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6 Types of Stocks

1. Blue Chip Stocks Stocks of a large and well established company that is consistently profitable. 2. Income Stocks Stocks that pay consistent and growing dividends in good and bad times. 3. Growth Stocks Stocks that are anticipated to grow at a rate above the average of the market cyclical. 4. Defensive Stocks  Stocks that pay a constant dividend regardless of the market conditions. 5. Cyclical Stocks Stocks affected by changes in the overall economy. 6. Penny Stocks Stocks with prices under $5 and are know to be volatile.

What is the role of transfer agent?

Transfer agent, usually trust company, bank or another financial institutions assigned by a corporation has several duties including maintaining issuer's security holder record, canceling/issuing certificates and distributing dividends among others. Because transfer agent stands between company that issues securities and security holders, transfer agent is crucial for successful completion of secondary sales. Pursuant to 1934 Act, transfer agent must be registered with the SEC or bank regulatory agency if transfer agent is a bank. The SEC also conducts inspections of transfer agent. Companies themselves can act as their own transfer agent. Transfer agent keeps record of who owns company's  stocks and bonds and how many each shareholder or bondholder owns. Also transfer agent issues and cancels certificates to reflect changes in ownership. In case of stock split or stock dividend transfer agent will issue new shares to shareholders. Just like stock transfer agent makes s...

What is the purpose of DTC?

Deposit Trust Company (DTC) is the largest securities depository in the world, created by securities industry to imporove efficiences and reduce risk in the clearence and settlement of securities transactions. It was founded in 1973 and based in New York, DTC is organized as limited purpose trust company meaning it is charted by state to perform specific trust functions, acting as a depositor or safekeeper for securities and mortgages. Basically DTC holds securities for banks and investment firms. DTC alos acts as clearing agency, registered with SEC for securities transactions in the U.S. market, invloving equities, corporate and municipal debt, money market instruments, American depositary receipts and exchange traded funds. All movements of securities are made electronically with book-enry adjustments. Most large U.S broker-dealers and banks are DTC participants, menaing they deposit and hold securities at DTC. Individual investors cannot be participants.  DTC appears i...

Investing strategies

Investing strategy can be understood as set of rules that guide investor in his decisions regarding investment portfolio. Investors use strategies to balance risks and rewards in accordance with his risk tolerance investing goal and investment horizon. Taking time to understand which strategy suits you the best can also help you avoid unwanted expenses. You can look at it as existence of two extremes where on one side are investment strategies that seek rapid growth which includes greater amount or risk and on the other side is low risk strategy with regular dividends payment that is more concentrated on wealth protection. In other words there is always some kind of  trade off between risk and return on investment and most investors are not in the one of those two extremes but somewhere in between. You should honestly assess your current financial situation, your expenses and debt and how much you are able to invest. Investors using value inves...

What is a mutual fund?

Mutual funds is professionally managed company that collects money from many investors to purchase different types of securities such as stocks and bonds. Those combined holdings make fund's portfolio.Shareholders buy shares, parts of portfolio's value and participate proportionally in fund's gains and losses. Money managers allocate assets and try to produce gains for investors. Portfolios are managed differently in accordance with investment goals formulated in prospectus. Because funds invest in huge number of securities, its price of share is called net asset value (NAV) which is calculated by dividing total value of securities on the fund by total amount of shares outstanding. Price is settled at the end of the trading day so it doesn't fluctuate during market hours like regular stock. There is more types of mutual funds that are  classified according to the kind of securities that they invest in, investment goals and type of return they seek. Equity f...

What does fifth letter in ticker means?

A ticker or stock symbol is an abbreviation or an acronym that uniquely identifies securities of particular company on particular stock market. It consists of letters, numbers or both in a combination that is unique for every company. The term ticker itself came from the sound made by ticker tape machine that transmitted stock price information over telegraphic lines. They were supposed to be short to minimize the number of character printed on the ticker tape and to make them easy to recognize for traders and investors. Company's ticker may change due to various reasons, reflecting a merger, name change of a company or if the company trades on multiple exchanges worldwide. US modern letter only ticker symbol was developed by Standard&Poor to bring national standard to investing, Companies trading on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) usually have three letter ticker symbol while Nasdaq ones usually have four letter stock symbol. In July 2007 Securities and ...

Understanding bonds

Bonds is one of the three main asset classes besides stock (equity) and cash equivalents. Bond is considered fixed income security where bond issuer is in debt to the bond holder and is obliged to pay him an interest. It can be understood as a form of a loan where holder of the bond is creditor, issuer of the bond is borrower and coupon is interest that he pays. Issuers of the bonds are companies, municipalities, states and governments which used funds obtained through bonds to finance long term investments and current expenditures. Bondholders are debt holders that have priority over stockholders but are ranked behind secured creditors in case of insolvency. Bonds have maturity date when the principal is due to be paid and interest rate that can be fixed or variable. Principal is face value of the bond, actual amount that is on the bond which will be paid to the holder at the maturity date. Fixed rates remain the same through the set period while variable rates fluctuate o...

What you need to know about preferred stock?

Preferred stock, also know as preferred or preference shares is one of the main types of stock besides common shares. It is considered that preferred stock is a hybrid security that combines properties of debt (fixed dividends) and equity (potential to raise in price). They are distinct from common shares because they don't have voting rights but have higher claim on company's assets and earnings. Terms of preferred stock are described in issuing document; they can be issued under any set of terms that is compliant to laws and regulations. Preference in dividends is what distinguish preferred  from common stock. Board of directors makes decision whether or not company will pay dividends to its shareholders. Dividends are specified as percentage of the par value or as a fixed amount. Common shareholders can receive dividends only if preferred shareholders are already paid in full if board decides to pay them dividends in the first place. This makes them similar to bonds...