Get organized, first thing is get your broker's phone number
along with your account number and keep it in a safe accessible
place near your PC. You'll never know when you may have an
internet connection problem or even worse your online broker's
site goes down. As you would think these ocurrences seem to
happen at the worst possible time, when the market or your
stock is selling off in a big way.
Next buy a desk calendar, something large enough that provides
sufficient writing space that you can write market or stock
information on in any given date area. Most office supply stores
offer an inexpensive 15"x22" desk size for about 2.49 or so.
A good place to try is OfficeMax.com
There are also many online calendars you may use
like the one used at earnings.com (my personal favorite!)
One of the things you will want to enter on the calendar is company
earnings release information. You will want to write down stock
symbols you follow in the date area on the anticipated date that
the company is expected to release earnings. There are many earnings
calendars available on the net where you can get this information.
Try to fill out your calendar as far ahead as you can depending upon
the information available to you. In each date of relevence fill in
stock symbol, earnings estimate and actual L.Y. number.
Earnings are one of the biggest events that can move your stock's
share price, so knowing the release date and having it handy is
crucial. Make sure to update the earnings information with any
company pre-announcement news that may come out ahead of time.
Company's sometimes warn ahead of time that they may miss their
estimates or sometimes positively pre-announce that they will
exceed estimates.
(utilizing this information will be covered more indepth in
Trading strategy lesson -Earnings)
You should also keep track of company earnings for stocks in the
same sector as the one you follow, the reason for this is a lot
of times stocks will move in sympathy with each other in the same
sector.
(ex. If a semiconductor stock announces great earnings with future
sales outlook strong, other stocks in the semiconductor group would
likely receive a positive pop in their share price, or on the other
side of the coin if the news is bad there may be a sell off.)
Other key information to include on the desk calendar:
Stock split dates and split amount (ex. 3-1 , 2-1 etc.)
Upgrades and downgrades - from what to what
(ex. from a buy to strong buy)
New price targets announced by the analyst-
(usually announced with the upgrade or downgrade)
Any other market moving event.
(ex. date the Fed meets to decide on interest rates, CPI report,
unemployment report, financial news or reports that indicate
inflation status)
A great source for earnings calendars is at this page of
dailystocks which offers links to over a dozen available earnings calendars.
Post-it Personalized Notes On-Line
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