Investing is actually pretty simple; you're basically putting your money to work for you so that you don't have to take a second job, or work overtime hours to increase your earning potential. There are many different ways to make an investment, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds or real estate, and they don't always require a large sum of money to start.
You don't have to be a genius to do it. You just need to know a few basics, form a plan, and be ready to stick to it. There is no gaurantee that you'll make money from investments you make. But if you get the facts about saving and investing and follow through with an itelligent plan, you should be able to gain financial security over the years and enjoy the benefits of managing your money.
Derivatives have made the international and financial headlines in the past for mostly with their association with spectacular losses or institutional collapses. But market players have traded derivatives successfully for centuries and the daily international turnover in derivatives trading runs into billions of dollars.
Are derivative instruments that can only be traded by experienced, specialist traders? Although it is true that complicated mathematical models are used for pricing some derivatives, the basic concepts and principles underpinning derivatives and their trading are quite easy to grasp and understand. Indeed, derivatives are used increasingly by market players ranging from governments, corporate treasurers, dealers and brokers and individual investors.
Stock markets by their very nature are fickle. While fortunes can be made in a jiffy more often than not the scenario is the reverse. Investing in stocks has two sides to it –a) Unlimited profit potential from any upside (remember Infosys, HFCL etc) or b) a downside which could make you a pauper.
Derivative products are structured precisely for this reason -- to curtail the risk exposure of an investor. Index futures and stock options are instruments that enable you to hedge your portfolio or open positions in the market. Option contracts allow you to run your profits while restricting your downside risk.
Apart from risk containment, options can be used for speculation and investors can create a wide range of potential profit scenarios. We have seen in the Derivatives School how index futures can be used to protect oneself from volatility or market risk. Here we will try and understand some basic concepts of options.
Technical Analysis is basically the study of Price Chart, undertaken to get an idea about future price action of any traded stock. A Price Chart plots the quotes of a stock traded on a stock market. All past\present\future news relating to a stock, together with investors' opinion about it, determine the price of the stock on the trading floor. The "Price" discounts everything.
Therefore, study of anything else is unnecessary. Technical Anlysis comprise of various techniques to study such price action over a period, as shown in the price chart.
