves in all directions and many market services and investors have developed new indicators to help assess the market to try and pinpoint turning points without great success. Many of these secondary indicators are successful in showing the investor if the market is weak or strong but they fail to pinpoint the strength or weakness of a turning point with great accuracy. Many of these secondary indicators give false signals along with the general market indices.

With several years of serious study under my belt using my method of the NH-NL ratio, I have accurately protected my money during downturns and have accurately guided my buys when the market has reversed and started a new sustained up-trend (not a head fake).

How do I use my NH-NL ratio?

I start by recording the daily new highs and new lows from Investors Business Daily (my preference) but you could use any free or paid service on the web. Over the past five years, I have developed key levels that the market must reached or violate to trigger certain actions. I am not pulling any of these numbers from thin air as they are all based on actual experience and have not been derived from back testing. For a market to convince me that it is following through and is starting a new up-trend, it must present me with a minimum of 500 new highs per day on a consistent basis. When a week ends, I add the weekly NH-NL totals and divide by the number of active trading days to get the weekly average. The average must have a minimum of 500 stocks per day for me to consider risking over 50% of my cash in new positions (the new leaders). Once the weekly averages reach 800-1,000+ stocks per day, we know that the market is in a full fledged rally and you can start to commit your entire trading stake and use margin. In 2003, the market gave numerous instances when the new highs topped 1,000-1,200 stocks per day, a very impressive amount. When the market shows strength like this, the trend has become obvious and you must have your money working for you by following the trend. Keep in mind that 75% of all listed stocks will follow the general trend of the market.

Recently in September and October of 2005, the NH-NL ratio has been negative, meaning that we are seeing more new lows than new highs. When this type of action happens, you must lock in profits and move your cash to the sidelines. It is not safe to invest on the long side of the market when the ratio is negative. Often times, a bear market may be forming when the ratio weakens and turns negative. If the market confirms a bear market or down-trend, it can be an opportune time to make money shorting stocks or using advanced strategies with options (I only recommend this for advanced and experienced traders). You must determine f the market is in a down-trend or if it is trading sideways. If it is trading sideways, it will be better to pull your cash to the sidelines and wait for a direction to form (either up or down). This article is being written and published on October 25, 2005, the first day after the NH-NL ratio has turned back to the positive side after 13 consecutive days of a negative ratio. The past two weeks have averaged negative ratios with some days only reaching 15 quality new high stocks. This type of weak action could signal a bottom in the market as we get ready to form a new rally. The most crucial indicator to watch over the next few weeks will be the NH-NL ratio to see if it can continue to gain strength and increase the new highs to 500 or more stocks per day. If this happens, the current indication that a rally has formed on the major indices will be confirmed and you can start to commit more than 50% of your trading stake to new leaders breaking out of sound bases or stocks moving higher from establish support areas.

As I look back at my archived hard copies of IBD, I can see the strength and weakness that this ratio gave us throughout 2002 and 2003. I am reminded how the ratio went from negative territory in September of 2002 to a positive ratio in October of 2002. After reaching positive territory, the new high ratio soared into the 800-1,100 range in the first six months of 2003 as we were in a strong bull market, the strongest year since the bubble burst. I don’t know what next month or next year holds for investors, but you can get a good idea by tracking this indicator as it turns back to the positive side after a very poor October (2005). I once wrote about the Halloween indicator and I am now convinced that it has some validity, especially if this NH-NL ratio confirms another rally as October draws to a close.

Chris Perruna - http://www.marketstockwatch.com

Chris is the founder and president of MarketStockWatch.com, an internet community that teaches you how to invest your money with solid rules. We offer an extended no obligation monthly trial period starting immediately with two free weeks. We don’t stop at just showing you our daily and weekly screens, we teach you how to make you own screens through education. Through our philosophy, you will be able to create your own methods and styles to become successful.

One of the touted advantages of owning a corporation is the ease in transferring shares. In many cases, this assumed benefit is simply wrong.

Transfer Shares

According to “experts”, using a corporation has one bid advantage over other entities. The advantage is the ability to freely transfer shares without impacting the business or viability of the corporate structure. Consider the following example.

If I own a 60 percent interest in a general partnership, I can’t just sell it to someone else. In most states, the transfer of more than 50 percent of an interest in a partnership automatically terminates it. With a corporation, however, there is no such prohibition. Instead, I am free to transfer shares without restriction and the business just purrs along without any interruption.

As with many assumptions, the “free transferability” assumption runs into problems in the real world. This is particularly true if the corporation has entered into contracts with other large companies.

Accidentally Terminating Contracts

State laws govern the formation and running of most business entities. These laws, however, do not trump general contract law. Instead, deference is given to the terms two or more parties agree upon in the formation of a contract and this is where the free transferability experts fall on their faces.

In our modern economy, a majority of companies will require language in a contract stating that any transfer of more than “xxx” percentage of shares automatically voids the contract between the parties. The reason for this is parties want to know whom they are doing business with at all times. Assume I want to do business with a corporation that has three engineers who are the best in their field. I don’t want to sign a five-year contract with them only to see the three engineers sell their shares and leave the company during the term of the contract. In requiring the language restricting share transfers, I am making sure I will benefit from their expertise.

Many shareholders in small businesses fail to take into account share restriction language in contracts. Instead, they go out and sell their shares to a third party with dreams of retirement on a white beach somewhere. They are more than a little surprised when served with a lawsuit by the share buyer who is angry because a number of contracts for the corporation have been terminated. In Seinfeld terminology, “No white beaches FOR YOU!”

Before you get excited about selling your shares in a corporation make sure you check the language of all contracts with third parties. You don’t want to have to come back from that white beach.

Richard A. Chapo is a San Diego business lawyer with http://www.sandiegobusinesslawfirm.com - providing legal services and legal advice to businesses in San Diego, California.

“I bought that stock a month ago and it hasn’t done anything. My broker said it was going to take off.” Yes, and pigs can fly.

How about, “I bought that stock 5 years ago and it went up and now is selling for less that it did when I bought it”. Do I hear the violins playing?

There is an old, old saying; THE STOCK MARKT WILL DO WHAT IT WANTS TO DO, BUT NOT WHEN YOU WANT IT TO”. You may have heard that one and today’s market is doing just that.

When there is an obvious trend up and people are buying as we had from 1982 to 2000 everyone is happy. Each person thinks he is a stock market genius. For 18 years it was difficult to make a mistake. Even if you bought a dog (no reflection on man’s best friend) it would go up. When the market started down the geniuses looked at each other and did not know what to say. There was silence in the boardroom and commiseration by the water cooler. Everyone was losing.

Probably one of the most frustrating investment periods of all is the sideways market that we have had for the past year. The talking heads on CNBC-TV say it is not a broad market in which you can buy any equity, but a market of particular stocks. In other words you have to turn into stock picker. Unfortunately, most stock pickers end up with smelly fingers.

The investors who have owned index funds find they have made no money for the past year. In fact the S&P 500 Index is just about where it was 5 years ago. Pretty darn frustrating. Is there any way to make money in the market without raising your blood pressure?

Yes, and it is ideal for the long term trader, but frustrating to those who like to trade all the time. Not only will it make money in the bull market, but it will have you in cash while the bear is decimating everyone’s stocks. It is a very simple market timing method. You can expect your broker to tell you it won’t work, but you can easily prove to him that it does.

On your computer go to www.bigcharts.com and put in the symbol of your mutual fund. Add a 200-day simple moving average with a 5-year time period. Click. If your fund is above the 200 line and the line is ascending keep it. If the line turns down and the price of the fund is below it, sell. Do a historical study on all your funds. You would have been out from the end of 2000 and bought back in about April 2003. Prove this to yourself. Then do it.

Your market frustrations are over.

Al Thomas’ book, "If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he’s the man that Wall Street does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

Stock market is an inquisitive place for many. It is because the place has given birth to many millionaires and is also responsible for turning millionaires to locals. Thus the bulls and bears have always been charismatic. Now millions of people invest in the stock market to make good money. The aura of the place is such that it is swarming with people any hour of the day and any season of the year. But only few know that how the stock market came into existence or what actually are its origins.

A short encounter with the past

The oldest stock certificate was issued in favor of a Dutch company in 1606. The purpose of this company was to benefit from the spice trade between India and the Far East. During the 18th and the 19th centuries the trade of spices drifted to England when Napoleon reigned over the place. With the development of United States of America as a colony to British and Alexander Hamilton (the first US secretary of the Treasury) flourished the American Stock Exchange. Hamilton played a crucial role in encouraging the trading in the Wall Street and Broad Street in New York. The New York Stock and Exchange Board now popularly known as the New York Stock Exchange was organized by the traders of New York in 1817 when trade and commerce bloomed there.

A precise survey of the Western stock market

• The Wall Street- a place where the whole of 18th century trade and commerce took place, Wall Street is a recognized place across the globe. The street was termed as Wall Street since it ran alongside a wall that was taken as the northern boundary of New Amsterdam in 17th century.

The Wall Street is known for the J.P. Morgan’s million dollar merger that created US Steel Corporation, the ruinous crisis that resulted in Great Depression and the “Black Monday” of 1987.

• The NYSE or the New York Stock Exchange is perhaps the foremost and so the oldest stock exchange in United States that is believed to be born in 1792. The significant aspects related to NYSE include the Buttonwood Agreement when 24 stockbrokers and traders of New York signed this accord and established the New York Stock Exchange and Securities Board which is now recognized as the NYSE; the considerable swings that the NYSE saw during the 20th and 21st century; the hitting of the 100 and later even 1000 mark by the Dow around 1971 and the mark of 10,000 that the Dow scaled in 1999.

• NASDAQ is the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Questions. It is an apparent or virtual stock market where all trading is done through the electronic media. NASDAQ, the global and the largest electronic stock market today was first established in 1971 in United States at the time when computers were not as developed as they are today and it was very difficult to compute. The main exchange of NASDAQ is in United Sates while its branches can be found in Canada and Japan and it is also linked to markets of Hong Kong and Europe. NASDAQ functions by purchasing and selling the over- the- counter or OTC stocks.

• AMEX-was discovered in 1842. The putative father of the institution is Edward Mc Cormick (the commissioner of SEC) who endowed it with its current name. It started its journey as the New York Curb Exchange and its name is factual. The AMEX in contrast to the NYSE operates with the small and more dynamic companies some of which even make it to the NYSE board.

Mansi aggarwal writes about stock market. Learn more at http://www.stockmarketstory.com .

Maybe you have done the same thing as I have. Been driving down an unfamiliar street at a good pace and suddenly been thrown into the air as the car hit a speed bump. You immediately slow down or even stop to put everything back together.

Kinda reminds me of trading in the stock market.

Going along nicely with a particular stocks or several positions when the market hits a “speedbump” and the bottom drops out. Suddenly you have a big loss instead of a profit. You pull over to the side of the road – quit puttting more money in the market. Better check to see what the damage is.

How much have you lost and is it still bleeding from that terrible bumps?

Al Thomas’ book, "If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he’s the man that Wall Street does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

Fundamental analysis, the study of profits, revenue, income, assets, etc. etc. It was the mainstay of stock market investing for decades and decades. Finding a diamond in the rough, was what investors looked for, it is what mutual fund managers use today as their main tool. It is what is done by hundreds, if not thousands of brokerage houses, stock market investor services, and mutual fund managers every day of their lives. Numbers poured over, fed into software programs, then analyzed again. So much so that there is not one single fundamental analysis surprise left to be found in large cap stocks. That is so fundamental to the success of our large cap philosophy (www.livingonlargecaps.blogspot.com) that it bears repeating again. There is nothing new to be learned in fundamental analysis of large cap stocks. Everything is already known.

I suppose we should thank the countless analysts who put in countless hours fundamentally analyzing the numbers for us so we don’t have to. Because without them, we would have no beginning point. So is that to say fundamental analysis has a purpose? Of course it does. Do we use it? You bet. It is one of the first things we do use. We use in it screens, and we also use analyst’s recommendations that are based largely on fundamental analysis. We buy no stock without corroboration of analyst’s reports, and many of our screens have an analyst’s reports factor to them. So in a sense fundamental analysis is THE most important factor of our selecting stocks. Without a good report from fundamental folks, we don’t look any further at the stock.

We know stock analysts also have opinions about where the market is heading, and about the sectors as well. We like that too. We want to be where the action is. An exceptional fundamental stock will not move, if people are not focusing on it. And there is the rub with fundamental analysis, and that is why fundamentalist either make lousy traders or don’t believe in trading. They are long term investors, philosophically superior to technicians in their way of thought. But stocks only move if they are the focus of traders. (traders for our purposes could be mid-term speculators as well, which frankly is probably where we fit in.) So reading an analyst report, or with large caps you get the benefit of a pool of analyst’s reports, gives you an idea whether or not the stock will be moving in the near future (3-6 months.) A stock that is rated a hold is likely not to do much of anything rather than track the market or the sector. A stock that is rated a sell, likely has already tanked. But a stock that is rated a buy, is worthy of a technical look.

Do we analyze rates of growth, % of debt, stuff like that? Nope, it has already been done. Our job is to find the hot sectors, and the hot large cap stocks in that sector. And then take those and see if they are poised to move.

Long term moves of an individual stock or the market in whole is a process of thought. But every wiggle and waggle along the way is a process of emotion. A stock poised to rise, based on solid fundamental analysis also needs to have emotion behind it, to actually rise in our time frame. We are not interested in holding a stock with 15% growth rates for a year to see if that results in a 15% stock price increase. The fact of the matter is that stock is going to rise and/or fall 15% in a year’s time no matter what. But if we know that it has received high marks for it’s fundamentals, and then look at its charts and see technically it is also very healthy then we have something.

A stock that does not fair well through analyst’s reports is not even worhty of our looking at its’ chart. There are so many options in large cap stocks that we want EVERY advantage we can get. We want every selection to be a winner. When your average trade only nets you 4%, you cannot afford to be wrong.

CT Larsen has been trading stocks since 1990. Now trading large cap stocks exclusively. He has recorded three straight years of greater than 50% annual returns. You can read his blog at http://livingonlargecaps.blogspot.com.