Before investing in the stock market, you will first have to learn the fundamentals of how the stock market works. This is not something that you can simply jump into head first and expect to learn everything instantly. Understanding how stocks work beforehand is very important as it will help you make the right decisions necessary to ensure the highest possible profits.
In all simplicity, a share of stock is nothing less than a portioned ownership in the company. Making money with the stock market occurs in two different ways. The first way to make money with the stock exchange is through the traditional common shares of stock. These common shares are called as such as they are the most commonly traded shares. When you purchase these shares, you are doing so by speculation in that you are anticipating that the shares of stock’s value will increase so that you can sell them for profit.
On the other hand, you have the preferred share of stock which is of course the most preferred. It is suggested that your portfolio consists of a mix of both common and preferred stock for a reason. Companies reward their share holders through dividends, but you will only be able to collect a dividend if you hold the preferred stock of that company.
What this means to an investor is that if you own a thousand shares of a company, and they make enough profit to declare a quarterly dividend of $0.45, then by holding these preferred shares, you have will have made $450 profit without needing to sell your shares. Now just imagine holding on to tens of thousands of these while at the same time also dealing with the buying low and selling high of the common shares.
The stock market and how it works is simple in theory, but when it comes to executing these purchases and sales with the right timing, this is what is difficult and within time you will have developed your own stock market investing strategy that makes use of your own strengths that will help you become more profitable in investing.