who can tell me how to read stocks?

Question

who can tell me how to read stocks?

actually i'm 17 years old & from Malaysia. i'm deciding to further in economics.
i want to learn how to read stocks.

Answer 1

For beginner try both fundamental and technical analysis of stocks

For fundamental http://www.investopedia.com/university/fundamentalanalysis/

For technical http://stockcharts.com/education/

Answer 2

The simple way is watch the chart. It is called technical trading. The graph of prices and volume of trading will give some indications of direction. An indication of direction then becomes an opportunity for decision.

There are two general directions to take: (1) with the market, and (2) contrarian, the opposite. The graph will show a trend, so if the line of prices keeps largely marching up, you buy and be a part of those increases. Essentially, buy when people are buying and sell when people are selling. The contrarian is doing the opposite--price got bid up, way up? Then think about selling the stock short. Your brokerage firm essentially loans (at a price) the shares you sell, then you just buy them back later. If the price is lower, than you paid a small amount and sold it already at a higher amount, you keep the difference as profit. That is if it falls. On the other hand, if the price has fallen and fallen, but it is a solid company, then maybe you need to buy. Buying stocks while they are falling is either stupid (you are losing value) or averaging-down the cost of your holdings or getting it just as it is about to turn around. Once the market realizes that a good and profitable company is too cheap, then people will flock to buy it--the price goes up and you make a profit.

Another way is called fundamental. Does the company make a profit? That is a plus. Does it look like it will make more profit? That is a bigger plus. Does it do its job better than its competitors? That is a plus. So you look for things that show one company at an advantage over the others in these fundamental business features. Whatever the graph, if it does better business than its peers, buy it instead of them.

Answer 3

I would suggest you read "The Little Book that Beats the Market" - this is a great short book that clearly explains the fundamentals of value investing.

You might want to also take a look at http://www.top10traders.com - this is a free site that lets you create a portfolio of stocks with $100,000 in "play" money. Each day the site ranks the best performing portfolios, so you can see how your picks perform compared to other investors. You can also read posts on investing from the best traders, as well as share your own investing ideas. There is also a charting feature , so you can see how your portfolio performs compared to the S&P 500.

Here are this month's best traders:

http://www.top10traders.com/Top10Standings.aspx

Good luck.