How to Invest in Microsoft Stock

Open a brokerage account if you do not have one. Alternatively, you can invest 'directly' via Microsoft's transfer agent. Either way, you will need an account which you can use to purchase Microsoft stock from (see Resources below).
Deposit funds in your new account, or if using an existing account, verify that you have sufficient funds to complete your purchase.
Decide how many shares you want purchase, and under what conditions. If you want to buy Microsoft stock today without regard to its current price, you need a market order. If you want to buy only if the price is a certain amount you need a stop or limit order.
Give the order. Whether online, through a broker, or as part of your application, you must instruct the agent to purchase your shares. You must specify the quantity of Microsoft shares you would like to purchase, the type of order to execute (market, limit, stop), and any time limits on the order (Good Til Close or Good Until Canceled).
Verify proper execution of order. Review your trade confirmation to ensure that your order was executed as you instructed.

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 Buy Chrysler Stock (5 Steps)

Establish an account with a stock brokerage company or an investment firm that has the ability to purchase American Depository Receipts (ADR), the American equivalent of foreign stocks. Deposit the required amount of funds into your account.
Determine the number of shares of Fiat stock you wish to purchase. Check the current price per share. Fiat stock trades on the Italian stock exchange of Fiat ADRs trade over-the-counter in the United States as Fiat SPA under the symbol FIATY.
Contact your investment broker and instruct him to enter a Buy order which may be At The Market or you may designate the price you wish to pay per share, which may be lower than the current market price.
Instruct your broker whether you wish to take possession of your stock certificates or if you wish to keep the stock in street name. Keeping the stock in street name provides more security in that you do not have to store your certificates and it makes it more convenient should you decide to sell your shares at a future date.
Continue to watch the major news outlets for breaking stories regarding Chrysler's emergence from bankruptcy. Eventually the U.S. Treasury will sell its stake in the company which may create an opportunity for individual investors to purchase shares. The company may also choose to become a public company again through an initial public offering, or Fiat may decide to spin the company off if it does not perform up to expectation, which may also present an opportunity for purchasing stock in Chrysler.

How to Calculate Stock Basis for Exercised Options

Receive notification from your brokerage that an option has been exercised. This will most likely come in the form of a trade confirmation the day after option expiration. If an option is 'In-The-Money' by even one cent, the option will be exercised.
Determine your initial cost in the stock. This will be the share price you paid to buy the stock for the first time.
Adjust your cost basis by calculating the total option premiums you have collected against the stock. Keep in mind that options which expired previously without being exercised also reduce your basis in the stock.For example, let's say you bought 100 shares of XYZ in January for $10 per share. You then sold the February $12.50 call option and collected a $1 premium, lowering your basis in the stock to $9 per share. On option expiration day in February, the stock is $11 per share, so the option expires worthless. You decide to sell a March $12.50 call, and this time you collect a $2 premium, lowering your overall basis to $7 per share.
Calculate your profit or loss. If an call option is exercised at a strike price higher than your basis in the stock, you have made a profit. To calculate the profit, you must subtract your basis in the stock from the strike price of the option.To use our earlier example, on option expiration day in March the stock is $13 per share. The option you sold is exercised at its strike price ($12.50). Your basis in the stock is $7. Therefore, $12.50-$7=$5.50 profit per share on the trade.If an option is exercised at a strike price below your cost basis, you have a loss. To calculate the loss, subtract the strike price from your basis in the stock.
Calculate your tax basis. For tax purposes, your basis in a stock also includes all the commissions and fees you incurred during the trade. The easy way to calculate that is to add up all the commissions and fees and divide the total by the number of shares you own.

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 Become a Stock Investor

Contact your employer and review the stock market investments you have at work. If you work for a for profit company, you might have access to a 401k plan that can be invested in the stock market. Employees of public institutions can invest in a 403b plan. In addition, some companies sponsor employee stock purchase plans that allow workers to purchase company stock through payroll deductions.
Contact several online brokerage firms if you want to invest in individual stocks. The price of trades at online brokers like E*Trade, TD Ameritrade and Scottrade can be less than $10 each.
Review the requirements for an online brokerage account and make sure you meet them. Each broker will have different minimum balance requirements, and if you do not meet the minimum requirements you might be subject to maintenance charges and other fees.
Contact several mutual fund companies and request a prospectus for their managed and index funds. A study of mutual funds reported in Money Magazine found that most managed funds fail to outperform the index over the long-term, so choosing an index fund can be a good move.
Complete the application for the online brokerage firm or mutual fund you wish to use, then submit the completed form and your initial deposit to the address listed on the form. Keep in mind that some firms use a separate address for regular and overnight mail, so be sure to send the application to the right address.

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 Chart Volatility for Stock Options

Chart volatility for stock options using the Volatility Charts software available online with TradeKing. This stock options website features stock option analysis software in addition to broker access to stock option contracts. The charting features are free upon sign-up. The Volatility Charts let you graphically display discrepancies between a stock's historical volatility and implied volatility, which are the two key measures of volatility when analyzing stock options. Historical volatility is an analysis of a stock's prior price fluctuations. Implied volatility shows how option prices reflect what market participants expect of the stock's future volatility. These Volatility Charts are easy to access after entering the ticker symbol for the stock.
Create a 'SpreadHacker' chart using the ThinkOrSwim software platform. This software is free after registration and includes many analytical features for researching stock options. The SpreadHacker tool calculates implied volatility, and optionally combines this information with other stock option characteristics, such as strategy probability and real-time price analysis. You can then use this information to find a stock option trading position that suits your investment goals. Hundreds of different stock options trade on most stocks. SpreadHacker lets you categorize the options based on their implied volatility so you can study the possibilities more quickly.
Download the free Stock Volatility Calculator software for Excel. This spreadsheet application includes pre-written formulas to calculate a stock's historical and realized volatility, as well as statistical deviations of the stock's price movements. Unlike more comprehensive software, this program does not incorporate this information into a dedicated interface for stock option analysis. Thus, this program is best suited for veteran traders with a strong knowledge of option behavior. Experts can make informed decisions based solely on these raw calculations and will know how to use this program's data with other software to find good stock option strategies.

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 Calculate the Expected Rate of Return for Preferred Stock

Determine the dividend on the preferred stock. Preferred stock generally pays a fixed dividend, so you will know how much the stock is going to pay the stock owner each year. For example, assume the dividend of the preferred stock is $12 per share annually. If the dividend is paid quarterly, you will need to multiply it by 4 to get the annual dividend.
Determine the selling price of the preferred stock. Businesses will have to deal with flotation costs in calculating a stock price, but an individual investor can simply look at the price that the stock is being offered for. For example, assume preferred stock in company ABC is being offered at $200 a share.
Divide the expected dividend per share by the price per share of the preferred stock. With our example, this would be $12/$200 or .06. Multiply this answer by 100 to get the percentage rate of return on your investment. In our example, .06 x 100 = 6 so the rate of return for the preferred stock is 6 percent per year.

How to Buy Kroger Stock (5 Steps)

Go to your favorite investment research site for a quote. Popular investment research sites include Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance, and MSN Money. While each website has its strengths and weaknesses, stock quotes for Kroger will be the same. The ticker symbol (exchange symbol) is KR. Input KR into the quote box for a current market price for the stock.
Research the stock on the investor relations section of the company's website. This website has contact information and stock price data as well. You can email Kroger's investor relations department at kroger.investors@kroger.com or call at 513-762-4366.
Determine the price at which you would like purchase Kroger stock by looking at the price chart over the past three years. This will help you to track highs and lows in stock prices. The goal is to buy low and sell high.
Determine how many shares you would like to purchase. If you have $5,000 to invest you can divide $5,000 by the current share price for Kroger for the maximum number of shares you can afford.
Place an order with your broker at BNY Mellon. BNY Mellon is the transfer agent and registrar for Kroger stock. You may be able to pay lower commissions if you purchase your Kroger shares through a BNY Mellon account (if you have one). If you do not have an account with BNY Mellon, place an order with your personal broker or through an online broker.

How to Buy Old Stock From Warehouses (5 Steps)

Call the warehouse and ask for the management office. The loaders and the floor manager are tasked with the movement of the stock, not the business side of the warehouse. You want to talk with the highest management official that you can; being nice to the secretaries is a great way to get a manager's ear.
Ask about their oldest stock, specifically how long it has been sitting on their warehouse floor. The longer the stock has been sitting, the more motivated management will be to sell the stock at a lower price. While talking, look up the retail price of the stock and the invoice price if you can find it. You want to get a price that is below the invoice by at least half, as you may have to sell the inventory below retail or even below invoice.
Make a low offer of only 25 percent of the stock invoice value. This will be rejected at most warehouses, but there will be a few where paying customers are lined up to use the space occupied by the old stock. These managers will be willing to sell the inventory at lower rates to gain the higher-profit new business. However, at most warehouses this low of a number will be rejected; counter with a higher rate, closer to invoice price.
Haggle over the price, but do not exceed half of the invoice price unless you have a potential customer already lined up who will pay over invoice for the product. Mention that you have your own truck and can pick up the old stock within the same business day. The prospect of getting rid of old inventory immediately will get most warehouse management to sell fast.
Pick up the old stock as quickly as possible, both to honor your agreement and to minimize depreciation. The longer you own the stock, the less it is worth due to age. Load the stock carefully to minimize damage, as that too will affect your bottom line.

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 Invest in Prison Stocks

Go to the Website for the New York Stock Exchange. You'll find much information about prison stocks. The information on the NYSE will tell you how the stocks are doing. The information will also provide you with some important information on particular stocks. The Website also provides you with a Website to each company. You'll find the NYSE Website itself in the Resources section.
Look at the market history of each prison stock in which you want to invest. Find out how the stocks have been closing. Look at the company's history to see if the stock does well during difficult economic times. Most importantly, see how often the stock price has risen and fallen over the past few years. You will get an idea of the ebbs and flows of a particular prison stock.
Set up a meeting with a professional stockbroker. This meeting will allow you to get answers to any questions you may have without any obligations to buy. Ask questions and find out anything you can about purchasing prison stocks, including when to buy and how many shares to purchase. Stockbrokers are a valuable source of information. Ask plenty of questions while you have their attention.
Search for an online brokerage account. This will allow you to invest in prison stocks on your own and maintain your own portfolio. Find an account with good terms. You'll want one with minimum and maximum trades that you can afford.
Choose a brokerage house and fund your account. You'll know how much prison stocks are per share because you've done your research. It's up to you to determine how much money to put into the account. Just keep in mind that you don't want to invest all of your money in one prison stock or in all prison stocks. Diversity is the key to survival when investing.
Look up the prison stocks you want to buy according to their symbol on the stock exchange. Buy low. When you monitor the prison stocks before purchasing, you'll have an idea when the time is right to invest.
Stay informed on major decisions regarding your prison stocks, including job cuts, decreased budgets and anything else that can affect the price of your investment. Read press releases. Stay on top of any new developments involving your prison stocks. You own a part of the company, and you have a right to know what's going on with your investment.

How to Find Dow Jones Stock Market Historical Prices and Charts

Access Yahoo! Finance (see Resources). Enter the date you want to check. For example, if you enter 03/04/1965, you will see that on March 4, 1967, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 846.60. Notice that Yahoo! Finance offers a range of dates so if you pick a wide range of dates for Dow Jones historical pricing, click on 'last' to get to the first day of your range. If you are familiar with using a financial calculator, you can use the Time Value of Money feature to determine the annualized rate of return between a date in the past and today's Dow Jones Stock Market price.
Access the StockCharts website if you prefer to see the Dow Jones historical pricing in chart form (see Resources). You will see a more visual representation of stock market price changes over the past century, particularly the enormous dip that occured during the Great Depression. Also, notice the major downward volatility in 1973-1974 and the crash in 1987. Again, in no way should you use chart to predict the future but it can certainly provide you a quick history lesson. When you see volatile periods, both good and bad, you may find it interesting to research the news headlines of those years.
Use these same websites for other historical information, such as historical individual stock prices. For example, on the Yahoo website, if you change the symbol to KO and enter the date 6/7/2000, you will see that Coca-Cola stock was priced at $53 per share at close of business on June 7, 2000. It will also show you a price adjusted for dividends and splits. While still on the same Yahoo page, click on 'Basic Chart' on the left-hand side to see a chart of Coca-Cola stock. You can adjust the chart from one day to beyond five years.
Use the historical information to make yourself a well-informed stock investor. This will, in turn, make you a more confident investor.

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.

How to Buy Common Stock

Open a brokerage account, either online (cheapest) or with a discount or full-service broker. Experienced traders can save money online while novices will probably benefit from the advice of a broker, at least for a while. Deposit funds in the account and wait for the money to clear. Although some firms have no account minimums, many will require at least an initial deposit of $1000 to $2500.
Pick the stock you want to buy and pay close attention to its price and the direction that it's trending in. If the price is falling quickly and you want to buy, then you can place a market order, which means that the pit specialist will give you the specified number of shares at the prevailing market price. But if the price is rising, you will be wise to set a limit on the price. For example, if the stock price is currently $47 and rising, then you might place a limit order at $50 per share so that you don't end up buying in at the top.
Get the trade you want by specifying 'All or None' or 'Fill or Kill' on your order. If the trader cannot get you your entire order at your specified price, then the trade will not go through. Fill or Kill orders have the same condition, but they must be done either immediately or not at all. AON orders can be left standing.
Regardless of whether you use a full-service broker or place your trades online, you must supply the same information. For example, if you buy 500 shares of a stock at $50 FOK, you would either simply tell your broker that over the phone or type that order into the computer system. Most online trading platforms would require you to enter in the numerical data, and then click on a choice specifying such things as AON or FOK.
Use the tools on your brokerage website to follow and chart the movements of your stock. Even most full-service brokers offer web tools and market research and commentary for their investors. If you cannot get hold of your broker when you need to place a trade, call the firm's trading desk and they will be able to help you.

How to Invest Wisely in Penny Stocks

Use caution when investing in penny stocks. These stocks are like after dinner mints. They complement the regular investment but never make up the entire meal. Don't invest all your money into one stock.
Investigate the company. Sometimes the company is a start-up one with a great idea. See how long the CEO has been in the industry. See if he was a CEO of other companies. When you invest in penny stocks, both the product and the people are important.
Investigate the history of the price. When you invest in penny stocks, you might see movement that encourages a buy or tells you to be cautious. It takes very little growth to show a huge increase by percent. Be aware that someone may control the price by buying or selling shares and make it seem more, or less, attractive.
Use the information if you see a pattern in the penny stock price movement. Create a limit order for both buy and sell. Put the buy limit at the lower end of the price cycle and wait until you purchase the stock at that price. Then use a limit order for the top price you want to sell the stock and when it reaches that price it automatically sells. When you invest in penny stocks sometimes you make money with the cycle of buying and selling. This may take weeks.
Hang on to the stock if you hear of new innovations at the company. Purchase for long-term investments, regardless of the day to day movement. If you invest in a penny stock, don't sell just because the price went up if you believe the product has a future. Make it a long-term hold.
Track any events that may make your stock more valuable. For example, if oil prices go up, an ethanol company has a better chance of success.
Expect to lose your money. Penny stock is a gamble and only use money not involved in important goals. Really low priced penny stocks are fun to play with but also potentials for loss. Keep this in mind before you invest in penny stocks.

How to Use Implied Volatility to Forecast Stock Price

Find a source for implied volatility information. Your online brokerage account will provide historic and implied volatility figures for any stock with options trading against the share price. Another volatility product is the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, commonly called the VIX. The VIX can be easily charted and used to predict turning points in the overall market.
Compare the current level of implied volatility with the historic volatility for an individual stock. For the VIX, compare the current level to the average over the last six months to a year. You want to determine whether the current level of implied volatility is above or below historic levels and the magnitude of the departure from the norm.
Use the implied volatility deviations as signals for future stock price action. High implied volatility is usually a bearish signal, forecasting a pending decline in stock prices. Low volatility occurs when the market or stock prices are in an upward or bullish trend.

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.