Strategic Investing CORE: Diversification Management
Questions we consider in this first course: How diversified is your portfolio? Is your portfolio protected from the downside shocks that may hit it in the future? If you don't own stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate, precious metals and a little cash, you aren't nearly diversified enough.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Spread Your Risk with Horizontal Diversification
- Lesson #2 – Strengthen Your Portfolio with Vertical Diversification
- Lesson #3 – Boost Your Returns with Strategic Diversification
Exchange Traded Funds
Every strategic portfolio needs a solid base. The strength of your base will determine just how successful your portfolio is going to be. One of the easiest ways to build a solid base is to use exchange-traded funds (ETFs). ETFs put the power of diversification and cost control in the palm of your hand. Plus, thanks to the explosion of these funds in the industry, you can find an ETF for just about anything these days.
This course teaches you how to find stock and bond funds. We also explore other ways to diversify your portfolio, such as through real estate, commodity and even cash funds.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – The Basics of Exchange Traded Funds
- Lesson #2 – Finding Stock Funds
- Lesson #3 – Finding Bond Funds
- Lesson #4 – Allocating Your Cash
- Lesson #5 – Real Estate Funds
- Lesson #6 – Commodity Funds
Individual Equities
Individual equities, because they don't provide instant diversification, typically have more upside potential than ETFs. Of course, that increased potential comes with increased risk as well, but if you're looking for growth, individual equities can work well for you — as long as you know what you're doing. This course will teach you how to analyze revenue and earnings per share, ways to assess management performance and understanding how Wall Street evaluates and affects stock prices. We finish with a review of relative strength and sector (or "top down") analysis.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Analyzing Performance with Revenue and Earnings Per Share (EPS)
- Lesson #2 – Assess Management with Return on Equity (ROE)
- Lesson #3 – Take the Pulse of Wall Street with PEG and other Ratios
- Lesson #4 – Size up the Competition with Relative Strength
- Lesson #5 – Find Leading Sectors with a Top-Down Analysis
Strategic Investing CORE: Position Management
Once you have built your base, this course helps you understand how to manage your base. In this course we cover position sizing, stop loss orders, scheduled rebalancing and dollar cost average. All great ways to tend to your investing garden.
Diversification doesn't do you much good unless your money is thoughtfully distributed across those various investments. Putting 90 percent of your money in one investment and the other 10 percent in your remaining investments won't do you much good. We start this course by helping you understand the benefits of position sizing.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Balance Your Portfolio with Position Sizing
- Lesson #2 – Protect Your Portfolio with Stop Losses
- Lesson #3 – Maintain Your Discipline with Scheduled Rebalancing
- Lesson #4 – Add to Your Base with Scheduled Contributions
Generating Income with Dividends
Once you have established a strong foundation for your portfolio, you can start to put it to work for you with dividend payments. Whether you are looking to fund your retirement, pay for a child's education or simply provide a little extra spending cash, dividends provide great way to generate income. This course helps investors understand dividend yields, how to search for dividends and when to combine dividends with your growth strategy.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Understanding Dividend Basics
- Lesson #2 – Search for Dividend Yield
- Lesson #3 – Combine Dividends and Growth
- Lesson #4 – Compound Your Returns with Dividend Reinvestment
Generating Income with Covered Call Options
If you’ve never traded options before and don’t know much about them, this course will be a great introduction for you. Options are a highly effective trading tool that provide a tremendous amount of flexibility and opportunity for your portfolio... if you know how to use them appropriately. That's why it's important for us to learn how options are created and the difference between a call option and a put option. we also cover how to determine how 'risky' an option is, what is driving the value of the option and how to read an option chain sheet.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Introduction to Covered Calls
- Lesson #2 – Choosing a Strike Price
- Lesson #3 – Choosing an Expiration Date
- Lesson #4 – Executing a Covered Call Trade
Long Calls
This course starts with a review the basics of long call and put options to ensure you can make well-informed trading decisions. We make sure you understand how to determine your strike prices and exercise dates for various long call or long put buying decisions. By the end of the course you'll be posting option trading ideas for your instructor to review.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Choose a Strike Price for a Long Call and Long Put
- Lesson #2 – Choose an Expiration Date for Long Calls and Long Puts
- Lesson #3 – Executing a Long Call or Long Put Trade
Protective Put Options
Sometimes the best way to accelerate portfolio growth is to prevent losses from occurring in the first place. So how do you protect positions in your portfolio using options? The answer: you buy protective puts. In this course we learn how to buy protective puts and, much like the last course on put and call options, we talk about choosing expiration dates and strike prices that are optimal for your strategy. By the end of the course you will be expected to publish a protective put trade idea either for your instructor or for the community.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – An Introduction to Protective Puts
- Lesson #2 – Choose a Strike Price for a Protective Put
- Lesson #3 – Choose an Expiration Date for a Protective Put
- Lesson #4 – Execute a Protective Put Trade
Technical Analyis CORE
Determining the trend is the first and most important step a technical analyst takes when analyzing a stock. Knowing whether a stock is trending or consolidating can be the difference between entering a winning trade and entering a losing trade. This course shows traders not only how to identify the primary trend by utilizing the myriad tools and techniques available to technical analysts but also how to confirm what they are seeing by analyzing the underlying, macro-economic forces that move markets.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Understanding Trends
- Lesson #2 – Understanding Support and Resistance
- Lesson #3 – Identifying the Trend: Dow Theory and Elliot Wave
- Lesson #4 – Identifying the Trend: Technical Indicators
- Lesson #5 – Identifying Support and Resistance
- Lesson #9 – Identifying the Trend: Putting it All Together
Trend Sentiment
The U.S. stock market does not operate in a financial vacuum. It is impacted by the much larger currency, bond and commodity markets, whose reach extends around the globe. Knowing how these markets are behaving can give you a glimpse into the mindset of international investors and whether institutional money is likely to be flowing into, or out of, the stock market. We’ll also learn about market sentiment indicators — the tools traders use to read the “tells” of the other traders on Wall Street.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Intermarket Analysis
- Lesson #2 – Market Sentiment Indicators
- Lesson #3 – Intra-market Analysis
Bounces and Breakouts
Once a trader has determined which direction the stock is most likely to go, the next step is to identify and confirm an entry point. Traders typically encounter two obstacles at this point: 1) the number of methodologies and indicators that provide entry signals can be overwhelming; and 2) developing confidence in their ability to accurately identify these signals can be difficult. This course teaches traders how they can find and confirm the entry signals they are most comfortable with.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Bounces and Breakouts
- Lesson #2 – Anticipating Bounces: Fibonacci
- Lesson #3 – Anticipating Bounces: Elliott Wave
- Lesson #4 – Confirming Support Bounces: Candlestick Patterns
- Lesson #6 – Confirming Bounces and Breakouts: Volume
- Lesson #7 – Confirming Bounces and Breakouts: Technical Indicators
- Lesson #8 – Timing Your Entry: Putting it All Together
Price Targets
Knowing when to enter a trade is important, but if traders don't go in to their trades with an idea of how far they are going to move, they can't position themselves properly to take advantage of the potential gains while protecting themselves from the potential losses. This course shows traders how to set realistic, evidence-based expectations for themselves and their trades so they can make informed decisions instead of flying by the seat of their pants.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Projecting the Move: Support and Resistance Levels
- Lesson #2 – Projecting the Move: Price Patterns
- Lesson #3 – Projecting the Move: Fibonacci
- Lesson #4 – Projecting the Move: Putting it All Together
Price Patterns
Price patterns are visual representations of market psychology in action. They tell you when traders in the market are excited and moving, when they need to take a moment and catch their breath and regroup and when they are ready to get moving again. In this course, we help you get comfortable interpreting the subtle nuances that are a part of price patterns. Once you do, you will feel like you can see into the future.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Identifying Price Patterns
- Lesson #2 – Price Patterns - Uptrending Resistance Levels
- Lesson #3 – Price Patterns - Horizontal Resistance Levels
- Lesson #4 – Price Patterns - Downtrending Resistance Levels
- Lesson #4 – Identifying Price Patterns in a Downtrend
Stops and Exits
Once traders have entered their trades, they need to understand how to provide adequate protection without limiting the potential for profitable performance. This course shows traders how they can protect their trades not only by using stop-loss orders at the appropriate price points but also by identifying appropriate levels to scale in to a trade that may carry a higher degree of risk.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Staying Consistent: Position Sizing
- Lesson #2 – Identifying Stop Levels: Support Levels and Price Patterns
- Lesson #3 – Identifying Stop Levels: Technical Indicators
- Lesson #4 – Protect Your Trade: Putting it All Together
Exit Your Trade
The most difficult question traders have to answer is when to exit their trades. Traders don't want to exit a winning trade too soon, but traders also don't want to give back profits if a stock starts to turn around. Traders don't want to lock in a loss by exiting if they don't have to, but traders also don't want to see losses mount as trades continue to run against them. This course shows traders what to look for to identify and confirm when a trade still has some room to run and when it has reversed course.
The following comprehensive lessons are included in this course:
- Lesson #1 – Predicting Consolidations vs. Reversals
- Lesson #2 – Confirming Your Exit: Candlestick Patterns
- Lesson #3 – Confirming Your Exit: Technical Indicators
- Lesson #4 – Exiting Your Trade: Putting it All Together
