Fundamentals and Basics of Stock Trading

Compare investing and trading, highlighting long-term fundamental analysis and the rule never to marry an investment. See scalping, day trading, and swing trading to capture price trends.

Know yourself before investing by assessing your investment knowledge, experience, risk tolerance, and time horizon. Align your goals and capital with a plan to avoid losses and premature investment decisions.

Discover how to determine investable savings after expenses, apply the 50/30/20 rule, leverage IRAs and 401(k) for long-term investing, and use dollar-cost averaging through market cycles.

Set clear investment goals and benchmarks to measure performance against the market. Project future income, expenses, and needs and wants to prioritize long-term investing.

Learn what stocks are, how ownership works via shares, and how companies list on exchanges to raise capital. Explore liquidity, transfer of ownership, and diversification through stock investing.

Explore penny stocks, typically priced under $1, and learn why they carry risk due to low liquidity, volatility, and speculation, with upside when a trend change signals improving business.

Explore mutual funds to gain exposure to a basket of stocks, with open-ended or closed-ended structures and active or passive management, and watch expense ratios and redemption fees.

Analyze dividend paying stocks, including real estate investment trusts, for income and stability; compare yields with bonds, and use stock screeners to identify growing dividends.

Analyze business news to inform your trading or investing decisions, discerning earnings signals, economic trends, and industry impacts from sources like CNBC, Bloomberg, and Wall Street Journal.

Learn how to evaluate investing information from YouTube and Twitter, define your investment style, and protect capital through fundamental analysis insights from Peter Lynch, Buffett, Ackman, Dalio, and more.

Use fundamental analysis to combine quantitative and qualitative factors to determine a company’s value. Compare that value to the market price to identify discounts or premiums and guide buying.

Explore financial statements—income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow—to gauge a company's health, performance, risk, and growth for investors.

Analyze the income statement, comparing three months and twelve months year-over-year, and examine net sales, cost of sales, gross margin, operating income, net income, and earnings per share.

Discover how a balance sheet provides a point-in-time snapshot of assets, liabilities, and equity, with current and non-current items like cash, receivables, inventories, and debt.

Explore how the cash flow statement shows actual cash generation across operating, investing, and financing activities, including stock buybacks, dividends, and tax considerations affecting earnings per share.

Explore how moving averages reveal price trends, guide entry and exit signals, and use 9, 50, 100, and 200 day averages to assess risk, support, and resistance.

Explore how to draw trend lines to identify uptrends and downtrends, recognize support and resistance, and decide when to add to positions or exit to protect capital in volatile markets.

Learn how to apply the MACD indicator, moving average convergence divergence, to charts, using blue fast and red slow lines, crossovers, histogram signals, and divergence for buy and sell signals.

Use the RSI to identify oversold and overbought conditions (below 30, above 70) and spot divergences for buy or sell cues, with confirmation from moving averages or trend lines.

Understanding 401(k) basics, employer matching, and contribution strategies, plus how target date funds and stock and bond allocations shape long-term retirement growth.

Compare traditional and Roth IRAs, highlighting tax treatment, contribution limits (6500, 50+), and withdrawal rules. Emphasize eligibility, employer plan implications, and the absence of required minimum distributions for Roth IRAs.