Practices for Beginner Investors – How to Choose Stocks

Why Should You Invest in the Stock Market?

The global stock market value is $80 trillion. If you use the right strategies and techniques, you can make money by investing in stocks. 

Usually, people think investing in the stock market is a risky business, but owning an index fund on a major world index for a long period can bring high income. A safe investment would be to own an index in the NASDAQ 100 because it was the best performing major index from 1999 to 2019. 

Now you know what index to choose for a safe investment, but you may not know how to choose the stocks. Well, it’s recommended to go with one of the most powerful global industry sectors, and in 2019 they were: information technology, financials, communication, healthcare and insurance. 

Here are some practices you should adopt to choose the stocks you want to invest in.

How to Get The Process Started?

Before buying individual stocks, build your investment portfolio. You lack experience, so it’s not wise to choose a single company to invest in.

For beginner investors it’s risky to buy a single stock, they should focus their efforts on buying low-cost mutual funds that track large groups of stocks. It allows them to easily identify the changes in the value and to act accordingly and not to lose money. 

Once you have a diversified portfolio, you can add some individual stocks. Successful investors diversify their portfolios with individual stocks because they bring the greatest return. For example, Apple is a company, young entrepreneurs invest in because from 2006 to 2010 its stocks’ value rose by 348%. 

If you want to pick stocks yourself, you’ll save money because you won’t have to pay an investor to do it for you. When investing in a brand, your wealth depends on the wealth of the business, so ensure you make the right choice. 

Before investing your savings in stocks, ensure you afford to lose that sum. Pay all your bills, starting with medical insurance, home insurance and electricity. To estimate how much it costs to cover the bills ask for homeowners insurance quotes in Florida, check the last electricity bills, and get in touch with the medical insurance provider. Once you cover the above costs, you can use the remaining cash to trade stocks. 

Buy Stocks in an Industry You Are Familiar With

Invest in what you know, this is the best piece of advice we can offer to a young entrepreneur. 

You should always pick a company you are familiar with because it allows you to put that brand in a context. You know why you prefer certain brands, how popular they are in the industry they perform, and what their most profitable time of the year is. These are not all the details you need to invest in a brand, but it’s better than nothing because it allows you to place their earning reports in a context. 

When you’re familiar with certain companies, you stay away from the hype many investors experience. The greatest mistake an entrepreneur can make is to buy stocks without understanding how the business they choose makes money. 

Check The Valuation and Price of Stocks

Seasoned investors look for under-evaluated or cheap stocks because they bring the highest earnings. They usually pay a low price for the dollars the company makes. You can measure the valuation and price by measuring the stock’s price-to-earnings ratio. You can find it online or you can calculate it if you divide the company’s share price by its net income. When the P/E is less than 15, it’s cheap, when it’s over 20 it’s expensive. 

Before investing money, you need to understand what kind of stock it is. Stocks for brands that are expected to register fast growth are more expensive than those of brands that grow slowly. To clearly understand if the P/E of the company you want to invest in it’s cheaper or more expensive than of other businesses in the same industry, you need to compare it with its competitors.  

The ideal situation implies buying cheap stocks and earning money, but cheap isn’t always good. A stock may be cheap because its company isn’t growing or it’s growing slowly. Other times a stock is expensive because it’s expected the company to experience a booming growth and your income will skyrocket in this case. By checking the company’s numbers, you can understand if that brand is expected to grow.

Is The Company You Want to Invest in Financially Healthy?

Before buying stocks, check the company’s financial reports. Dig into all their quarterly and annual reports to find out if the business has financial problems. You can find the information online. Some companies post their reports on their website in the Investor Relations section of the official website. Go further and analyse both recent and old reports. You need to figure out if the company has a consistent history of profitability and financial health. If possible, look into the numbers since their first year of existence. 

When you evaluate the financial health of a business, check some important factors: the revenue growth, bottom line, debt, and dividends. In the stock market everything can happen, but normally stock prices increase when a business is making more money. Financial analysts refer to this event as the top line of a brand. 

The difference between revenue and income is a brand’s profit margin. Invest in a company that grows revenue and controls costs because it has expanding margins. 

Don’t forget to check how much debt the company has. To understand if its borrowing patterns are usual for the industry, compare them with its competitors’ ones. 

When detecting a dividend, it means that the business has a regular source of income and good financial health. 

The most challenging part of diversifying your portfolio is to pick the stocks. Identify the strategies and techniques that bring the best results, and use them when you buy stocks. And don’t forget to decide what your goals are, for your portfolio because they determine what investments you should make. 

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