How To Find An Investment Club

For many people, taking the plunge into investing can be a daunting experience. They may have little investment knowledge or limited funds. Joining or starting an investment club is a great way to learn about investing in stock or real estate. Investment clubs enable members to pool their money for joint investment so you don’t need to have massive capital to start investing.

Finding an online investment club
There are many online investment clubs available. To start with, choose an investment club that fits your investing style and interests. Do you want to invest in stock or real estate? If you are a male (or female), do you prefer to join an all-men (or all-women) or mixed investment club?

Finding a good fit is important for an online investment club. Keep in mind what your main objective is for joining a club. If you are new to investing and need support and knowledge, be sure to choose a club that offers lots of hand-holding for its members.

Another important feature of an online investment club is the forum or discussion board. It allows members to communicate with each other since they don’t meet face to face. They can ask and answer questions. Newbies can learn a lot from others who are more knowledgeable and experienced. People from all over the world can join an online investment club. Distance is not a problem as the internet has made it possible for them to stay connected.

Choose a long established online investment club that is in line with your approach to investing. You should contact the club directly if you have any questions. Enquire about its past and current investment performance.

Finding an offline (or local) investment club
For people who have time to socialize, they may prefer to join a local investment club. These clubs are similar to online clubs except that members meet locally, typically once a month, to discuss and evaluate what stocks to invest.

The meetings incorporate educational talks on various investing subjects. You have the opportunity to hear investment experts speak and share their experience – not from someone with textbook knowledge only.

Local investment clubs are often advertised in the local newspaper classified ads. You may also find them through postings on bulletin boards. Your local bank may also have information about investment clubs. Another good way to find a local investment club is through word of mouth. Ask your co-workers or friends. Chances are they may know someone who is a member of an investment club and can make a recommendation to you.

Investment clubs have been growing tremendously in recent years. Many people who feared about investing on their own have reaped the rewards by joining or starting an investment club. Learn more about investment clubs at http://www.aboutinvestmentclub.com/art-find

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After Hours Trading

After-hours trading is the trading of stocks after the regular session has ended at 4 pm. Trading goes from 4:00 - 6:30 on the major U.S. exchanges. This activity was originally open to the wealthy and large institutions. However ,with the advent of the Internet, and Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs), the everyday trader now has the ability to post after-hours trades through their broker. Many times large investors take on these after-hour positions, because they are aware of some pending news and are quite certain that the stock will move in their favor. Most retail traders believe that some pending news or earnings release set for the next day will generate a move, so they will enter positions as well. Sad thing is, this is often a form of gambling and not truly investing. If you are a trader contemplating after-hours trading, here are a few tips for you before you get started.

Must Use Limit Orders
Most online-brokers will required you to enter limit orders when attempting to put on new positions. The problem with this is that the spreads after-hours often open up, and if you place the limit order out there, you have no shot of being filled at a better price. Also, advanced orders like trailing stops, and stop market orders are not available as well. So, the majority of the order execution is left up to you the trader.

Huge Bid/Ask Spreads
After-hours the spreads for stocks open up drastically. A $50 stock for example will have a spread of $50.18 by $50.46. What are you to do in this situation? Can you honestly buy the stock at $50.46? Well of course you can, but you better know some pending news, or have a very long time horizon for the trade, as you could be down over a half of a percent the second you execute the trade. Large Bid/Ask spreads are a breeding ground for pain. If you are a trader that finds yourself often getting emotional about each and every trade you are in, large spreads are not for you.

Light Volume
Light volume is not a good thing for active traders. The key to the game is being able to get in and out of positions as quickly as possible. After-hours trading generally has lighter volume than during the regular session. What will often happen is a huge volume spike on the news release, then the volume will dry up dramatically. So, you are not only faced with a large discrepancy in the bid/ask spread, but you are now faced with light volume trading. Are you beginning to catch my drift?

Price Volatility
So we’ve discussed the large bid/ask spreads and then the light volume. What do you think these two factors lead to? Well I hope you guessed it right, but crazy price movements. You will often see stocks rally and drop a number of points in a matter of seconds, not minutes. In summary, make sure you have your head on straight before you get in the game of trading stocks after-hours.

Al Hill is the co-founder of http://www.mysmp.com (My Stock Market Power) which provides free trading articles to investors.

Please visit http://mysmp.com/trading-articles.html for more free articles.

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