Don’t Spend Too Much For a Trading Course

Most traders at some point in their career realize that they could improve their trading by purchasing educational material to study and expand their knowledge of the market they trade. Whether it is forex, stocks or options, there is enough material available for study on the internet that will fit the bill when it comes to improving ones knowledge on their market of choice. What many traders soon find our however, is many of these courses will cost a considerable amount of money. That doesn’t have to be the case if the would-be student is willing to take the time to look around and do their homework.

There are three things the trader should consider when purchasing a trading course; price, content and quality. Yes, it is possible to find a quality trading course that will give you the best of all three of these components. Below you will find an outline of each of these key ingredients to a quality trading course that will not cost you an arm and a leg.

Price - The first component of a quality trading course is price. With many courses costing upwards of five hundred dollars, it’s no wonder why many traders feel as if they can’t afford a quality course. Nothing could be farther from the truth! There are many courses available that carry a much more reasonable price tag. All the trader has to do is look. There are some courses available for less than fifty dollars that can help the trader learn their craft.

Content - Even more important than price is the content of the course. It doesn’t matter how inexpensive a course is if it won’t teach the trader to trade or expand their trading horizons. Even some of the more expensive courses have very week content so don’t assume that a low price equals poor content.

Quality - How easy is the course to navigate? Does it flow easily from one subject to another or does the course seem to jump from one subject to another without fully explaining each subject first? Does one section build up to the next or is the student forced to skip around in the course to find his way around?

No, a quality trading course doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg but it will take some homework on your part. Once you have found a course that answer the above questions to your satisfaction, don’t be afraid to purchase the course…a trader never stops learning.

Mark Jorgenson is an active trader and the owner of the Markets Media Company. Markets Media reviews low cost trading courses for price, content and quality. Don’t pay too much for a trading course, visit http://www.markets-media.com

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The Value Of A Stop Loss

I always employ a stop loss whenever I buy a stock. I see it is a form of insurance.

But it has a twofold purpose as it stops you having a too great a loss and you can use it to lock in those profits by using a trailing stop loss as the share price rises

The beauty of a stop loss is it gives you peace of mind and stops you worrying about what the stock is doing. Particularly if you can’t follow the share price because you have to be somewhere else and not on the computer.

My advice to everyone is “Never leave home without one!” It is a small price to pay and they are worth their weight in gold literally.

Other things to consider are in buying a stock is :-

1. There is No guarantee that you will get the stock at the price you want to pay for it

2. If you have an ” at market” order you could end up paying more than you wanted to as the stock opened up higher than the last price you saw on the Friday before.

3.Worse case scenario is you bought at the highest price and by the time you get to look at the share price it has come off the boil, profit takers have been busy , the price went backwards leaving you high and dry and immediately out of pocket.

So you now have two options available to you, turn that “paper loss” into a real one OR wait till the share price regains its former high price.

Before I used a “stop loss” I held on to two stocks which had been high and went backwards. I held onto these stocks hoping they would rise back up again in the next day or so.

They both continued downwards till my “paper loss” was nearly 50%, I kept telling myself they will go back up again. They did but around 6 months later and then I got out at a small loss on one and a larger loss on the other.

Looking back in hindsight, I should have taken those small losses immediately for I had around $2,000 tied up, which could have been making me a profit elsewhere.

Or of course had I had stop losses in place (I had never heard of them until it was too late).My losses would have been minimal.

So it was one of my most costly mistakes and taught me a hard lesson which I have never forgotten.

In the share market world you are guaranteed to make mistakes in timing and buying the wrong stock .The stop loss minimizes those mistakes and maximises your profits.

Christopher Strudwick is a keen amateur investor on the Australian Stock Market. Visit his weblog for more free articles and useful information at http://www.asxnewbie.com

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