Stock market trading goes back about 200 years. In the US, the colonial government used to sell bonds in order to finance the war. The government promised to pay the buyers of bonds at a later date. It was during this time that private banks started issuing stocks…

We tend to think of risk in predominantly negative terms, as something to be avoided or as a threat that we hope won’t materialize. In the investment world, however, risk is inseparable from performance and, rather than being desirable or undesirable, is simply necessary. Understanding risk is one of the…

Volume is a measure of how much of a given financial asset has been traded in a given period of time. It is a very powerful tool, but it’s often overlooked because it is such a simple indicator. Volume information can be found just about anywhere, but few traders or…

A distribution of a portion of a company’s earnings, decided by the board of directors, to a class of its shareholders. The dividend is most often quoted in terms of the dollar amount each share receives (dividends per share). It can also be quoted in terms of a percent of…

Among the most popular technical indicators, moving averages are used to gauge the direction of the current trend. Every type of moving average (commonly written in this tutorial as MA) is a mathematical result that is calculated by averaging a number of past data points. Once determined, the resulting average…

An order to buy or sell a security when its price surpasses a particular point, thus ensuring a greater probability of achieving a predetermined entry or exit price, limiting the investor’s loss or locking in his or her profit. Once the price surpasses the predefined entry/exit point, the stop order…

Have you ever borrowed money? Of course you have! Just as people need money, so do companies and governments. A company needs funds to expand into new markets, while governments need money for everything from infrastructure to social programs. The problem large organizations run into is that they typically need…

A bull market or a bull run refers to a stock market characterized by a sustained rise in share prices. This occurs when investors believe the positive trend will continue for the long term. Such optimism is usually based on strong positive indicators for a country’s economy, including high employment…

Here is a Step-By-Step Breakdown of how to conduct industry research: STEP 1:  Identify the Industry and provide a brief overview. You may need to explore the industry from a variety of geographical considerations: locally, regionally, provincially, nationally, globally, etc. Provide statistics and historical data about the nature of the…

A financial statement that measures a company’s financial performance over a specific accounting period. Financial performance is assessed by giving a summary of how the business incurs its revenues and expenses through both operating and non-operating activities. It also shows the net profit or loss incurred over a specific accounting…