Understanding what it means to build a diversified portfolio is one of the first concepts a new investor needs to understand. When talking about stocks, diversification means to make sure you don’t “put all of your eggs in one basket.” What Does It Mean To Diversify? Simply put, to “diversify” means to make sure pick Read More…
The most challenging aspect of starting to invest is picking the first few stocks to add to a portfolio. Every investor has their own techniques and strategies, but we want to give you the tools you need to place your first trades, and get your portfolio off to a running start. Establish Goals Before choosing Read More…
Inflation is up in the latest Consumer Price Index report, showing the first total-year increase since the financial crash. Prices increased about 0.3% in June, and 0.4% in May. This increase in prices is welcomed by many economists and analysts; raising prices is a good sign that the economy is growing. The Federal Reserve Bank Read More…
More good news for the US labor market, Jobless Claims have resumed their decent last week, after 3 weeks of climbing. This continues to signal that the US economy is beginning to see strong growth, not just recovery, in the job market after several years of being plagued by high unemployment after the 2008 financial Read More…
Introduction The Sharpe Ratio is an important tool for evaluating a stock, or a portfolio, based on how risky it is to get a higher return. You can use the Sharpe Ratio to determine how consistent the returns of a stock or portfolio are, so you can determine if the returns are stemming more from Read More…
The Chairwoman of the Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank, Janet Yellen, announced today that the prime lending rate will almost certainly be increased this year, based off strong labor market data and economic growth around the United States. The Federal Funds Rate has been set near 0% for the past several years Read More…
Registration And Site Overview New to HowTheMarketWorks? These videos will give you a great picture of how to get around the site, and how to use some of the most popular features Registration And Site Overview My Portfolio, Open Positions, And Rankings Pages Trading Stocks Trading Mutual Funds Teacher Tools And Research Creating your own Read More…
We have been giving a lot of attention to Greece and China recently in our “Top Stories”, and with good reason! Greek debt has been spiraling outwards since the financial crash in 2008, but there has been severe resistance to “austerity measures” (another way of saying spending cuts, usually targeting social programs like retirement pensions) Read More…
China’s stock crash and Greece’s debt crunch have been dominating news in the last couple of weeks, but these two stories have been making large waves, it seems, because they are the global outliers, not the norm. Thanks to increasing domestic demand, and continued support from central banks, economies around the developed world have been Read More…
If you follow our news stories at the top of the page, you may have noticed that a lot of the unemployment stories we focus on are generally good; US jobless claims have been falling drastically over the last 6 months, US overall unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since 2008, and the Read More…
On Wednesday, the DOW fell over 150 points in the morning, in large part due to investor confidence being severely shaken by the massive selloff in China, and the aftershocks of the Greek referendum. Investors around the world are reeling form these two combo-shocks, we have talked about some of the causes of the Chinese Read More…
In a landslide, the Greek voters rejected the terms of the European Union bailout package on July 5th, 2015. The vote was whether or not to accept the terms laid out by European creditors, namely France and Germany, to get Greek finances in order as a condition for further loans from the European Central Bank. Read More…
The Greek financial system was nearing the brink of collapse early Monday morning as banks were closed and capital controls have been placed over government bodies as they prepare for the last round of efforts to keep themselves in the Euro Zone. Greece has pledged to hold a referendum on July 5th to approve the Read More…
The Supreme Court has voted 6-3 to uphold the Affordable Healthcare Act, commonly known as Obamacare, in a landmark decision that effectively killed the last efforts of conservative lawmakers to have the law removed. This battle has been continuing for years; almost since Obama’s inaguration speech lawmakers on both sides of the isle have been Read More…
The world’ biggest brewer is trying to stay at the top spot! Anheuser-Busch InBev has been the top dog for beer for the past few years, with its flagship beers in the United States, Budweiser and Bud Light, ranking as the most common across the nation. However, “most common beer” is meaning less and less Read More…
Walmart is not the only major retailer to be increasing their minimum wages for all employees; Ikea has increased their minimum wages for US workers for the second year in a row. Both major retailers reported much lower labor turnover rates after increasing the wages. However, Ikea, unlike Walmart, offers its wage increases based off Read More…
Over the past few years, student protest movements from around North America and Europe have been pressuring their universities to “divest”, or pull all their money out, from companies that make their money on fossil fuels. The argument has always been that the multi-million dollar endowments managed by the schools should not be complacent in Read More…
Apple Inc (AAPL) announced that they were launching a new music streaming service to compete with the likes of Spotify. The service will have a cost, but Apple was happy to announce that there will be a 3-month free trial period for all users. This sounded great for users, but they also announced that no Read More…
Friday, June 19 2015 was a very rough day for investors in China, over the last week the Shanghai composite index has fallen more than 13%. Analysts at three major investment and analyst firms across the United States have been issuing “Bubble Alerts”, warning that many Chinese stocks are dangerously over-valued, and the Chinese stock Read More…
The first set of contests that were created on our new site are starting to come to an end, so this batch of new features is built for you! From this point forward, once your contest ends, you can come back to your Open Positions page and look up your final values at any time. Read More…
