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XM Review

XM, also called Trading Point, is an international broker for online forex and commodity trading. It provides traders with an extensive selection of features for trading forex, precious metals, stock indices, and energies, in a bid to ensure trading flexibility.

In this review, we will assess XM as a forex broker in terms of trading systems, accounts and pricing, spreads and commission, underlying assets, reliability and efficiency, and customer support.

Trading Systems

The clients of XM can access as many as 8 advanced trading platforms directly from one account, allowing clients to speed up trading operations and have more flexibility in trading, anywhere and anytime.

The two primary types of trading platforms are Web Trader and Meta Trader 4. Web Trader is a perfect choice for those who have a limited hard disk space or who want to access their account through a smartphone. It gives clients access to real-time market information through the website, without the hassle of downloading and installing any software.

Meta Trader 4, on the other hand, combines both manual and automatic trading options, making it one of the most popular systems today. On top of the clear prices and movements, this user-friendly platform enables traders to increases their performance.

Accounts and Pricing

With this platform, you can have multiple trading accounts with flexible conditions. You can have unlimited and free demo accounts. You can access 8 trading platforms from one account.

With this broker, you can already start trading with just $5 on multiple trading accounts. You will also be offered with fractional pip pricing so that you can trade with tighter spread and benefit from the most accurate quoting possible. The broker also offers a huge 888:1 leverage, which is one of the highest in the forex industry.

Moreover, you will have access to its Bonus Program and regular promotions. Today, the primary incentive for the customers is the 50 percent deposit bonus up to $500 and 20 percent up to $5,000.

One disadvantage of this platform is the lack of difference in terms of benefits between the different types of trading account. Also, not having any funding option for Paypal would also be an issue for some traders.

Spreads and Commission

This broker does not charge any commission. Instead, the company’s profit is dependent of the spreads of the trades themselves. Aside from imposing no hidden charges, all the gains and losses are quite real.

Underlying Assets

This platform enables numerous trading instruments, including currencies, gold and silver, oil, CFDs, commodities, indices, and stocks. However, it does not support any EFT trading.

Reliability and Efficiency

For traders who wish to execute real-time trades, XM is deemed as one of the most reliable platforms in the market. Aside from strictly imposing a no re-quotes policy, all figures stand upon the execution of a position. Indeed, 99.35% of all their trades are completed in less than a second.

There are few lag times between the observed prices and their actual market equivalents. However, if you computer has a good processing power and is connected to a strong internet connection, this issue will be of lesser deal.

Customer Support

XM offers outstanding client engagement and support, providing live chat, email and telephone options for all customers at all account levels. One interesting feature that it provides is its multi-lingual customer support portal, which supports more than 20 different languages. Also, the platform provides free interactive webinars for its clients every week, resolving almost all issues that the clients are facing. And with the help of the extensive resources that XM provides in its website, clients won’t have issues left unresolved.

You can open a free demo account and test—drive to see if this broker is right for you. Take advantage of the resources and highly enticing welcome bonus that they offer to start up your trading journey.

Whether you are a beginner or an expert trader, XM has a room for you. This platform’s commitment to quality service revolves around the core principles of business transparency, unified business principles, and outstanding customer communications. All these values are reflected in its services.

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reviews

Questrade Review

Questrade is a competitive financial service provider with an online stock trading platform for its Canadian-based investors. The broker specializes in ease of use and low trades. It has been in business since 1999.

Here is a quick review of Questrade in different aspects:

Pricing

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Questrade offers very competitive prices and you won’t have to worry about hidden charges. The platform offers $4.95 trading fees for trades with 495 shares or less – maximum $9.95 fees for trades with more shares. They do not charge the usual $29 commission that other online brokerages charge. In addition to that, you can also trade ETFs for free.

It can hold USD in RRSP, Open, RESP and RRIF accounts. Indeed, Questrade is the only brokerage in Canada that accepts USD in registered accounts. Funding your account is pretty straightforward and intuitive. You simply need to set up a “bill payment” from your online banking account, which will take between 1-3 days. And transferring securities and cash in-kind is also smooth.

You also don’t have to worry about any account fees. And the minimum account balance required to open an account is only $1000, with only $250 needed to keep an account open.

Platform

It’s also a good trading platform. It’s very simple and easy to comprehend. As a matter of fact, Questrade allots time to update and upgrade its trading platform in order to improve its service to its clients. Now, investors can already use the web, desktop and mobile for trading.

However, while the platform pleases most traders, there are investors who are critical of the platform. This is because the broker’s target audience is composed of the traders and not investors. Some investors claim that the free webtrading platform is difficult to navigate and a bit “wonky” at times.

Also, having an account with Questrade means that you have to remember three passwords: one each for MyQuestrade, WebTrader and Penson Financial.

Service

With this broker, you can easily set up accounts and do trades, move money and other functions. You can access both the U.S. and Canadian stock markets without any hassle.

Another advantage is it offers a Live Chat medium that is available for extended help hours. With this option, you can immediately get responses on your queries without having to wait for extended hours or minutes before you can get a customer representative to attend to your need. Aside from commendable responsiveness, most of the issues that customers raise are immediately settled.

However, despite its overwhelming benefits, there are also disadvantages to the service. For instance, the broker does not offer EFT transfer for USD funds. As a matter of fact, in order to move USD funds, you have to write a cheque that takes as long as 20 days to clear.

Overall, Questrade is a very good option for an online brokerage. Its low commission rates are an ultimate enticer. And it also does not charge exorbitant fees. Take a second look at Questrade and check the reviews of its competitors. With that, you can assess the best discount broker that could serve your needs.

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trading research

How to Research your Stock Investments

After developing a trading strategy, you can now do a research for your stock investments. It pays to know the kinds of information that will help you become successful in your investment journey. After all, conducting a research will help you become aware of the risks and opportunities that is attached to every investment.

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Here are some of the essential steps that you should do in your research process:

1) Examine the company income statement.

Choosing the right company for your investments is a very important step in your investment journey. Of course, your profit depends on the performance of the companies you have invested on, and surely, you wouldn’t want to invest in a company with an unstable financial status. By checking the company’s income statement, you can also predict the company’s future performance, thus giving you an idea whether you should invest on it or not.

You can easily find the annual and quarterly financial statements of all companies who trade their stocks publicly. Check out trading websites like Yahoo, or even the company websites themselves, and look for these 10-Q and 10-K reports.

These reports will give you a comprehensive look at the financial performance of the company, especially the revenue and expenses statements that show whether the company incurred profit or loss.

2) Examine the balance sheet.

Aside from the company’s income statement, you also have to check out the balance sheet. The balance sheet shows the company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity. Assets refer to all valuable items that the company owns and uses, such as cash, accounts receivable, equipment, and buildings. Liabilities, on the other hand, are the amounts that the company owns to others, including loans and accounts payable. Lastly, downer’s equity is the amount of the business that the corporation itself, or its stockholders, own.

The balance sheet shows the company’s financial standing on the last day of the quarter in terms of what it owns and what it owes.

In the balance sheet, you can predict the company’s growth by looking at the ratio between the company’s cash and short-term investments, and its short-term liabilities. By comparing the two, you can tell whether the company has enough money to pay their upcoming debts. If the company is not in a good financial standing, you might have to reconsider investing into this company.

3) Check out the security’s historical prices.

Since the stock market is continually fluctuating, it’s advantageous to look at the company’s historical trading prices to see whether these stocks are within your investment strategy. You can utilise sites like Yahoo Finance to view graphs showing the company’s trading prices over time. These reports will show you whether the company’s stock price has been increasing or declining over time.

Usually, new investors avoid stocks whose prices are dropping. You can still profit by buying stock at its lowest price and sell it when it becomes valuable again, but these changes are very unpredictable and it may bee too risky for you.

4) Read news about the company.

Aside from financial performance, stock prices also reflect the expectations of the greater public for a certain company, based on things like popularity of their products and services, or how their competitors are performing.

A good research will give you a win-win situation. It may not give you the greatest profits overnight, but it enhances your experience as you take your investments to another level.

Source: WikiHow

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How to Start Trading

Trading is another way of getting involved in the financial markets that aims to outperform conventional buy-and-hold investing. In trading, traders look for short-term price moves in order to gain money in both rising and falling markets.

As a trader, you can have all the freedom to work from home, set your own time, and have the chance to grow your money in the most favorable conditions. Participating in the trading industry has come to be so easy. However, becoming successful on it is another story.

Before engaging into trading, it’s important to develop a logical business or trading plan. As a matter of fact, successful traders went through a lot of hard work before their efforts paid off. It takes constant research, evaluation and discipline to succeed in trading.

Also, you need to approach trading as a business instead of a hobby. In developing a trading strategy, you need to identify things like short and long-term goals, the amount of capital that you allocate for the business, your timeline, and many other factors.

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Here are some of the things that you should do in developing a trading strategy:

1) Assess your investment goals. 

Before participating into any type of trading activity, you need to know the reasons why you want to invest in the first place. Ask yourself, “What do I really want to achieve through my investments? Is this going to be a short-term or a long-term plan?”

For instance, if your goal is to establish a retirement fund, you probably want to invest money as you earn it, and earn an interest rate that is greater than what a savings account could offer. But if you have more short-term goals like saving money for a condominium downpayment, you might consider investing one sum of money and earn a lower interest until you can have the unit that you want.

2) Consider your timeline.

After assessing your investment goals, you now have to take into account your timeline. Decide first whether you are a short or long-term investor. This is because your trading strategy will be different if you’re investing to make short-term profits than investing for retirement or other long-term goals.

Holding a security for less than 3 months can fall under short-term investing. This type of investing is more risky compared to long-term investing. It also does not provide as much returns as the long-term ones. Consequently, long-term

3) Consider your risk tolerance. 

Risk tolerance refers to your ability and willingness to go through the market inconsistencies. Most of the time, younger investors have higher risk tolerance due to their longer timelines. Older investors, on the other hand, may have lower risk tolerance.

Aside from risk tolerance, you should also consider your net worth, risk capital, level of experience, and your investment objectives.

4) Determine the type of investments you will make.

You can choose among the different types of investments. The most common ones are stocks, bonds, futures, options, and low grade “penny” stocks. Usually, beginners start with stocks and bonds. Also, do not trade everything. You have better chances at success if you learn and practice in the type of investments that meet your investment goals.

You have to take note that stocks and bonds are less risky compared to futures, options and penny stocks. They also provide much higher returns than traditional savings accounts. It’s wise to diversity your portfolio by investing on different types of investments. This way, you can make up for the losses in case one of your investments is losing.

5) Make a trading plan.

Now that you have determined the most basic investment decisions that you will be taking, it’s time for you to formulate your plan.

First, determine how often will you buy stock, and the time frame that you allocate before you will pull out an investment due to loss. Making a decision on this matter now will save you time in deciding whether or not to sell your stock on a day-to-day basis.

For beginner investors, it’s best to hold the investment for at least 25 days or more, rather than observing the changes in the stock prices every day.

Also, you need to choose the method that you would want to engage with if you choose a short-term trading. You can choose between day trading, swing trading, and position trading.

A good trading plan is objective, concise, and easy to comprehend. It is one that you have researched, tested on historical data, tested in a live market, and evaluate at regular intervals. You have to make sure that all these details are properly laid out before you trade in a live market.

In your research, you need to know the different trading styles, and take into account the trading style that best fits your investment behavior. Again, the factors that you need to take into account are account size, amount of time that can be dedicated to trading, level of trading experience, personality, and risk tolerance. This is where you factor in whether your personality and financial means are compatible with this type of business activity.

After you have gone through all these, you can proceed to researching your stock investments, bonds, options, and mutual funds, and purchasing and trading securities. Each of these processes have their own steps which we will discuss in detail in the next succeeding posts. For now, make sure that you have followed all these necessary steps before you engage into trading.

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