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Bloomberg

The No. 1 Source
of Financial Information

• TD Ameritrade
• E-Trade
• Scottrade

• Economic Calendar
• Stock Splits
• IPO (Initial Public Offering)
• Upgrades and Downgrades

• MSN Stock Screener
• MSN Power Search
• Yahoo Stock Screener

• Average Hourly Earnings
• CPI (Consumer Price Index)
• GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
• Home Sales
• Imports Export Price Index
• Inflation Rate
• Interest Rate (Fed Policy)
• Oil and Crude
• Payroll
• PPI (Producer Prize Index)
• Productivity
• Purchasing
• Retail Sales
• Standard and Poors
• US 10 Year Treasury Yield
• Unemployment Rate
• CEO Economic Outlook Survey

• S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats)
• Business Cycle

• Briefing IPO Listings
• MSN IPO Listings

TOP DOWN APPROACH:
The TOP DOWN INVESTING is an investing concept that looks at three important factors:  

• Market/Economic Factors,

• Industry Factors, and

• Company Related Factors.

We believe that these three factors are inter-related with each other.  Any type of factors that change in the market will eventually trickle down to the industry level.  A company's performance or survival, in some cases, is determined by how responsive the company is to the changes of it's industry and the economic factors it is operating in.  A Company who does not adopt to these change/s in the market and it's industry will find itself in an unfortunate situation.  That is why investor's should analyze all investment alternatives using the Top Down Approach. 

Calendars: Use the calendars to view important dates so you won't miss any important investment opportunities.  The calendars are linked to Briefing.com.

Market Research:
Knowing the Health of the Economy is a good indicator where the market is going.  It gives investors an idea which sector has growth potential and which sectors to avoid.  Any changes in these indicator can affect the price of each sector. We link to several US government agencies such as  Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserves to name a few.

Industry Analysis :
Understand the industry you want to invest in.  Find out the Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (S.W.O.T.) of the industry the company is operating in.  In addition, you may need to look at the Business Cycle as well.

Company Analysis
Learning how a company does it's business is a good practice.  In addition, knowing how healthy the company gives an investor an idea if the company has enough resources to execute it's plans, how it will respond to changes and how long the staying power of the company.  You may need to look at some of the financial filings of these companies with the SEC.  Such reports include: Balance Sheet | Income Statement | Cash Flows | Technical Analysis (Ratio Analysis).
 

Investment Strategies

Strategies and Investment Alternatives

Calendar Year Strategies:

• Rolling Stocks
• IPO (Initial Public Offering)
• Stock Splits
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Index Inclusion (S&P500, DJIA and others)
• Earnings Forecast
• Technical Analysis (Charting)
• Dividend Yields
• Triple Witching

• October - Black Monday (Week of the 19th)
• December - Santa Clause Rally
• January - New Year Effect
• April - Tax Effects
• Triple Witching - 3rd Friday of March, June, September and December.

• Rolling Stock - well established stocks like Intel, Microsoft, companies in the Utilities sector tend to have trading ranges.  Just buy at the low range and sell at the high range.
• Stock Splits - Some Companies have stock split policies written in their by laws.  Companies split their stock to keep their stock prices at a low trading price range.  The benefit for these companies is that it allows them access to capitals from investors who do not want to buy high/expensive stocks. Thus they split the stock.   After a stock split investors received additional shares depending on how the split is done.  Over a period of time, the price of the stock goes back up.
• Triple Witching - The final hour of the stock market trading session on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December, when option contracts and futures contracts expire on market indexes used by program traders. The simultaneous expirations often set off heavy trading of options, futures and the underlying stocks, which can cause large fluctuations in the value of their underlying stocks.

• Dividend Play - There are lots of companies that pay dividends in a consistent basis.  These companies pay dividends from 10 cents a share to as high as 4 dollars.  Now the trick is to find companies that are paying shareholders in a consistent manner.  Some of these companies pay quarterly dividends, semiannual dividends, yearly dividends or even monthly dividends.  Most of these companies can be found in the Drug, Utilities, Oil and most of the established companies.
• Initial Public Offering - These are companies that are new to the stock exchange.  Brokers give priority to some of the long term investors at the beginning so that the stock will not be volatile.  Thus creating a holding period where these investors can not sell the stock.  Knowing when this holding period expires can sometimes be used to your advantage. 
• Options - Options are riskier than playing with stocks since option expires.  But if you know how to use them to your advantage you might rip some financial gains.  Master it first before playing with it.