Stock picks and tips

Have you suffered from stock broker investment losses or fraud?

Legal recovery of investment losses from protected notes.

A class action legal action has been filed on behalf of persons who purchased Lehman Principal Protection Notes from UBS Monetary Services Inc, and other companies. The class action suit alleges that defendants deceived investors as to the risks of investing in the Notes and that UBS and other companies offered and sold the Notes as suitable for investors wanting to protect their entire principal investment from investment losses. Following Lehman Bros bankruptcy filing, Lehman Principal Protection Notes went into default, causing the holders of these Notes to become senior unsecured creditors in Lehman’s bankruptcy proceeding. These investors will lose all or substantially all of their principal investments unless they file a litigation claim for their investment losses.

You may recover from investment losses in structured investments that were marketed as a hundred percent principal protected.

Gilman and Pastor is currently investigating consumer complaints that certain brokerage firms, financial institutions and entities misled their clients into buying a hundred % principal protected notes, through assurances that their principal investment would be completely protected. Certain brokerage firms including UBS, Raymond James, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Fidelity, and Wachovia, marketed and are claimed to have sold principal protected notes to their clients, in particular targeting conservative, risk-averse investors who were seeking to preserve their capital and generate earnings. Really, these notes subjected investors to significantly more risk than was revealed and, following Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing and other finance events in September, holders of these principal protected notes faced losses, in some cases, of their whole principal investment due to fraud.

Why Gilman and Pastor, LLP for your Investment Losses?

Gilman and Pastor are class action lawyers and a state litigation firm focusing on stocks litigation, investment losses, investment crime, consumer class actions and complex business litigation. For thirty years our attorneys have recovered more than a billion dollars on behalf of our clients for investment losses.

Class action lawyers at Gilman and Pastor LLP publishes a Class Action Lawsuit Against AIG and Merrill Lynch, As Well As Additional Investigations of Structured Investments.

The countrywide legal company of Gilman and Pastor LLP with offices in Boston, Massachusetts, and Naples, Florida, claims that a class action court action has been brought on behalf of folks who purchased Structured Notes from AIG and Merrill Lynch. Financial fraud is running at pandemic proportions. The most recent wave of the alleged highly fraudulent investments is “structured investments”. The complaint alleges that brokerage firms and financial institutions aggressively marketed structured investments as being structured promissory notes that have complete principal protection, as contrasted to other instruments like equity-backed funds that don’t provide principal protection.

Such structured notes subjected financiers to noticeably more risk than could have been revealed. Holders of these presumably principal protected notes face losses, in a few cases, of their complete principal investments. Gilman and Pastor LLP is finding that many investors have not been conscious of their money plights since their monetary statements typically don’t reflect current worth but only claimed price at maturity. Moreover, holders of these investments are sadly learning that most of the investments are illiquid, leaving holders without a cure except filing a litigation claim.

Gilman and Pastor LLP is investigating over thirty structured note issuers and more than forty banks who have issued or sold structured offerings. These include:

ABN AMBO Bank N.V.

AIG

Bank of America

Barclays Bank

Bear Stearns

Charles Schwab

Citigroup

Countrywide Securities

Credit Suisse

Deutsche Bank

E-Trade

Harris National Association

Incapital LLC

JP Morgan Chase

Lehman Brothers

Merrill Lynch

Morgan Keegan

Morgan Stanley

RBC Royal Bank

Societe Generale

Sun Trust Bank

UBS

Wachovia Corporation

The structured investments were usually offered and sold as acceptable for financiers looking to protect their whole principal investment. Every one of the issuers and sellers allegedly offered and emphasised the protection of principal as a chief

objective when investors are now learning they may be in danger for losing virtually all of their investment. Investors should act quickly to protect their interests.

For nearly 30 years, class action lawyers, Gilman and Pastor LLP has been one of the nation’s leading firms representing investors in stocks fraud actions and litigation to correct egregious company practices and breaks of fiduciary duty to investment losses that exceed $100,000.

Hoping and praying that the stocks that you just bought will go up is not the best strategy to use, however it is the one very often used by the average Joe stock trader who is stock trading internet. The only good point they have is that in bull markets most stocks will go up.

Statistics show that in a bull market about 75% of the stocks will follow the general trend and go up, and in a bear market 75% will also go down. Trading with the trend is the best way to trade as 9 out of 12 stocks will follow the trend and give you the best chance of making gains on your stock purchases.

But what if you own some good stocks and don’t want to sell when the market is clearly going down, or about to go down?. There are a couple of tactics that you can consider, both of which involve the use of options, CALL options and PUT options. There is the widely known strategy called Covered Calls, and the much lesser known one called the Married Put.

If you are going to trade options it is essential that before you start trading you get the best option trading education that you can. You should also practice stock trading until you are comfortable with the process. This is a very important point that must be taken seriously, if you don’t understand the terminology and theory then you should not be trading options. If the terms Put option, Call option, Married Put and Covered Call are new to you then don’t trade until you have studied sufficiently.

Selling calls against your stock in 100 share increments is the basis of the covered call strategy and it can provide about a 2-7% buffer against the loss in stock price. However a bigger drop in stock price will not be compensated for using the covered call strategy, in general.

Stocks in a bear market, and even in a bull market, can drop quickly on news or earnings releases, as much as 15 to 40% within a month. Using covered calls to protect your stocks will only provide limited protection of less than 7% at best and so will not save your account if the stock takes a 40% tumble.

The better solution to providing downside stock protection is the option strategy called the Married Put. As the name suggests the PUT that you buy is used to provide protection when the stock goes down because Put options will increase in value when the stock decreases in value. The term married is used because the option that is selected has to be very compatible with the stock, in other words a good match, if the strategy is to work.

The selection of the best Put option is not straight forward and involves several criteria which are listed below:

1. The strike price of the option

2. The current stock price

3. Choice of options, in or out of the money

4. Put expiration time

Even though the married Put protection only has a short life span if offers much more protection than the covered call. It can provide as much as 95% loss recovery in the event of a significant drop in the stock price.

The downside of the good protection is that you have buy the Put which is a debit whereas the covered call is a credit. But there are ways of off-setting this expense and there is much more to this strategy when executed correctly. The Married Put can be made to pay for itself and used to generate very good gains if the market, or stock to be specific, moves a lot.

The general idea of the Collar Trade is to combine the covered call and married Put strategy into one, this is what is called the Collar Trade. In effect you put a collar around the stock, sell a call and buy a PUT. If you do this correctly most of the cost of the Put can be offset by the credit from the covered call so you can protect your stock at almost no cost. Yes this is a great strategy which the general public is unfortunately ignorant of, and most brokers don’t understand.

The strategy that I have outlined above is unknown to the average stock market trader but is one of the best trading systems you could have.

As a stock market investor you would know that buying a stock for a particular company entitles you as the investor partial ownership in the corporate entity that issues the shares. To put it another way you are purchasing an “equity” participation in the company.

You will find that the best part of the US stocks listed and traded in the stock exchanges are known as equity securities. Trading in stocks is straightforward. You make your selection, buy the stock at the listed price and then sell it if the value increases if you choose to do so. You can also earn dividends from the company while you own a stock.

This article is about helping you with Learning Options Trading. So what are they? To make it simple, an option is really just a contract.

The difference with a stock and a stock option contract is that the purchaser of a stock option is that they do not take ownership of anything. An option contract gives the right to its owner to buy or sell the underlying financial instrument on which it is based.

The type of options most commonly referred to in financial circles is known as “equity options”. You may be interested to know there are different expiration dates for the options. The “regular” options can have expiration dates up to 9 months from the time of issue. There are also options known as LEAPS. They can have expirations of upwards of three years.

Now lets dive into a bit more detail about an option contract. Equity options just like stock are classified as securities. To get more specific equity options are called “derivative” securities. If you don’t know what that means it is simply that the value is in part based on, or derived from, the value of the particular underlying stocks.

Due to the fact that equity options are securities it makes them tradable items on any of the exchanges in the USA that list equity options. If you are looking to trade equity options if should come as some comfort to you that exchange listed equity options are overseen by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The process of stock trading has of course evolved a lot over the years as technology as developed. In the early part of the 20th century you had to physically visit a stock brokers office or trading room to buy and sell stocks.

When the postal mail became into common use you could then buy and sell stocks by mailing a letter to your broker, of course today nobody would dream of doing either of these.

Today the most common form of trading uses either the telephone or stock trading online. When using the telephone to trade stocks you can still do it by speaking to a broker and giving them your clear instructions, or you can do it all yourself by using some form of menu system using the digital key pad.

But by far the most common form of trading is done online, so what do you need to know about stock trading online?, more than you may think!

Here are some points that you may not have considered:

1. Virtually every broker can do stock trading but what about options, Forex and futures?. While you may not be interested in trading either Forex or futures it is quite likely that at some time you will want to trade options online, even if it is just covered calls. Make sure that your chosen broker allows you to trade all the markets that you want to.

2. Of course the fee’s charged by your online broker is an obvious point to check, the fee’s can vary a lot and if you are doing hundreds or thousands of trades a year it can add up to quite a lot of cash. Did you know that you can just call up your online broker and ask for a reduced commission charge?, yes you can, I’ve done it. Of course they don’t advertise it but if you do a lot of trades they will want to keep your business.

3. Have you planned what you will do if you are in a trade and your internet connection goes down for any reason, it could be a power failure, problems with the internet or your PC crashing?. If you are day trading you will want to telephone your broker and manage your trade, probably you will just want to close it. How will your broker deal with your call, will they answer quickly, will they look at charts for you and describe what is going on?. Make sure that your broker has good telephone support.

4. Are your trading accounts safe?, make sure that your broker is a member of SIPC, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which protects against losses caused by the financial failure of the broker-dealer, but not against losses resulting from depreciation in a security’s value. Usually trading accounts are protected by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), up to $500,000 (including up to $100,000 for cash claims).

Whatever you decide to do, before trading stocks, options or anything else make sure that you get a good trading education by reading the best trading books that you can.

There is new forex robot in the market that is creating a lot of buzz. Forex MegaDroid was recently released. It is being called a new revolutionary forex robot. It is breaking old barriers. This is the new frontier in forex trading. Forex trading is never going to be the same again.

Forex MegaDroid is based on a totally new technology called RCTPA. We dont know what this technology is. The only thing that we have been told is that RCTPA is Artificial Intelligence Technology that sees in the immediate future something like 2-4 hours. This means that Forex MegaDroid can see in the future and adjust itself 2-4 before the market changes to new stimuli.

Forex robots are programmed according to past historical markets. But we all know, past is past. It never repeats itself. Past conditions can never accurately predict future markets.

Forex markets are always reacting to changed economic and political conditions. So, one particular market condition cannot last long. The markets keep on changing.

John Grace and Albert Perrie are two forex professionals that have been working in the interbank market for the last 4 decades. They are the real professionals. They know the inside and out of forex markets.

RCTPA technology was developed by them. It sees ahead as I had told you. This is a new frontier in forex trading. Old barriers have been broken. Forex trading is about to change forever. RCTPA has been used in Forex MegaDroid. Other programmers simply dont know what is RCTPA.

Forex MegaDroid has a record of consistently doubling your account every month. This is no hype. Now, what I want to tell you is this that this robot has the potential of making you more than $1 Million in less than one years.

Start with only $500. Every month double your account. Do the calculation: $1000, $2000, $4000, $8000, $16000, $32000, $64000, $128000, $256000, $512000, $1024000. In only 11 months, you have reached $1 Million.

A better way would be to use two robots. This will hedge your risk. If one loses, the chances are the other will give you a winning trade. Forex MegaDroid and FAPTurbo are two forex robots that have a very good consistent trading record.

Get a 20% discount off Forex Megadroid.

Many people just want to enter the forex trading market after hearing about success stories and they can easily end up losing their shirts and more. How important is it to go through some training before entering the forex market?

THE AUTOMATED SYSTEMS

If you are planning to enter the forex trading market, there is no doubt that you will carry out some research on the internet. There you will hit upon sites which promise you fantastic gains using their automated forex trading systems. You can either the download the software or have your account with them and they will give it to you – all this comes at a price, of course. These systems virtually guarantee you automated trades which will earn you money, while you do other things. Now, just think, if these systems were so good that they could scalp the market and earn money for you, why would people waste time, money and effort on learning about forex trading – they would just use a system. Beware, some of these are just scams which will take your money for the system and never work the way they are supposed to.

REAL TRAINING

Real forex training, real coaching, whether it is on a personal basis or online, will always be of help. It will assist you and add to your knowledge and allow you to make decisions, after doing due diligence, of course. You will be able to do currency trades in pairs and develop your own strategies for trading. This will come from training and from experience. You need to have forex coaching like Triad Trading Formula to understand how the market works, what are the dynamics that drive the market, the repercussions of politics, how banks impact foreign currency prices and more. Even if you have to pay to get the training, it will be money well invested because it will a) help you minimize your losses in the market and b) it will help you make money. You need to be able to understand statistical data analyses and various wave theories as well.

DEMO ACCOUNTS

Many sites offer you demo accounts which you can try out till you are familiar with the whole system, without using real money. Once you understand the basics, once you are able to trade successfully with the demo accounts and software, you will be in a position to start trading in a forex account for real. When you use a demo account, do a lot of homework before and after, even though it is pretend trading. The before is important to see what you want to do, which currency trades will give you more money, how quickly you should cut off your positions whether they are losing or winning ones and also how much time you want to spend doing this forex trading. The after is necessary to analyze what you did right and what you did wrong. If you are following a person or site’s recommendations, you can also see how many times they picked successful trades.

REAL TRADING

Once you have had some training and opened an account, got your trading software in place, and familiarized yourself with it, put in your seed money, you will be ready to start trading for real. You can use an automated system, but you should use it as an assistant only, and make the decisions on your own. In the beginning, you must start with small amounts of money. If you make a profit in your trades, you should remove the initial capital as soon as possible and play with your profits alone – this way you’ll be playing with the market’s money and not your own and your capital will be protected. It is only with experience that you can understand how to make profits and learn which kinds of trades work for you. Remember that the forex trading market is open 24/7; you can trade whenever you have time to do so. You should start with money you can afford to lose and not get taken by any get-rich-quick schemes. And you should set aside the money you want to put in the forex market without impacting your necessary expenditures and living expenses. It is extremely easy to get obsessed by the market and lose track of reality once you are in the market.

No doubt for many investors and traders the idea of being able to make money online trading is appealing. Internet technology has opened up the world to traders who have an interest in investing and speculative trading. As technology has advanced so has the number of online brokerage firms that offer  with the opening of trading accounts the use of free trading platforms and services that just a few years ago would have cost hundreds, even thousands, a month in data access fees.

The online trading services offered extend across virtually all markets including stocks, forex and commodities. The potential is there for you as a trader to learn about and trade in any of these markets, all the while sitting in front of your computer at home. With a good fast Internet connection your home might be located just about anywhere in the world.

Learn more about how to Make Money Trading Online

The fact that you have such readily available trading assets at your disposal, however, may present a danger to your financial health. Many traders do learn how to make money online trading. Many others, unfortunately, get caught up in the excitement of trading and try to make money without knowing very much about the markets that they are trying to trade in. Unless you are extremely lucky this would be a mistake. 

Those who consistently make money from online trading do so because they have developed an education and skill sets within their chosen markets as well as the discipline to follow well thought out trading plans. They also have true risk capital at their disposal and can trade knowing that if things don’t work out as planned the loss of their trading capital would not impact the way that they live in the least.

So it is possible that you can you make money trading online? Well, perhaps you can, if you first educate yourself about your markets. Just be sure to know what you are doing before trading with real money. Opening a demo trading account is a good way to get started no matter if your interest is in stocks, forex, or commodities.

Learn more about how to Make Money Trading Online

In March Money Philosophy thought it would be a good time to get back into the stocks game after having been out of it for a few years. Money Philosophy was initially drawn to stocks such as C & GM which had taken a big hit since the markets fell through the floor in September of 2008.

His GM and C picks were very successful and that got him to look for other stocks similar to them. He ended up coming across a couple of penny stocks, LJPC and CTIC, that looked like they may break through with big gains.

That turned out to be correct as both LJPC and CTIC ended up being huge winners. In fact they were even bigger gainers than GM & C.

He thought that he may really be onto something with the way he was selecting these stock picks so he decided to try and create a stock screen screen which would find more stock buys like them right before they were about to go up.

The reason I’m writing this blog post today is because his first pick with this new screener reached a high 30% above it’s open today and that certainly impressed the heck out of me.

Of course I don’t expect every pick he or anyone else makes to have big gains. No way. And it’s key to know that a gain isn’t “real” until the point where you actually sell the stock. Deciding when to sell is equally as important as deciding when to buy. The really cool thing is that he also makes a post on his blog (and on Twitter) when he gets out.

He does not share the precise way he screens for these stocks as I guess he’s a little too selfish to share all of his secrets but he shares more than  most do.

Of course he doesn’t suggest that anyone should buy his picks. There is really nothing to gain from that. He’s clear that he’s only sharing what he does, sort of like a journal, never giving investment advice. And that’s an important thing to note. It’s always recommended that you do your own investigating before deciding whether or not to buy a stock.

While it may be tempting to sign up for The Day Trading Robot or Easy Forex, I really think you will have superior gains just by following what Money Philosophy’s doing. And of course the really cool thing is that it’s completely free.

Consider this: It’s definitely a good idea to make “imaginary trades” before you start using real money when trying a new stock picking method.

 I met with representatives of am institution that was considering investing in my new hedge fund on a recent visit to New York. After the meeting I got together with an old friend, whom I’ll refer to as “Harry”, for dinner. Stocks

Harry has a Sales Trader job, which is a person who handles the order for institutional clients such as hedge funds and mutual funds. I was one of his accounts, in my “Ron Pollack Bulldog Days”,he had an extremely successful career, and used to cover me. We continued to stay in touch with one another,he retired or took a break from trading around the same time I did in 2004. Hedge Fund

Harry and I both went with different business adventures after leaving Wall Street, and some were not very successful while others were outright failures. When some time passed, Henry missed playing the game and questioned me if I would go back to trading. Really, I miss it also. When I told him in early 2008 that I was going to return to managing money, he was thrilled and couldn’t wait to get back into it as well. Brokerage Firm

With the market turmoil of the second half of the year, the launch of my new fund was delayed. I saw Harry last fall and he looked stressed, which is unusual for a guy who can handle million share orders in volatile stocks like clockwork. Firms were closing down everywhere, and he was relying on my account for his own return but that was not there.

Soon after seeing Harry I met “Doug,” who runs a small brokerage firm that caters to hedge funds. I thought of Harry and I right away and combined the two. Doug gave Henry a trial opportunity, and Harry was very successful, so everything went well. After placing a few phone calls to some old accounts, he nabbed a big order and things only went up from there.

Now after only 4 months on the job, Harry is one of Doug’s top producers. Thus, it was no surprise to see Harry beaming when we met for dinner. He is earning money, pretty good money and having a good time. I was really happy. In fact he said, “Ron Pollack I am going to treat you every time you come to NYC,then Harry announced that dinner would be his treat.I was very pleased as we were at a great location, one of the city’s best steakhouses.

Toward the close of the evening, I inquired with Harry, “Each day we have been listening to depressing stories about the end of Wall Street, getting rid of hedge funds and about the world coming to an end like we know it. While events have proven disorienting, I’d be interested in hearing your opinions, given the success that you have enjoyed.Ron, there are a lot of people hurting right now and I truly feel for them, but I am living proof that if you’re good at what you do, have the willingness to work hard and apply yourself and are realistic in your expectations, you can make it and even flourish in times like these,His answer was refreshing and went something like this, he said. Even though I’m not being paid as much as I was in the past, there’s no reason for me to complain. People of our nature are soldiers, we survive and we have to run a business. If you are productive, someone will always be willing to do business with you.Here is to you, Harry, my dear friend and confidant. Continue to show us how to do it. signing off for now.