Watchlists for the Beginning Investor and Busy Trader
Beginning investors who are learning how to invest and trade often struggle with finding stocks to invest in. Those who are interested in learning how to trade stock options for greater profits using leverage should read ‘Why Liquidity is Important’, which essentially outlines why it is crucial for option traders to only trade stocks and ETFs that are ‘highly traded’. In essence, the investing and trading community usually focuses on a fraction of all the stocks and ETFs available. Being able to quickly find lists of such stocks will greatly simplify the beginning investor and trader’s task of finding something to invest/ trade. Ideally, investors and traders should keep many stocks on watchlists. Most experienced investors and traders have option trading strategies and will use trading systems to monitor their watchlists for stocks that fulfill certain criteria to make them be worthy of purchase.
VectorVest is a stock analysis and portfolio management system that combines the power of fundamental valuation with technical analysis. VectorVest analyzes, sorts, ranks and graphs over 18,300 stocks daily for Value, Safety and Timing. As most investors and traders know, the way to make money in any market is to buy low and sell high, and VectorVest makes it as easy to do so. With its objective data and proven market timing system, traders can get into the market when prices are low and out of the market when prices are high. Best of all, VectorVest has many pre-defined watchlists as well as custom watchlists that users can customize based on their own preferences. The Unisearch function allows users to create their own searches to find stocks and ETFs that meet their criteria.
The pre-defined VectorVest watchlists include the following:
- Dow Jones Watchlists
- DRIP Watchlists
- ETF Watchlists
- Retirement Stocks
- S&P Watchlists
- Special Watchlists
The special watchlists include a variety of watchlists such as Brazilian stocks, Indian stocks, Chinese stocks, Stocks making new highs, as well as the WOW (Watchlist of Watchlists, a watchlist of stocks recommended by various newsletter writers, and re-created every Friday).
The Beginning Investor’s Playground
VectorVest has a huge database of historical stock prices, which allows the DIY (do-it-yourselfer) investor and trader the ability to go back into the past and ‘test their strategies’ to determine whether the trading system they wish to follow is sound and will generate profits. This is especially important for those who focus on ‘directional trades’, as, if the stock does not move in the direction predicted, the investor or trader will lose their money. This is important for both stock investors/traders as well as options traders. However, option traders have an advantage over ‘pure’ stock traders, as they can design option trades that can make money if the stock rises, does not move or even drops a little. I use VectorVest to manage my watchlists, and conduct both fundamental and technical analyses to find stocks worthy of creating option trades on.
It is important to remember that picking stocks from a watchlist is only the first step for successful investing and trading; one has to know how to play the ‘Stock Market Game’ in which asset allocation and risk management are crucial. Picking the ‘right’ stocks without attention to the details of asset allocation and risk management will result in sub-optimal results or even losses!
Next Steps
Check the VectorVest home page for a video overview of the VectorVest stock analysis and portfolio management system. To obtain a free stock analysis of any stock of your choice follow this link. For those wishing to conduct a more in-depth review, VectorVest offers a 5-week trial of the full and complete VectorVest system for a nominal $9.95 fee that is refundable with a 100% guarantee if you are not completely satisfied for any reason.
The best way to find out whether a trading system will help you make money is to test it yourself – the VectorVest system allows the user to ‘go back in time’ to test whether stocks he/she would have picked would have made money. This back-testing feature is invaluable to serious investors and traders as it allows one to test systems without losing money in the real world – besides, 5 weeks is plenty of time to test the system without losing any money at all !
