It doesn’t matter how you complex your stock picking system is, it will boil down to one of three things. It will be either fundamental analysis, technical analysis or the two of these combined. I will refer to this combination as ‘techno-fundamental’.

The image most people have of investments involve securities like stocks, bonds, options and futures. But a much more mundane type of low risk investments is the annuity which is good for people who wish for a stable investment income. A large number of annuities exist with different kinds of growth, tax properties and payout schedules. We discuss here what is an annuity and how it similar or different from something like an IRA.

So let’s talk about the differences between investing with stocks and options. First we’ll tackle the less complex investing vehicle, we all know as stocks. To start with, you should know that stocks are directional trading vehicles. If we are long the stock, then we make money when the prices of the asset rises, and we lose capital as the underlying asset’s price decreases. Also, we can sell a stock short in which the profit comes when the stock falls. Direction is key when investing with stocks. We need not worry about time or market volatility.

Consider the 1st time you bought your first shares. Did you buy on the recommendation of an acquaintance or perhaps a broker? Did you do your homework to test whether the stock has potential for making money? Did you monitor your holdings carefully to make sure the stock was behaving like it should? Did you implement the proper sell rules to unload your stocks? Should you (I’m assuming that you are a beginner in the stock markets here) answer these questions faithfully, you will be able to find out the explanations why you haven’t been making money from the stock market.

The stock market attracts new investors all the time who are looking to make it big by investing their money. But most of these new investors don’t seem to understand how the stock market actually works and this causes them to panic and become very greedy for no apparent reason. If you are new to the market here is some basic information about how the market naturally moves up and down.