How to Research Stock in Companies
Investing in the stock market can be a lucrative venture if done wisely. Research is necessary in order to determine which company you'd like to invest in and whether that investment is particularly risky or more secure. However, the financial pages of the newspaper may seem like utter gibberish to the novice, which often scares would-be investors away. Luckily, Market Watch and MSN Money provide tools to help navigate the financial world.
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Instructions
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Finding Your Company
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Go to Market Watch at http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/research-tools and click on "stock screener" located on the left hand side of the research window under the "stock" subheading. The stock screener provides a means for the prospective investor to narrow down the search by several criteria, including price, volume and industry.
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Place a check mark in the box marked "trading from" by clicking on the box. Next enter the amount of money you're interested in spending per share of stock. This will narrow down the stocks available significantly. If you'd like to further narrow the selection down you can specify that you'd only like to find stocks that are up as of today by clicking on the appropriate box.
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Click on "Screen" at the bottom of the research window. You will then be asked to specify how you'd like to view the search results. The default data that Market Watch provides includes the company name/symbol, the price, the change, the percentage of change and the volume. You can also click on boxes to have 52 week highs and lows listed.
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Select "sort by price" from the drop-down window and click on "Screen" again. You'll be directed to a complete listing of stocks available within the parameters that you've set. Once you find a company that you're interested in, write down the company name and symbol and go to MSN Money's Stock Research Wizard: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/research/wizards/SRW.asp
Stock Past and Present
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Type the symbol of the company you'd like to invest in into the small text box to the right of the words "Start research for:" and click on "Go." You'll be directed to a webpage explaining what exactly the company does, how much the company sells in goods or services, whether the company is growing in worth, and the profit margin of the company.
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Click on "Next" at the bottom of the window and you'll be given the price history of the stock. If you notice a downward trend take care because the stock may dip lower before turning around. A safer investment is a stock that shows an upward trend.
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Click on "Next" and you'll be provided with a prediction about how the company stock will change over the next two years.
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Click on "Next" and you'll be given a list of factors that could potentially alter the value of the stock.
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Click on "Next" and lastly you'll be given the opportunity to compare this stock with another stock and thus determine which is the better investment.
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Tips & Warnings
Market Watch also provides a "Virtual Stock Exchange," which allows you to practice trading before investing real dollars.
