How to Sell Stock Without a Broker

Transfer stock in lieu of cash donations to any charity you are gifting. Besides the tax advantage of giving appreciated stock to a charity, most brokerage houses charge charities little or nothing for gifted stock. If the stock is in physical form, merely sign the transfer power on the back of the certificate. For stock held by the broker, the charity will have instructions for you to follow.
Find a buyer for your stock---a family friend, neighbor or relative. It will be necessary to contact the transfer agent to have the stock transferred into the purchasing party's name. Use the stock price as of a certain date as the trade date, so there will be no disagreement among the parties as to the trade amount. Be certain there are no dividend payments pending, and if so, they should be paid to the selling party.
Use DRIP programs where possible. DRIP or dividend reinvestment plans allow you to buy as little as one share of stock from a participating member or a broker and then arrange for all dividends to be paid in the form of additional shares. Not all stocks have such a program, but the stocks that do tend to be large dividend-paying stocks. Shares can then be sold to plan participants, allowing the investor to pay no commissions for either buying or selling stock.
When making large purchases, use stock and sign the stock over to the buyer. He can sell the stock at his expense when he is ready. You avoid the commission and the buyer receives secure funds through ownership of the stock certificate.
Sell stock through an in-the-money covered call. This means writing an option below the current stock price. The premium paid by the call buyer to you, the seller, will more than cover the commissions for the option and the stock sale. This is a popular method used by large institutions to move large quantities of stock.

How to Read Stock Prices (6 Steps)

Look up the symbol of the company you are interested in on sites like Yahoo's Finance page, eTrade and MSN Money. Use this symbol to locate the stock price for that company on a finance website.
Find the number labeled 'Last Trade.' This number indicates the last price at which shares of the stock were bought or sold, and it will give you a good idea of the price at which experts value the stock.
Locate the time labeled 'Trade Time.' This indicates the time the last trade occurred.
Locate the number labeled 'Change.' This number measures, in dollars, a stock price's change for that day.
Compare the number labeled 'Volume' to the number under 'Average Volume.' This shows how many stocks have changed hands that day compared to the average over an indicated period.
Look at the current price. This is the current established value of a share; the current price multiplied by the total number of shares is equal to the current judged value of an organization.

How to Buy Stock with ShareBuilder (8 Steps)

Log in to the ShareBuilder website (sharebuilder.com). If you don't have a username, then you need to register. You'll need to provide your Social Security number because earnings have to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service. ShareBuilder also verifies that you aren't a professional trader.
Select the 'Trade' tab. Then click 'Trade Now.'
Select if you want to buy or sell stock. Enter the stock symbol or look it up using the 'Find Symbol' link if you don't know it. Enter how many shares of the stock you wish to purchase.
Select the type of trade you want to perform. You can select:
Market, which is a trade that happens now;
Limit, which happens once a trigger has been reached (which you enter); or
Stop-Loss, which happens once a stock drops below a certain price (which you enter).
Select your funding source. If you have already have money in your account, then you can leave it alone. If you want to add money, then click the 'Express Funding' radio button.
Click 'Next.' If you selected 'Express Funding,' you'll be prompted for your bank information like routing and account numbers.
Confirm the order and then wait for it to post. You can view your open orders by navigating to the 'Accounts' tab and clicking the 'View Orders' link.
Do your research before purchasing a stock. The tools are available on the website. If you have several thousand dollars in your account, you can trade with Margins, which means that you can borrow ShareBuilder's money to trade with at a low interest rate.

How to Calculate Stock Value Per Share

Find the total value of your stock. Many brokerage screens will give the total value of the money you have invested in a certain stock. For example, say that you have $10,000 invested in Company X.
Find the total number of shares you own for that company. For example, say you own 250 shares of Company X.
Divide the total value of the stock, by the total number of shares. Using the example, the equation reads:Value of Stock / Number of Shares = Price per Share$10,000 / 250 = $40 per share.

How to Determine Stock Value

Choose a stock to analyze. Most online and newspaper stock quotes list both earnings per share (EPS) and P/E. Earnings are the latest quarter's net profit figures. Net profit is calculated by subtracting expenses from revenues. Earnings per share is figured by dividing total net earnings by the number of shares of that stock that are issued and outstanding.
Calculate the price/earnings ratio by dividing a company's earnings per share into the price you would pay to buy one share of its stock. If your stock quote contains P/E, use that price/earnings ratio rather than figure your own. Find industry average P/Es on Yahoo! Finance by getting a quote on a stock in your target industry and then clicking on the 'competitors' link in the left navigation bar. The link will take you to statistics of major competitors of the company you quoted and to statistics for the industry as a whole.
Compare the price/earnings ratio to those of other companies in that industry. When the marketplace is excited about a new industry, as it was by computers in 2000, the P/Es will be high. Computer industry P/Es at that time were averaging 49 times earnings (49x), while railroads traded at 16x, banking at 13x and airlines at 10x. Yahoo! Finance lists average P/Es as of November 2009 for the computer industry at 32x, railroads at 16x, banking at 18x, and airlines at 38x. Within each industry sector, prominent companies will trade higher or lower than their industry average, depending on their outlook.
Try other methods of determining the real value of a stock relative to its price. These involve analyzing that company's financial reports. You can determine whether a company is selling below its cash value by adding its cash and equivalents plus its short-term investments and then dividing by the number of shares outstanding. This will give you cash per share, which occasionally exceeds the price of the stock. Such stocks are considered bargains by value investors, who will buy them in the expectation that they will trade up in price as other investors discover them.
Use the ratio of stock price to book value to determine the value of a stock using the company's financial reports. Take shareholders' equity and divide that by the number of shares outstanding and you will have book value per share. Find the price-to-book-ratio by then dividing the offered price of the stock by the book value per share. The lower this number, the greater the value of the stock at that price. Use this in comparing companies within an industry to determine which is selling at a better price relative to value.
Calculate the return on equity (ROI) by taking total shareholders' equity and dividing it by the company's annual earnings. The larger the number, the better the ROI.

How to Read Stock Charts for Beginners (5 Steps)

Locate the stock symbol at the top of stock chart. The chart will also contain information about the stock's highs and lows (depicted by vertical bars), the volume traded (shown by a bar graph at the bottom of the chart), and the closing price in plain English.
Find the trend direction by looking at a 20-day and 50-day moving average (MA). Moving averages are generally located below the stock symbol on a chart. For example, an MA might be (20) 45.30. That means the moving 20-day average is 45.30 for the last 20 days. A general rule of thumb is that if the 20-day MA is above the 50-day, then the stock is trending up; if the 20-day MA is below the 50-day, the stock is trending down. You can also spot an upward trend by noticing a graph tending toward the top right corner of the graph; a downward trending stock will start creeping toward the bottom right.
Identify the price support. A price support is a low point in trading that the stock never falls below. On a graph, the stock might go up and down haphazardly; you want to find the point on the graph that's the lowest.
Identify the price resistance. In general, price resistance is the point on the graph where the price 'tops out.' In other words, the maximum value on the graph. Price resistance is the opposite of price support.
Repeat the above steps for as many stocks as possible over a few weeks. You'll begin to notice trends, and will be more able to identify price support and resistance over a period of time. You'll also be able to see when the price resistance breaks through; when this happens, it can make for a flurry of trading, as it usually means something exciting has been announced in that particular company.

How to Read the Wall Street Journal Stock Report

Check the indexes. The beginning of the market report tells the movement of the major indexes such as the Dow Jones Industrials or NASDAQ.
Understand why the indexes are important. When checking out your stock you should know what size the company is, and what market it is sold in. The DOW is primarily larger companies compared to the Russell that is smaller companies. You can tell whether your stock is going up and down with market movement or whether it is moving due to a change specific to the company by knowing what index to follow.
Find the symbol for the stock. Beside it will be the opening price for the day. There is also a listing for the high of the day, sometimes the high was held for only one purchase and can be deceptive; the low, and finally the close of the day price.
Check for the change in cost for the day, followed by the per cent change. If your stock was $1a share when the market opened and it was $1.06 when the market closed; then it went up 6 cents. The percentage growth would be 6 oer cent.
Find the volume of trading. This number tells how active the stock is. The larger the number, the more actively traded. If a stock is seldom traded, and you own it and want to sell, it may be harder to sell it for the market price. Next to the volume is 52 week high and low. This is the highest reported price for the stock and the lowest in a 52 week period.
Realize that the next two columns are important in understanding what return you're actually getting. The first shows any dividends that are received from the stock and the second shows the per cent of return that it is. The dividend is a distribution of profit from the company and should be considered in the return besides using the capital gain or loss.
Understand that the PE is a ratio of the price of the stock to its earnings. The final column shows what per cent the stock has gained over the last year.