Get Started With Trading Stocks?

If you know nothing about stock exchange, here is a quick start kit for you to acquire the basic knowledge that all beginners should comprehend before trading on any stock market.

Indexes

First of all, you need to know the various indexes. There are Dow Jones Industrial Average which is a price-weighted average of 30 significant stocks traded on the New York Exchange and the Nasdaq. America is doubtlessly considered one of the most influential countries that can cause great impact on the overall world economy; hence, the US markets’ performance is largely watched by all investors and traders worldwide.

Next, we have the 3 major European Markets which are France (CAC), Germany (DAX) and London (FTSE).

Finally, we have the Asian major markets which are Hong Kong (Hang Seng), Shanghai (SSE), India (SENSEX), Korea (KRX) and Japan (Nikkei).

Basic Terms That Investors Should Know

[These are the general terms for you to kick start with. We will  add on more financial terms from time to time.]

In this article, we are focusing on Singapore stock market.

How To Get Started With Singapore Stock Market?

You have to know what are (1) Blue Chips, (2) Mid Caps, (3) Small Caps and (4) china-related stocks.

 

Next, you need to know the constituents that made up the STI index. Constituents may vary with time when there are new stocks included or existing stocks excluded. This is to give the best accuracy of the overall Singapore Stock Market. Currently, we have 30 stocks that made up the STI Index.

STRAITS TIMES INDEX CONSTITUENTS (30 CONSTITUENTS)

 

Different stocks are assigned with different percentage weight, meaning that these 30 stocks movement will directly affect the STI index performance. Certainly, the bigger the percentage weight, the greater the impact it has on the index. To know the percentage weights of individual stock and the price range of stocks, please refer to our blog. 

In addition, there are many useful links that investors should frequent them to check for updates. You may check for any changes on the % weighting from www.ftse.com on a monthly basis as changes do not happen often but once in a long time.

Next, www.sgx.com is a good website to obtain latest updates on company’s announcements.

Company’s Dividends Payout

There are 2 terms that investors have to know about dividends. One is cum-dividend which has a short form of “CD”. The other one is Ex-dividend which has a short form of “XD”.

Cum-dividend means if you purchase this stock during the period when it is showing “CD”, you are entitled to the dividend payout that the company had declared.

Ex-dividend means if you purchase this stock during the period when it is showing “XD”, you are not entitled to the dividend payout that the company had declared.

To facilitate better understanding, we have drafted 3 different kinds of situations to illustrate on dividend payout. Please note that the mentioned examples herein are all hypothetical.

Stock A has just announced good earnings and decided to declare 5cents dividends on Monday. Stock A will start to trade “CD” on Tuesday and going Ex-dividend on Friday.

Case 1: You did a fundamental analysis and found that Stock A is a good investment. So you proceed to buy on Tuesday. In this case, you are entitled to the dividend payout.

Case 2: You are an active stock trader and concluded that the chart pattern of Stock A has fulfilled your criteria of a good buy. You buy on Tuesday, however, the share does not perform to your expectation and you went on to sell your shares on Thursday. In this case, you are NOT entitled to the dividend payout.

Case 3: You are an active stock trader and concluded that the chart pattern of Stock A has fulfilled your criteria of a good buy. You buy on Tuesday and after holding for several days, the stock underperformed but it has yet to reach your stop loss price. Eventually you decided to sell your stocks on Friday. In this case, you are entitled to the dividend payout.

In short, if you buy a stock on “CD” and sell on “XD”, you are entitled to dividends. But if you buy on “CD” and sell on “CD” before “XD”; and/or buy on “XD”, you are not entitled at all.

Things To Note During ED

Pay attention on the amount given as dividends by the company. Large dividends payout might affect the share price once it goes ex-dividend. But you need not worry about the sudden plunge in share prices. Follow the 1-2-3 steps and use the information to decide on your next course of action.

 

Example: Stock B is trading $2 and giving out dividend of 7cents. On ex-dividend, Stock B should be trading at $1.93 for investors that are not entitled to the dividends. If Stock B managed to trade above $1.93, this indicates that Stock B is bullish. However, if Stock B falls below $1.93, it is considered bearish.

Stock’s behaviour

Every stock has its own unique movement. Some are volatile while some are pretty stagnant. You need to spend some time observing the share price movement and ensure that you are comfortable with their price range movement before you begin your investment.

For instance, UOB and DBS are considered high beta stocks with high daily fluctuations of up to (but not limited to) 20cents.

ComfortDelgro and SMRT are considered defensive stocks and are stagnate in price movements. Hence, you do not expect much movement over a short period of time on such stocks.

Some stocks that have wide movements can be hard to trade if you are an active trader. For example, Jardine group stocks which include Jardine C&C, Jardine Matheson and Jardine Strategic. These stocks have erratic movement which can pose substantiate threats to intra-day trading.

Erratic movement can be caused by a few factors such as liquidity issues. When you make a wrong judgment and share prices are moving against you, you would definitely want to exit the market with the least damage done. However, due to liquidity issue, you might be forced by circumstances to sell your positions at an undesired price which could result in heavy losses incurred.

In summary, active day traders should avoid trading erratic movement shares such as Jardine-related stocks or SIA. These shares are more suitable to investors with long term investment objectives.