How to Get a Stock Trader License

Get a job at an investment company or brokerage firm. Whether you have your college degree or not, you must be employed by an investment or brokerage firm because they will be your corporate sponsor for the Series 7 exam. You cannot sit for this exam without a sponsor.
Study for your Series 7 exam. The Series 7 exam covers general securities regulations. Once you find a job at an investment or brokerage firm, you not only have to complete your employer's on-the-job training requirements, you are expected to study for the Series 7 exam at the same time. See Additional Resources to obtain a Series 63 study guide.
Sit for your Series 7. After your employer registers you for the Series 7, you have to call and schedule a time to sit for the exam at your local testing office. You must receive a score of 70 percent or better on the exam to pass.
Study for your Series 63 exam. The Series 63 exam covers securities regulations specific to your state. Not all investment brokerages or firms require a Series 63, but most do. See Additional Resources to obtain a Series 63 study guide.
Sit for your Series 63. After your employer registers you for the Series 63, you will need to call and schedule a time to sit for the exam at your local testing office. You must receive a score of 72 percent or higher on the exam to pass.

How to Buy Stock Online Immediately

Sign up for an account through an on-line brokerage company. There are links to 'E*TRADE,' 'ShareBuilder' and 'Zecco' below, but there are many more to choose from. Click 'Sign Up,' and follow the prompts to complete your registration.
Transfer money into the brokerage account. This will normally take one business day to be processed and appear in your account.
Once the money has posted to your account, find the ticker symbol of the stock you want to buy on the site's research page. Once you know the symbol, go to your site's quotes page, type in the symbol and click 'Get Quote,' or your site's equivalent.
Select 'Buy' once the quote comes up. Select the amount of shares you would like to purchase. Then you will be asked if you would like to place a market order or a limit order. With a limit order, you set the exact price you want to pay. A market order buys the stock at the price sellers are asking at the moment.
Confirm the trade when your site asks you to, and in a moment you will receive a notification that your trade was accepted or declined. Your trade will usually only be declined if you do not have enough funds to cover it.

How to Calculate Cumulative Preferred Stock Dividends

Find the dividend rate for the cumulative preferred stock. The dividend rate will be listed in the stock prospectus (available from the company or your broker). Normally the dividend rate is stated as an annual percentage of the par value (the price the stock was originally issued at).
Multiply the dividend percentage rate by the par value to find the dollar amount of the dividend per share. For example, if the rate is 8.0 percent and the par value is $30 per share, the annual dividend per share is $2.40. Divide this by four to find the quarterly dividend ($2.40/4 = $0.60 per share).
Check the company’s annual and quarterly reports to see if any cumulative preferred stock dividends have not been paid. If so, total the number of quarterly distributions that have been missed and multiply by the quarterly dividend per share. For instance, if the quarterly dividend is $0.60 per share and the company has missed three quarters, the accrued dividend is $1.80 per share.
Calculate the total amount of accrued dividends for the cumulative preferred stock you own. Simply multiply the number of shares by the accrued dividends per share. If there are accrued dividends of $1.80 per share and you own 100 shares, you have $180 coming to you in addition to the regular dividend payments you normally receive.
Figure your next quarterly dividend amount if there are no accrued dividends. This is the regular payment and equals the number of shares multiplied by the quarterly dividend. With a quarterly dividend of $0.60, this works out to $60 for 100 shares.

How to Invest in the Italian Stock Market (7 Steps)

Check among the major securities brokerages to see which offers the most favorable combination of account terms and access to the Italian stock market. Choose the brokerage that commands the lowest commission fees while still offering investors the opportunity to invest in the Italian stock market.
Hire a financial adviser. If at all possible, it's best to find one who knows the Italian stock market and has some degree of experience helping people invest in it.
Sit down with your financial adviser and create a personal investment plan. Determine how much money you're willing to commit to investing in the stock market, remembering that while securities trading offers the potential for aggressive returns, it also poses significant risk.
Follow Italian news and current events in addition to the Borsa Italiana index. Before you invest, you should have a solid working knowledge of the Italian economy and know which companies compose the backbone of the Borsa Italiana.
Pick an industry experiencing significant growth or one with solid growth potential if you're looking to invest long term. Identify the various Italian companies operating in that industry, and do your stock market homework on them, just as you would for an American company. If you don't know how to research a stock properly, head to your library or local bookstore for help.
Contact your brokerage firm when you have determined which Italian company you want to invest in. Place your order and wait while it is filled. Your domestic brokerage needs to route the request to an appropriate, licensed Italian stockbroker to complete the transaction. You may experience a delay while your order goes through.
Follow your investment using the Borsa Italiana's stock-quote tool on the Borsa Italiana S.p.A. English website (see Resources below). Sell when you've reached your investment goal or when the going gets too tough for your risk tolerance.

How to Buy Stock Without a Broker

Find an online trading company. There are many online trading companies that allow you to set up and trade stocks online. You may be familiar with some of these companies and new ones are popping up over time. Some of the companies you can look into include E-Trade, TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab. Whichever companies you look into, you should research them completely. Be sure to find out what the fees are for setting up and maintaining the account, as well as the per trade fee charged.
Set up and fund your account. Once you have researched each company and make a decision on which company you want to trade online, it is time to set up and fund your trading account. Each website will have step-by-step instructions on what you need to do to set up your account. Once the account is set up, you will need to either mail in a check or transfer money into the account to fund your online trading account. Funding an online trading account is placing the money in the account that you will use to make trades.
Research the stocks you want to invest in. Most of these online trading sites also provide research material so you can educate yourself on the stocks and bonds you may be interested in buying. You should do a lot of research on any stock before you decide to invest your money in the stock. These sites also help you to understand finance and trading terminology that you may be familiar with. It is important that you make informed and educated decisions to help reduce the risk of loss of your money.
Process the buy or sell trade. Once you decide to buy a stock, you will need to process the order. Every site is slightly differently, but each site usually has line-by-line buy 'forms' that you need to complete and submit in order to process the trade. This is true whether you are buying or selling a stock.

How to Check on Staples' Items in Stock (6 Steps)

Open your Internet browser and visit Staples' website. Look at the list of departments on the left side of the screen and click on the name of the department the item you want to buy is in. Browse through the list of results until you find the item you want to buy and then click on it.
Look underneath the price of the item to see if the item is available for purchase online. If it is, you will see a box in which to adjust the quantity you want and a button that reads 'Add to Cart.' To purchase the item, indicate the quantity you want and click 'Add to Cart' to determine if you want the item shipped to your home or to your nearest Staples location.
Click on the 'Check in Store Availability' link if you see it on the page. Enter your personal address or zip code as well as the radius of miles you want to search and click 'Search.' You will then see which Staples locations nearest you, if any, have the item you want to buy in stock. If you don't see the 'Check in Store Availability' link on the item page that means you can only purchase the item online.



Visit your nearest Staples retail location. To find the nearest location, use the Staples Store Locator online.
Look in the appropriate department for the item you want to buy. If you do not see the item on the sales floor, ask an employee in that department to check the store's inventory to see if there are more of the item in the store's storage area.
Ask an employee at the store to search the inventory of other nearby Staples locations to see if another store has the item you are looking for. If so, have the employee give you the phone number, address and directions to the other store, if possible. Visit the other Staples location and purchase the item you want.

How to Invest in Vietnam's Stock Market (5 Steps)

Know the market. Vietnam is still a communist country, and its foray into a traditional stock market is fairly recent. The Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange is the country's primary stock exchange, and it is the only way for foreigners to directly access shares in Vietnamese stocks. Foreigners cannot own more than 49% of any Vietnamese stock.
Find a broker. This is the tricky part. If you're not able to travel to Vietnam to purchase your desired shares directly from the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, you have to find a broker that has access to the market. Few American brokers have access to Vietnam's stock market, and the ones that do will charge investors heavy fees for the privilege of investing there. Another option to consider is opening an account with a Vietnamese brokerage firm, but keep in mind they are not as well-capitalized as their American peers, and there is little or no protection for American investors in these accounts in the event of a brokerage failure or political unrest.
Prior to buying shares directly off the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, foreign investors need to file a registration form, an applicant information sheet and a background check for criminal activity with Vietnamese regulators.Notaries both in the investor's home country and the Vietnamese embassy must review the documents.
If you open an account with a Vietnamese custodian broker, the broker will request that you fund the account with the currency of your home country, not Vietnam's local currency. For example, American investors must fund their accounts with American dollars.
You can place stock orders in person at the exchange in Ho Chi Minh City, at a custodian broker's office or via phone, fax or online.

How to Re

Gather your information. You will need the original stock certificate, complete name, address and taxpayer ID (social security number) of the new owner, stock power and a W-9 form. In some cases, such as a transfer due to death, you will be required to show more documentation.
Locate a transfer agent. Try to find an agent in the state of the person you are transferring ownership from. See Resources below for a way to find an agent in your state as well as a database of current transfer agents for publicly traded companies.
Call or set up a meeting with the transfer agent. Be sure to have all the information from Step 1 available.
Take old certificates to the transfer agent and ask them to re-register in the name of the new owner.
Send the stock certificates to the designated custodian. This step may not be necessary in some cases. In general, it will take two to four weeks to transfer ownership. Your agent or broker should help to determine what address the reissued certificates should be mailed to.

How to Calculate Fair Value for a Stock

Calculate the P/E ratio. The formula used to calculate the P/E ratio is 'current stock price per share' / ' current earnings per share.'
Compare the P/E ratio for your company with other companies in the same industry. For instance, if you want to find the fair value for a bank, you must compare the P/E ratio to other P/E ratios in the banking industry.
Interpret the meaning of the P/E ratio. A high P/E ratio means the company is overvalued and a low P/E ratio means the company is undervalued. For instance, if I own a company with a P/E ratio of 5 when the average P/E ratio for companies in the same industry is 3, I know that my stock is overvalued (expensive).
Adjust the stock price down to the average P/E ratio for the industry. If the average P/E ratio is 3, and the P/E ratio on my stock is 5 (current price $10 / earnings per share $2), then I can use the P/E equation to find what the stock price would need to be in order to have a P/E ratio of 3. The equation is: New P/E ratio x Earnings per share. The answer is 3 x $2 or $6. The fair market value for this stock is $6, not $10.

How to Buy, Sell or Hold Southwest Airlines Stock

Open a stock brokerage account and fund it with the amount of money you want to invest in Southwest Airline stock. You can do this in an existing account if you already have one.
Look up the current share price for Southwest Airlines. The stock symbol for the company is 'LUV'. You can find stock quotes at websites like Yahoo or Google Finance or your online stock broker account will have a place to look up stock quotes.
Determine how many shares of LUV you would like to buy and place the order with your stock broker, by phone or online. The broker will hold the shares until you are ready to sell.
Set a target price where you would like to sell the stock for a profit. It could take several weeks to a few years to hit the price, depending on how much you want to make and the performance of LUV stock.
Monitor the news from Southwest Airlines. Place an order with your broker to sell the stock if it reaches your target price or company developments change your opinion of Southwest Airline's future prospects.