Stock Research

Investors buy stock for one simple reason: to make money. The surest way to earn money from investing is to create as di¬verse a portfolio as possible and hang on to it for a long time. To succeed at making money investors need good sources of infor¬mation.
Stockbrokers supply much information. They study market reports and get information on the forecasted financial performance of companies. Brokers usually recommend oppor¬tunities or provide special services such as newsletters. For this brokers charge additional fees.
Sometimes investors prefer to avoid high brokerage fees. They implement their own investment strategy. Serious investors sub¬scribe to investment newsletters and carefully study the stock market. Best investors become an expert in a particular industry.
A simpler investment strategy is to choose some reliable blue chip stocks and stick to them. This strategy is safe and can earn money over the long run. Investors should avoid making com¬mon mistakes, which are:
1) failure to diversify,
2) paying too much for a stock which would not go up,
3) not knowing when to sell a stock going down,
4) paying too much attention to ru¬mors and tips.
There are also several techniques of predicting the stock prices. Most investors begin with fundamental analysis, which is the process of comparing a company’s current financial position and future prospects with those of other firms in the same or different industries. Some investors usually called “chartists” try to identify a specific stock’s behavior charting it over time and then predicting its future price movement. Other investors be¬lieve that prices are random. The random walk theory is based on the assumption that future stock prices are independent of past stock prices. They choose stocks at random. A group of investors has adopted an unusual approach, contrarianism, which holds that the market will move in the direction opposite to that predicted by the general public. In other words, these investors do the opposite of what the general public does.

Trading stock begins with an investor placing an order, which is informing the stockbroker as to what stock and how much he wants the broker to buy or sell. An order to buy or sell stock at the best possible price at the present time is called a market order. The broker conveys the order to an exchange member on the trading floor, who attempts to get a better price for the buyer by offering a little less. For example, the broker might offer 47 1/8 ($47.12.5) for the stock with a current price of 47 1/4 and see if someone will sell at this price. If the investor were selling, the broker would attempt to get a slightly higher price by offer
say, 47 3/8.
The final sale will then be electronically relayed to the bro¬ker who placed the order.
The investor might also place a limit order, which specifies the highest or lowest price at which the broker may buy or sell. If the investor can’t be accommodated immediately, the broker places the order in a sales book and then tries again in order of priority. If an investor wants to keep the order on the books he can issue an open order that instructs the broker to leave the order on the books until it is executed or canceled.
Sometimes the investor might give a discretionary order, which allows the broker to exercise judgment in making money. The investor leaves it up to the broker to decide when and at what price to buy or sell.
An odd lot is any number of shares less than 100. One hun¬dred shares comprise a round lot. Brokers usually trade shares in lots, odd lots being combined with a series of other small orders to forma round lot. A purchase of 10,000 shares is some¬times called a block sale.
In addition to the price of the stock, the investor pays the broker a commission for buying or selling the securities.
Sometimes investors pay less than the full amount when they buy stock. This is called margin trading. The FRS determines the minimum margin required. In recent years the stock margin has been approximately 50 percent. Fearing that the investor might sell the stock and abscond with the funds, the broker keeps stock certificates of margin accounts at the brokerage as collat¬eral. If the stocks were to plummet, the broker would call the investor and request that he put up more money or have the stock sold.
Active buyers of stock are called bulls. They believe that the prices of stocks are going to rise. During the mid 1980s, the US witnessed a very long bull market. At the 1987 crash even bulls became bears. A bear is an investor who makes a profit when the prices are going to fall. Selling short is a high-risk strategy which bears use in order to do that. They sell borrowed stock in the hope of later buying it on the open market at a lower price. Options are contracts that allow an investor to either buy or sell a security at a predetermined price within a certain time. Depending on the investor’s expectations, he may buy a put option or a call option. A put option grants the owner the right to sell a security. Believing that the price of certain shares will drop over some period of time an investor might buy an option and benefit from selling the shares at the option price to the person who sold the options. A call option grants its owner the right to buy a certain amount of stock at a predetermined price within a fixed period of time.

To my mind it would be necessary to know a little bit more about securities markets, than I know now. As I have already said securities are bought and sold at two types of securities mar¬kets: primary markets, which issue new securities, and second¬ary markets, where previously issued securities are bought and sold. If a company wants to sell a new issue of stock or bonds it usually negotiates with an investment bank, or underwriter, who sells the securities for it. The underwriter buys the securities from the corporation and resells then to individual investors through the secondary market.
Organized security exchanges have developed to make the buying and selling of securities easier. The securities exchanges consist of the individual investors, brokers, and intermediaries who deal in the purchase and sale of securities. Security exchanges do not buy or sell securities; they simply provide the location and services for the brokers who buy and sell.
A stockbroker handles stock transactions. A stockbro¬ker buys and sells securities for clients. Stockbrokers act on the clients’ orders. Stockbrokers receive a fee and are associated with a brokerage house. To trade on the exchange, a “seat” must be purchased. A seat is a membership. The members represent stockbrokers. When a stockbroker calls in an order to sell, the member representing that broker looks for a buyer at the price requested. When a broker calls in an order to buy, the exchange member looks for a buyer at the price offered.
The largest and best-known exchange in the USA is the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) also called the “Big Board”. There are 1,300 seats on the NYSE and approximately 2,000 stocks and 3,400 bonds are traded daily. In. order to be listed on the NYSE, a firm has to meet the following requirements:
1. Pretax earnings of at least $2.5 million in the previous year.
2. Tangible assets of at least $16 million
3. At least 1 million shares of stock publicly held, and others.
The second largest stock exchange in the USA is the Ameri¬can Stock Exchange (AMEX). It is located in Manhattan and has about 500 full members and 400 associate members. AMEX oper¬ates in much the same way as NYSE, but smaller companies may qualify for listing.
There are also regional stock exchanges that serve regional markets.
The over the counter market (OTC) sells and buys unlisted securities outside of the organized securities exchanges. About 5,000 brokers of OTC are scattered all over the country. They trade unlisted stocks and bonds by phone and keep in contact with each other.
The prices of the securities are established by supply and demand. Electronic screens in the offices of the brokerage firms display OTC transactions, so brokers continually keep cus¬tomers up to date on the latest prices.
Options are traded on the major stock exchanges, but also on a special market for options, the Chicago Bond Options Ex¬change (СВОЕ).

Investor… We use this word quite often. But what does it mean?..
Investors may be organizations or individuals. Organizations as institutional investors buy securities with their funds or funds held in trust for others. Major institutional investors are insur¬ance companies, pension funds and universities. Insurance com¬panies make their investments generate profits and funds for paying future insurance claims. A pension fund wants to make money on its investments so that it can pay off pensioners.
The other types of investors are individuals who trade secu¬rities for their own accounts. The majority of personal investors have rather small stock portfolios usually valued at less than $50,000. They often use these funds for major purchases such as a home, retirement income, or as a source of cash in case of emergency.
The objectives of investors can be identified in terms of speculation, growth, and income.
Some investors set an objective of achieving big payoffs. They engage in speculation, or assuming large risks in the hope of large returns. One of the ways to speculate is to buy “penny stock”. It is highly speculative stock that sells at less than $5. A $1 stock that is in high demand may rapidly run up to $3 thus tripling the initial investment. “Penny stock” is typically a share in new ventures.
More investors are interested in long-term growth in the value of their investment. They tend to prefer the so-called blue chip stocks of large, high quality companies such as IBM, General Motors, and American Express. The dividend for blue chip stocks is rather low because these firms reinvest much of their profits in research in order to remain competitive.
Some investors seek income. They are interested in a stock’s yield, which is the percentage return from stock dividends. Utility stocks provide the highest regular yields because they have minimal risk. The investors take risk only within certain limits. Common stock is less safe than preferred stock because preferred stock¬holders receive dividends before they are paid to the common stockholders. In the case of common stock, utilities are safer than high tech stock. The safest type of securities is government bond because the government backs it.

It may sound like a house of cards, but many financial instruments in the global economy are based on nothing more than value of other financial instruments. Today it would be impossible to responsibly manage any significant international investment without an understanding of financial derivatives like options, financial futures, and interest rate swaps. A stock option, which allows an investor to purchase or sell a given stock at fixed price sometime in the future, is called a derivative because its value is determined by the value of underlying stock.
A financial future is an agreement to buy a financial instrument – such as a stock or bond – sometime in the future at a fixed price. A stock index future, for example, allows investors to benefit from the rise in a stock index by buying, in a sense, all the shares in the index. Just as a gold future goes up in value when gold’s price rises, a future on the Standard & Poor’s 500 will increase in value when the stock index rises.
The basic idea of a swap is to trade something you have for something you want. A swap is a trade agreement between two or more counterparties, usually banks, to exchange different assets or liabilities such as interest payments. Essentially, it allows both parties to obtain the right assets and cash flows for their own particular needs. In the case of banks, this most often means trading two loans with different interest rates or different foreign currencies. For example, a bank landing money to consumers at a fixed interest rate may be borrowing money at floating or periodically changing interest rates. In order to eliminate the risk of having borrowed and lent money at two different interest rates, the bank enters into an interest rate swap agreement with another institution to exchange one flow of interest rates for another.

Equity market is a great part of financial market, that’s why it’s very important to understand what does mean the term financial market.
Financial markets provide a forum in which suppliers of funds and demanders of loans and investments can transact business directly. Whereas the loans and investments of institutions are made without the direct knowledge of the supplier of funds (savers), suppliers in the financial markets know where their funds are being lent or invested. The two key financial markets are the money market and the capital market. Transactions in short-term debt instruments, or marketable securities, take place in the money market. Long-term securities (bonds, stocks, etc.) are traded in the capital market.
The money market is created by a financial relationship between suppliers and demanders of short-terms funds, which have the maturities of one year or less. The money market exist because certain individuals, businesses, governments and financial institutions have temporarily idle funds that they wish to put in some type of liquid assets or short-term, interest-earning instruments. At the same time, other individuals, business, governments and financial institutions find themselves in need of seasonal or temporary financing. The money market thus brings together this suppliers and demanders of short-term liquid funds.
The capital market is a financial relationship created by a number of institutions and arrangements that allows the suppliers and demanders of long-term funds – funds with maturities of more than one year – to make transactions. The backbone of the capital market is formed by the securities exchanges that provide a forum for debt and equity transactions. Major securities traded in the capital market include bonds and both common and preferred stock.
All securities, whether in the money or capital markets, are initially issued in the primary market. This is the only market in which the corporate or government issuer is directly involved in the transaction and receives direct benefit from the issue – that is, the company actually receives the proceeds from the sale of securities. Once the security begins trade among individuals, businesses, governments or financial institutions, savers and investors, they become part of the secondary market. The primary market is the one in which “new” securities are sold; the secondary market can be viewed as an “issued” or “preowned” securities market.
During the last two decades the Euromarket – which provides for borrowing and lending currencies outside their country of origin – has grown quite rapidly. The Euromarket provides multinational companies with an “external” opportunity to borrow or lend funds with the additional feature or less government regulation.

The capital of a business consists of the funds used to start and run the business. The funds can be either the owner’s (equity capital) or creditor’s (debt capital). Equity capital consists of those funds provided to the business by the owner’s. These funds come from the personal savings of the owner. Debt capital consists of borrowed funds that the business owner owes to the lender. With debt capital the entrepreneur doesn’t have to share ownership, but has a legal obligation to repay the borrowed money (principal) plus interest at a future date even if the business does not make profit.
Equity financing (obtaining owner funds) can be exemplified by the sale of corporate stock. In this type of transaction, the corporation sells units of ownership known as shares of stock. Each share entitles purchaser to a certain amount of ownership. For example, if someone buys 100 shares of stock from Ford Motor Company, that person has purchased 100 shares worth of Ford resources, materials, plants, production and profits. The person purchases shares of stock is known as stockholder or shareholder.
All corporations, regardless of their size, receive their starting capital from issuing and selling shares of stock. The initial sales involve some risk on the part of the buyers because corporation has no record of performance. If the corporation is successful, the stockholder may profit through increased valuation of the shares of stock, as well as by receiving dividends. Dividends are proportional amounts of profit usually paid quarterly to stockholders. However, if the corporation is not successful, the stockholder may take losses on the initial stock investment.
Often equity financing does not provide the corporation with enough capital and it must turn to debt financing, or borrowing funds. One example of debts financing is the sale of corporate bonds. In this type of agreement, the corporation borrows money from investor in return for bond. The bond has maturity date, a deadline when the corporation must repay all of the money it has borrowed. The corporation must also make periodic interest payment to the bondholder during the time the money is borrowed. If these obligations are not met, the corporation can be forced to sell its assets in order to make payments to the bondholders.
So the investments in bonds are less profitable, but at the same time less risky for investor. Although for issuer is more preferably to obtain capital through issuing shares of stock.
All businesses need financial support. Equity financing (as in the sale of stock) and debt financing (as in the sale of bonds) provide important means by which a corporation may obtain its capital.

To my mind, first of all I should gain an understanding of types of securities. As far as I know there are many types of securities. And how can I choose some of them with the highest expected return and liquidity and the lowest risks? I want understand why I should buy or sell exactly this or that type of security. So let’s try to investigate…
            In theory there are several groups of securities:

• Equity Securities;
  
• Fixed Income Securities;
  
•  Investment Funds;
  
• Units & Trusts;
  
• Options, Warrants & Rights;
  
• Futures Contracts.
  

So, equity securities: common shares, restricted voting shares, preferred shares, flow-through shares.
As far as I understand securities of this group have practically the same liquidity. As for expected return: the capital gains potential of common shares is usually higher than for preferred shares of the same company. And return on flow-through shares will depend on the potential tax benefits to the investor. Then risks… The most risky securities of this group are flow-through shares, if I’m not mistaken. But all risks of all of them are moderate to high. So among securities of this group I’ll choose common shares. To my mind the balance of return and risks is the best!
The second group: savings bonds, bonds, debentures, treasury bills (T-bills), Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs).

If I’m not mistaken investment of money in treasury bills is more profitable. Yes, among securities of this group I will choose exactly treasury bills.
            The third group and investments funds: shares or units of Mutual Funds, shares or units of Closed-End Investment Funds, units of Segregated Funds and shares of Labour-Sponsored Investment Funds.

Then go units and trusts: limited partnership units and trust units.