Investment of Mine

1. Start small.
   If you are new to online investing, don’t put your entire life savings into an online account. Start with a smaller sum, which will be easier to handle and keep track of. Once you feel confident, you can then decide to add more money to your online account.
2. Stay diversified.
   Once online, many investors tend to concentrate on stocks, specifically large-cap domestic stocks. While these stocks should make up part of your portfolio, they shouldn’t be ALL of it! Take into account your time horizon and risk tolerance to develop a well-balanced portfolio of stocks, bonds, and cash.
3. Don’t bail on mutual funds.
   Most investors are in mutual funds for a good reason. They don’t have the expertise to make their own investments calls on individual stocks. They also are too preoccupied by work, family and other concerns to spend every minute watching the market. So keep your mutual funds; it probably is an unwise move for you to cash out your long-term fund holdings so that you can start “playing the market” in individual stocks!
4. Costs may not always be obvious.
   Even if online brokerage costs are lower than those of full-service brokers, they can still add up, particularly if you do a lot of buying and selling. Online brokerages firms also impose a number of other fees and charges that you should study closely. The federal capital gains tax is also something with which you must reckon. Before you start buying and selling stocks or mutual funds online on a large scale, you should give careful thought to what the tax bite would be as a result of such trading.
5. Make orders work for you.
   If you are going to do your own investing online, you need to learn how to use the tools available to avoid potentially steep losses and to buy or sell a stock at attractive prices. Here are three “orders” that you should use to your advantage:

   A MARKET order is an instruction to buy or sell a specified amount of a stock (or other security) at the current market price. The advantage of a market order is you are almost always guaranteed your order will be executed - as long as there are willing buyers and sellers. Depending on your firm’s commission structure, a market order may also be less expensive than a limit order.

   A LIMIT order allows you to avoid buying or selling a stock at a price higher or lower than what you specify. A limit order is an order to buy or sell a security at a specific price. A buy limit order can only be executed at the limit price or lower, and a sell limit order can only be executed at the limit price or higher. By contrast, a market order only guarantees you the best available price — not the limit order’s specified price.

   A STOP-LOSS order sets a sell price for a broker. When the price of the stock drops below this level, it automatically is sold. Also: Take the time to learn about “stop orders,” “day orders” and “good-till-cancelled” orders

6. Mind those market orders.
   Limit orders are often used to guarantee that an investor will not pay over a certain dollar level for a stock. If no limit is placed, the trade is considered to be a market order. Placing a market order means you won’t necessarily get the price you see when you buy or sell online. Here’s how that works: an investor places an order for a fast-moving stock at $10 share price, but the order does not reach the market until the stock’s price is at $15 a share.
7. Problems are inevitable.
   Trading online is not foolproof. There will be times when you can’t access your account. You could be away from your computer when the market makes a major move. Your Internet connection could be down. The online brokerage firm’s server could crash due to heavy trading, unexpected software glitches or a natural calamity. Know about the firm’s alternative trading options. This could include automated telephone trading or calling a broker.
8. Information is power.
   If you are going to buy and sell individual stocks online, it is your duty to keep as well informed as possible about what is going on with the company in question. Don’t just settle for the hype about hot stocks! Go to the company’s Web site and download its prospectus. Check out the company’s publicly available filings through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system. Take advantage of free services that allow you to get automatic e-mail messages whenever there is news about your stock.

http://www.investingonline.org/new/onlineinvesting.html

Closing bell of the stock market:

Nikkei 225 -605.04 -5.00% 11,609.72
Topix -59.63 -5.10% 1,117.57
FTSE    -178.60    -3.43%    5,025.60
DAX    -98.99    -1.63%    5,965.17
CAC    -81.57    -1.96%    4,087.40
Dow    +141.51    +1.30%    11,059.02
NASDAQ    +27.99    +1.28%    2,207.90
S&P    +20.90    +1.75%    1,213.60
10yr Note    +0.0800    +0.023%    3.491%
NYMEX Crude Oil    -4.56    -4.76%    91.15
Gold    -6.50    -0.83%    780.50

European indices had suffered losses two days running, Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index falling to the minimum level for 3 years. This was caused by the fall of American International Group Inc.’s credit rating triggering the new stage of crisis on the market of debt issues. The representatives of the financial sector suffered the greatest losses. The stocks of UBS AG which had reported the assets writing-off in the amount of more than $43 billion due to the losses on the credit markets fell 17% after the interbank credit overnight rate had doubled. HBOS Plc’s stocks – British largest mortgage bank – lost 22%, and French Natixis SA - 16%. Active sales were observed in the goods and commodities sector, which was caused by the fall of prices on the raw materials due to the apprehensions about the reduction of demand for them because of the retardation of the economy global growth. Xstrata Plc’s stocks – one of the largest copper producers – fell 7.4 %.

Closing bell of the stock market:

FTSE    -212.50    -3.92%    5,204.20
DAX    -170.73    -2.74%    6,064.16
CAC    -163.69    -3.78%    4,168.97
Dow    -503.99    -4.41%    10,918.00
NASDAQ    -81.36    -3.60%    2,179.91
S&P    -58.04    -4.64%    1,193.66
10yr Note    -2.4700    -0.662%    3.483%
NYMEX Crude Oil    -5.47    -5.41%    95.71
Gold    +22.50    +2.94%    787.00

Wall Street suffered the most serious losses after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. had asked for protection from the creditors’ demands. This fact meant the actual acknowledgement of bankruptcy of the investment bank and US’s largest insurance company American International Group Inc. Failed to provide the plan of capital in-draw in order to avoid the decline of credit ratings.

US’s fourth largest investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc after getting a quarterly loss in the amount of $4 billion announced about the sale of a part of its commercial property assets as one of the measures of stabilizing its financial state.

СNBC reported that FRS had employed Morgan Stanley to negotiate with AIG about financing the insurance company after it became known that Warren Buffet was not interested in AIG.

The perspectives of the USA’s largest saving and credit institution Washington Mutual Inc were reconsidered by the rating agency from stable to negative, which would possibly cause the decline of the company’s stocks rating to the speculative grade during next two years.

The rating raise of Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, US Airways, and Northwest Airlines to Buy from Neutral by the UBS analysts positively influenced the given sector of the market.

During the whole session the major indices had been under the pressure but by the end of the day S&P 500 and Dow had renewed session minimums. Weakness was widespread on the market. Nevertheless, despite the fact that financial sector lost 7.2 %, it is 16% higher than the long-term minimum set on July 15^th.

The pressure on the goods and commodities sector is worth mentioning. Thus, namely, Topix declined 3.3 %. Among the largest outsiders one can mention petrol (-6.9%), crude oil (-5.9%) and fuel oil (-5.0%). Growth was observed in the segment of nickel (+4.1%), gold (+2.9%) and silver (+2.5%).

Japanese major indices ended the week by the slight growth: Nikkei remained almost on the same level, Topix grew 0.5%. Last day of the week Japanese major indices consolidated (Nikkei +0.9%, Topix +1.3%) against the background of speculations that the purchase of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc would support financially weak markets.

Resona Holdings Inc.’s stocks – Japanese fourth largest capitalization bank – skyrocketed 12 %. The stocks of the largest competitor - Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc - gained 4.3%. Orix Corp’s stocks skyrocketed 10 %. The interest of investors was also directed to the stocks of the shipping lines which seemed to be underestimated after a recent decline. Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd’s stocks – Japanese third largest shipping company – grew 4.7 %. The stocks of the competitor - Mitsui & Co. – gained 5.5 %.

The decline of demand for economy cars in connection with the deviation of oil prices negatively affected the stocks of the companies producing economy cars. Thus, Daihatsu Motor Co fell 5.3%. Suzuki Motor Corp’stocks went 4.7%. The auto makers’ stocks group showed the maximum fall among the 33 groups of Topix.