How to Become a Stock Promoter

Study the SEC and FINRA rules and regulations. A stock promoter's top priority is to comply with these requirements. You don't actually need any certifications or licenses to promote your stock-picking talent and work as a stock promoter, but if you fail to maintain perfect compliance, you not only risk legal action against you and your employees, but against your client companies, their stocks and their shareholders, as well. Your client company will be held at least partially responsible for your misdeeds, and may risk being ejected from the exchange where it is trading. In addition, the market will drive the stock price down.
Find a good attorney who specializes in securities law. You will need contracts covering your services to client companies; legal disclosures for your website, newsletters and other promotional materials; legal disclaimers and some tutoring regarding what to expect and what not to do.
Develop your investor contact database by purchasing mailing lists of investors and writing and promoting a stock-picking newsletter. You can't sell stock to your readers, but their purchases will make the stock price rise. The value of a stock promoter lies in his ability to promote a client company's stock to large numbers of investors and stockbrokers, who trust the promoter enough to buy positions in most -- if not all -- that promoter's recommended stocks. Your database should contain at least a few hundred thousand names.
Develop your following by demonstrating your skill at picking high-flying stocks through your newsletter and special subscribers to your stock-picking premium service. Developing a following can be accomplished via Internet and social media marketing.
Research public companies to find those that appear to have under-priced stock. Generally, company management is anxious to publicize the value of the company, partially because their stockholders will stop complaining that the stock is not appreciating in value. These companies are your potential clients.
Tell prospective client companies how many investors and stockbrokers follow your recommendations, how careful you are about compliance issues and how high you expect their stock to trade based on your recommendations. If you live up to your promises, your client company will be happy, and you will find it easy to get more companies to hire your services.
Join the National Investor Relations Institute and the National Investment Banking Association, and attend as many of their educational programs and conventions as you can. Network in your local venture capital community to develop potential company clients and deep-pocketed investors for your database.

How to Download Stock Data (6 Steps)

Go to your favorite investment research site. Yahoo! Finance and Google Finance are top-rated sites that provide free price quotes. You may also be able to download stock data directly into a spreadsheet from a company's website.
Input the name of the company or the ticker symbol in the Quote Box for a quote. For example, the ticker symbol for General Electric is GE, and you would input GE to get the data.
Click on 'Historical' or 'Historical Prices' in the left-hand pane.
Input the date range you want to study.
Click on the time increment for sorting the data. Options include daily, weekly and monthly price charts.
Click on 'Get Prices' for a list of historical stock prices. In Yahoo! Finance, to download the data to a spreadsheet, scroll to the bottom and click on 'Download to Spreadsheet.' In Google Finance, this is located in the right-hand pane.

How to Make Money Daytrading the Stock Market

Look up the price chart for the stock. Visually, volatility is shown by the sharp up and down angles on a stock price chart. The sharper the angles, the higher the volatility. You can look this up on your favorite investment research site such as Google Finance, Yahoo! Finance, or MSN Money; you can call the Investor Relations Department for the company to request a price chart; you can go to to the company's website to check for investor presentations; or, you can contact your stock broker. As a day trader you are primarily concerned with daily price charts.
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Obtain the beta for the company. Beta is a measure of volatility and can be used in the same way as the price chart is used -- to find companies with highly volatile stock pricing. You can also obtain the beta for the company from investment research websites, the company website, company Investor Relations or your stock broker. The further the beta is away from 0, the more volatile the stock.
Select three highly-volatile stocks in terms of beta as well as their price charts. Beta can help to find the stocks, but the price charts allow you to study stock patters.
Track these stocks over one month. Look for daily patterns in the price chart. Patterns may emerge in early morning trading hours or after market news. See if you can predict the price movements before they occur.
Make buy or sell decisions based on daily highs and lows in the stock. Since you've been tracking the stock over the past month, you know the natural support (bottom) and resistance (top) levels of the price chart. Buy the stock when it hits a bottom and sell the stock when it hits a top.

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 Check Your Stock

Locate the initial order you placed for your stock. It will show a breakdown of the price you paid per share.
Look up the ticker symbol for your stock. It may be printed on your initial order, however you can also look it up at any financial services website, or simply google the company name.
Look up the current stock price by visiting one of the sites in the resource section, or by looking in a current newspaper. Locate the ticker symbol in the column, and scan over to the current stock price.
Once you have located the current stock price, subtract the current price from the price you paid. This number is your total amount of profit or loss per share.
If you use a financial broker who handles all of your stock purchases, you can contact them directly to have an updated financial statement sent to you immediately—either through postal mail, express delivery or by email.

How to Calculate Stock Worth

Determine the ticker symbol for the stock in which you are interested. There are numerous websites that provide the ticker symbol when you type the name of the company into a web form.
Enter the ticker symbol into a website that offers stock quotes. The quote that the website returns is the price of one share of that stock as of that moment unless a time delay is specified.
Multiply the price of one share by the number of shares you own, and the result is the worth of your position in that stock.

How to Donate Stock to Charity

Call a certified pubic accountant or a tax professional to determine how the donation will affect your taxes. In general, it is better to donate stock that has appreciated in value rather than stock that has lost value.
Look up the name of the charity at the IRS website (See Resources) to ensure that they are a 503c certified organization or a religious organization, which are the only ones that you can obtain a tax deduction for. You can donate to unapproved charities, but you will receive no tax benefits.
Call the charitable organization that you want to donate to and ask them the name and account number for their brokerage account. Not all charities have brokerage accounts set up, in which case they must establish one or you cannot donate your stock to them.
Contact your brokerage account and provide them with the transfer information you obtained from the charitable organization. Tell the broker how much of the stock you wish to donate and the date you want it transferred on.
Print out a copy of the stock transfer transaction and place it in your files for tax purposes. In addition, ask the charity to provide you with a receipt as soon as it receives the funds.

How to Buy Caterpillar Direct Stock

Obtain and read Caterpillar's DSPP prospectus before you enroll. The prospectus presents complete details of the plan, including all fees, terms and conditions. You can request a copy of the prospectus and enrollment form by mail by calling (866) 353-7849 (for TTY 1-800-231-5469). However, you can view the prospectus and a plan summary on the BNY Mellon direct stock purchase plan website (link below). When the page comes up, click on InvestorDirect Search, enter 'Caterpillar' and follow the prompts. You can choose to view the Caterpillar plan materials (prospectus) or plan summary.
Decide how much you want to invest. You can start with as little as $250 by check or electronic debiting. However, this requirement is waived if you set up monthly automatic debits. You can enroll by mail or use the enrollment wizard to sign up online (on the same webpage described in Step 1).
Enroll by filling out the enrollment and authorization forms. You will need to provide your personal information, including your Social Security number and bank account information. For electronic funds transfers, you must complete an authorization form. There is a one-time $15 setup fee. Once you complete the online form or drop a paper form in the mail, you're on your way to becoming a Caterpillar shareholder.
Make additional investments with deposits of as little as $25 (there is a monthly maximum of $10,000). When you buy Caterpillar stock directly, there is a $1-per-purchase fee ($2.50 for paper checks) plus 3 cents per share (as of 2009).

How to Get Real Time Stock Data

Launch an Internet browser and navigate to Yahoo! Finance or Money Central.
Enter the selected website and look for the 'get quote' field.
Enter the name or stock symbol of the desired company and press the 'Get Quote' button.
Look for the real-time quote. This is found directly below the name of the company on both of the above Websites.
Take note of the data for later use.