How to Follow the Stock Market (3 Steps)

Visit a major financial charting portal such as Google Finance or Yahoo! Finance for real-time updates to the major stock market indexes, such as the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. You can also get current minute-by-minute updates on individual stocks. The Google Finance system provides other tools for following the stock market as well. It streams news events for any company you chart on the website. News items are attached to the chart so you can see how prices reacted historically. If desired, you can use Google Finance to compare an individual stock's returns to that of a major market index to see if it is outperforming the overall market over a set period of time.
Monitor the pre-market data before the stock market opens each day. This information is available from financial services outlets such as CNN Money and CNBC. The data consists of futures contract pricing. Futures are special market derivatives that are traded 24 hours. If major market-moving events occur overnight due to international stock markets, the futures will reflect this in the morning. The stock market usually opens around the same levels of the futures. Thus it is possible to see how stocks might trade even before the session begins. This is a great way to follow stock market behavior in real-time.
Study the 'Bullish Percent Index' of individual stock market sectors if you wish to follow the professional sentiment among major money managers at mutual funds and hedge funds. This index is available for many sectors as well as the overall stock market index. Traders who incorporate sentiment readings into their strategies often follow the stock market in this way. It is an innovate approach to reading the minds of the biggest movers in the stock market. When sentiment is very high, the bullish percent may read 90 percent or above. This means that most of the major players in the stock market feel optimistic about market activity. 'Contrarian' traders treat such extremes in sentiment as a warning. If nearly everyone is optimistic, then is no one left to convince. This means that new buying energy may not enter the market and, contrary to the sentiment, prices might start to fall.

How to Choose Stock Charting Software

Learn how to read stock charts. Some software has built-in alerts that make it super-simple to play the stock market. Others have less bells and whistles and more tracking power; some of these may rely solely on graphs to let you know what's going on. Many types of software will assume that you already know how to read stock charts.
Pick your preferred software version. Do you want the free online version, or would you rather pay for something with a little more muscle? Many first-time stock market players prefer to get their stock charting software for free during their learning period. Bigcharts.com and Stockcharts.com are just two examples of reliable sites that will get you up and running in no time.
Customize your chart to fit your needs. No matter which model you choose, a good chart will have lots of menus and tabs to help you tailor the program to your exact needs. Take advantage of this tool to make sure that you are getting the most out of your stock charting software. Your chart will let you select specific stocks to track and pick a time frame for each one (weekly, daily, hourly, etc.) You can also change the colors on everything in the chart to make it easier for you to follow. You can modify the way the chart presents itself (do you want a bar graph or a line graph?) and many other things.
Use the extras. If you think you need more information, the stock charting software will have every imaginable option. You can track several aspects of your stock on the same graph, follow its performance history, set up alerts and indicators to predict its future direction, and get live streaming quotes from your broker.
Last but not least, it's important to learn how to read all of this information in order to make your pick. And thanks to the user-friendly stock charting software that is now widely available to so many people worldwide, before you know it you too will be playing the stock market like a pro!
While you're here be sure to take a look around for more tips and information about the stock market.

Selling Stock Certificates (9 Steps)

Look up the stock symbol. This is as simple as visiting Yahoo! Finance and typing in the name of the company. Click on “Symbol Lookup.”
Get a quote on the stock. Again, a visit to Yahoo! Finance will give you the current quote on the stock.
Determine how many shares of stock you have. This may be a little more involved than you think. First, the number of shares is printed on the face of the certificate. Multiply that number by the current share price to determine how much it is worth. However, your certificate may be worth more or less than that and more research is required.Often over an extended period of time, the stock of a given company will split forward or in reverse, multiplying the number of shares or dividing the number of shares by a given factor. For example, if you have a certificate for 100 shares of XYZ stock from 50 years ago and the stock has split 4 for 1 in the meantime, that 100 share certificate now represents 400 shares. Conversely, if XYZ went through a 10 for 1 reverse-split in the same time frame, your 100 share certificate would now represent 10 shares.The easiest way to determine how many shares your certificate represents is to call the transfer agent and give him the CUSIP number from the back of the certificate. You can find the transfer agent for any company by calling the company themselves or looking it up in the SEC documents relating to the company. The CUSIP (Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures) number is a nine-digit alpha-numeric number located on the back of the certificate that the transfer agent will use to determine the exact number of shares.
Make sure the certificate is in your name. Your name must appear on the face of the certificate. If it does not, you will have to contact the transfer agent, prove the stock belongs to you, and request a new certificate to be issued in your name.The only time this is not necessary is when the certificate is signed on the back by the person named on the face of the certificate. A signed certificate is as good as cash, so be careful with it. Literally anyone who picks a signed stock certificate up on the street can cash it in. It is the same thing as a signed check.
Sign the certificate and deposit it into your brokerage account. Remember, once signed a stock certificate is as good as cash. If you don't have an open brokerage account, most local discount brokers will allow you to open a temporary account for the one-time disposition of stock certificates. Charles Schwab is one of the companies that offer this service.



Determine if the certificate is worth anything. Some are not. Some certificates are considered collectibles because they represent shares in companies that were famous at one time. Others are collectible because they represent shares in companies that were social oddities. An example of this would be stock certificates from The Mustang Ranch, a legal Nevada brothel shut down by the IRS in 1999, or shares in the Playboy Corporation, whose certificates had a pin-up girl on their face.To determine the potential value of your certificates, do some research on the Internet and call a few collectors. A link is provided in Resources below.
Sell to a collector. This may be the easiest way to sell an old stock certificate. Agree to a price up front and sell the certificate to a private collector.
Sell the certificate by auction. There are several collectibles auction houses available if the certificate is worth enough. Otherwise, there is always eBay.
Donate the certificate. If you don't need the cash and could use a tax deduction, donate the certificated to charity and let them handle the sale of it. You'll get a write-off and the money will go to a good cause.

How to Learn Stock Market Charts

Locate the stock symbols of the companies you are investigating. Knowing the location of the stock symbol (normally on the top left hand corner of a stock chart) will allow you to quickly identify the stock with which you are dealing. Familiarize yourself with all of the symbols which are a part of your stock portfolio by committing them to memory, or simply have them printed out and placed in an area where they can easily be seen.
Read the high and low price points of the stock. Understanding the high and low price of your stock is crucial when it comes to reading stock charts. Viewing the high and low of the stock will let you see the highest price that stock reached, and the lowest price which the stock reached over a given period of time. Most online charts give the option to show different periods of time, from one day to a year or more.
Find the moving average. A moving average tracks the movement of the stock during a particular time frame. Comprehend that you can track the movement of a stock chart over a 30 or 90 day time frame.
Determine the stock volume. Volume simply means the number of people that were trading the stock on any given day. The volume is usually found beneath the price graph. Track the volume in days, months or weeks by referring to the dates on the chart. A high volume indicates a lot of transactions taking place on that day, which usually moves the stock significantly up or down.
Analyze trends. Know that when the price of a stock market chart is trending in an upward direction, the price is likely to go higher due to trading momentum. Similarly, stocks that are moving in a downward direction will tend to keep moving in that direction. Observe which direction the stock chart you are reading is moving. If the price is moving toward the top right corner of the chart, the stock is trending up. If the stock price is moving in the direction of the lower right corner of the chart, the stock is trending in a downward direction.
Understand support and resistance levels. Support refers to the lowest point a stock has a tendency to reach and then rebound in an upward direction. Resistance is the point a stock will normally reach and then seem to bounce off that price level and move in a downward direction.