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Money management starts with protecting your capital, realizing profits and cutting losses. As I have stated in the past, without cash, you can’t invest. Cash is king and learning to manage your money is the most important aspect to investing in stocks. The game is won by lowering your risk by properly turning the numbers in your favor. Cutting losses is the best insurance to keeping your cash.

Emotions fuel the decisions of many investors; leading the pack is hope, fear and greed. In order to control these emotions, proper money management skills must be developed through a defined set of rules. How do you know if an investment is working and moving in the right direction? If it shows a profit, you are correct, if it shows a loss, something is wrong and it may be time to protect your capital.

Most investors develop the emotion of hope after a stock has declined from the initial purchase price. They hope that it will rebound and make promises to themselves that they will sell at breakeven. If and when the stock rebounds, they break the promise and become greedy and decide to hold on for a profit instead of selling. Typically, the stock will start to decline and the investor will start to accumulate losses. Investors are full of pride and will not admit that their judgment is wrong, so instead, they decide to hold on and accumulate additional losses.

When a stock is purchased and starts to decline, especially on heavy volume, it is time to admit that you may be wrong and sell before the loss is too steep. If the stock rebounds after you sell, you can always re-enter your position. Cutting losses is the best insurance an investor can have in their portfolio. By developing rules and eliminating emotion, investors can start selecting high quality stocks and buying them at their proper purchase points. This will lower your risk and help prevent you from using insurance. In my previous post, I explained how to develop a watch list of high quality stocks using fundamental and technical analysis.

About the Author

Chris Perruna

http://www.marketstockwatch.com

Chris is the founder and CEO of MarketStockWatch.com, an internet community that teaches you how to invest your money with solid rules. 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.

Stock Market Strategies Comments Off
Making a Stock Watch List
Posted on Mar 13th, 2008I am taking the time to help others learn the basics in evaluating stocks for investment using both fundamental and technical analysis. Both tools are equally important in making serious decisions with your hard earned CASH!

If you wish to invest in stocks, treat it like a business, NOT A HOBBY. (ex: a retail outfit can’t make money if it doesn’t have goods to sell; the same goes for investors, without cash, you can’t invest). You need rules and you need to follow these rules or money WILL be LOST. Once proven rules have been established, they cannot be broke or you will lose money. Everyone loses money in investing but we must learn to cut losses quick and allow gains to develop. Small losses are acceptable because they teach us lessons that allow us to win big!

Start your search by looking for stocks with superior fundamentals. After fundamentals are established, look to see if this particular stock is in good company, by this I mean a strong industry group - similar stocks, historically move in the same direction (this is fact not opinion). This is not to say every stock in the industry group will move higher or lower because a sister stock is going in that direction (this is a generalization rule). After the industry group has been confirmed strong, determine if overall market is in a specific trend (up, down or sideways).

If you are long a stock, the market must be in a confirmed up-trend, if you are short a stock, confirm a down trend. Note that 75% of all stocks will follow in the direction of the overall market. Don’t fight the trend, the market is always RIGHT.

Let the market and the stock dictate how long you will be in a position. Don’t worry about time frames; price and volume will tell you when to exit the position as long as you follow rules.

After fundamental have been established, you must study the technical side of each individual stock, the specific industry group and the general market trends. Record if the stock is forming a proper base, if it’s about to break out of a base, if it’s extended or if it’s pulling back to a key support line.

At this point, add any qualifying stock to your watch list or buy the stock according to the technical entry signals (remember the fundamentals have been established earlier).

Key numbers to use in fundamentals:
Earnings (current, past: quarterly, yearly and future estimates)
Sales (current, past: quarterly, yearly and future estimates)
Return on Equity (ROE)
Price/Earnings Growth (PEG)
Price/Earnings Ratio (rise over time of base)
Debt/Equity
Assets, Liabilities
Accumulation/Distribution ratio
Up/Down Volume over past several months
Number of Institutional Holders (is this increasing or decreasing recently)

Key things to use for technical analysis:
Look at the 1 year daily chart
The 1 year weekly chart
Check volume action when bases are formed
Look at Point & Figure charts for support and resistance lines
Look for new 52-week highs

About the Author

Chris Perruna

http://www.marketstockwatch.com

Chris is the founder and CEO of MarketStockWatch.com, an internet community that teaches you how to invest your money with solid rules. 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.