Today’s Company Invest pick is dry-shipper, Excel Maritime (Symbol EXM). Dry shippers should benefit from Asian economies booming since the dry shipping industry provides vessels to transport dry goods such as iron ore, coal and grain, steel products, fertilizers, cement, bauxite, and sugar and scrap metal. As of March 10, 2010, it owned and operated a fleet of 47 vessels comprising 5 Capesize, 14 Kamsarmax, 21 Panamax, 2 Supramax, and 5 Handymax vessels with a total carrying capacity of approximately 3.9 million deadweight tonnage. The company was founded in 1988 and is based in Athens, Greece.

EXM also fits our other criteria for a Company Invest pick: it has just experienced a sizeable pullback. Remember, we’re always looking for stocks on sale; Trying to chase stocks like AAPL, NFLX and GLD is a futile effort right now. Also, at $5.55 a share, it’s affordable for any investor.

Looking at the daily chart, “A” is our ever-popular 3-day Relative Strength Index (RSI). Look at how oversold it is, and it looks like it is headed back to the 30 level, which is bullish.

“B“is the candlestick pricing chart. Today’s candle opened lower than yesterday’s close, only to hit solid support at the $5.50 area, bounce right off of it and rally into the close. Today’s symbol is a “spinning top” which is a sign of investor indecision. This is significant after nearly a two-week correction. We could be looking at a bottom here.

Look at the recent volume bars (“C“). Do you notice even during the correction, there seems to be more buyers (gray bars) than sellers (red bars)? Volume has been higher on positive days, which is bullish.

Today we also had a bullish PpP pattern (“D“) on the MACD histogram; a sign of a possible reversal. This just means we had a shallower blue bar today, reversing the recent trend.

Finally, the slow stochastic “E” got a bullish cross today.

Company Invest Bottom Line: Take a shot at EXM here with 100 shares and put a stop in around $4.97 . Your risk will only be a mere $50, but if the trade starts going your direction, pile on the shares and  and you could ride it up above $7 for a nice 40% gain!  Risk to reward is on your side on this one!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  Since we’re in the middle of a holiday weekend, I thought I’d include a piece about finding real estate investments.  Throughout the early 2,000’s the rage was flipping houses as the housing market just kept going up, up, up…  Now, we’ve had a subsequent crash, and with mortgage rates at record lows, now could be the time to think about real estate investing again.

 First, you must increase the odds by finding more deals. Who is more likely to get a cheap apartment building, an investor that simply looks through the listings, or the one that uses ten resources?  Here are the ten: 

1. Talk. Let people know you are looking and sometimes the properties will come to you. There are a lot of owners out there who want to sell, but haven’t yet listed their property.
2. Use the Web. Go to a search engine and enter the type of real estate you are looking for, along with the city you want to invest in. You never know what you might find.
3. Drive around looking for “For Sale By Owner” signs. Owners often don’t want to pay to keep the ad in the paper every week, so you won’t see all properties there.
4. Find abandoned properties. That’s a pretty clear sign that the owner doesn’t want to deal with the property. He might sell cheap.  Here is another option: 
5. Find old “For Rent” ads. Call if they are a few weeks old. Landlords are often ready to sell, especially if the haven’t yet rented the units out.
6. Talk to bankers. You might get a foreclosed-on investment property cheaper if you buy it before they list it with a real estate agent.
7. Offer someone a finder’s fee. There are people that always seem to hear about the good deals. Have such people coming to you.
8. SearchEviction notices. If your local papers publish eviction notices, or if you can get the information at the courthouse, it can be useful. A landlord who just went through the procees of evicting tenants is a likely seller.
9. Look for Old FSBO ads. If you call on two-month-old “For sale By Owner” ads, and they haven’t sold, they may be ready to deal. Owners often give up the effort, but still would love to sell. Help them out!
10. Advertise. “Looking for investment properties to buy,” might be sufficient to generate a few calls.

 REAL ESTATE INVESTING THROUGH ETFs

If buying real estate isn’t for you, you can still play the real estate sector using ETFs.  Here are a few to consider:

•  Cohen & Steers Global Realty Majors ETF (GRI)
• Direxion Real Estate Bear 3X – Triple-Leveraged ETF (DRV)
• Direxion Real Estate Bull 3X – Triple-Leveraged ETF (DRN)
• Dow Jones Wilshire REIT ETF (RWR)
• First Trust S&P REIT Index Fund (FRI)
• iShares FTSE NAREIT Industrial/Office Index Fund (FIO)
• iShares FTSE NAREIT Mortgage REITs Index Fund (REM)
• iShares FTSE NAREIT Real Estate 50 Index Fund (FTY)
• iShares FTSE NAREIT Residential Index Fund (REZ)
• iShares FTSE NAREIT Retail Index Fund (RTL)
• PowerShares Active U.S. Real Estate Fund (PSR)

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PLAYS

The boom in alternative energy stocks has given rise to a boon in alternative energy ETFs. More than a half-dozen funds launched in the past few years, and more are on the way.

The newest wrinkle is funds that focus on specific technologies. Today’s Company Invest pick is “TAN,” an ETF that provides access to the solar energy market.   This fund offers exposure to the global solar energy market and a very inexpensive expense ratio of 0.65%.

We are always looking for pullback stocks to buy at Company Invest and TAN has experienced quite a correction here recently.  It is always better to buy stocks or ETFs when they are on sale, instead of grabbing them at the top of rallies.

IS “TAN” A BUY?  COMPANY INVEST TECHNICAL TAKE

The chart looks very favorable for a winning trade, or even a longer term investment right now in TAN.

“A” is the 7-day Relative Strength Index (RSI), a measure of a stock or ETF’s strength against its recent pricing.  The RSI is giving two buy signals: One it is sitting in oversold territory (20.88) that it hasn’t been in since the end of August.  The last time the RSI was this low, TAN gained 36%!   Also, the current RSI has a bullish divergence (higher low), while at the same time the price is making lower lows.  This is a powerful foreshadowing of a reversal.

“B” is the candlestick pricing chart of TAN.  It has corrected from $9 to the $7 range and a higher low (compared to the August low) looks to be setting up.  Today’s candlestick was a spinning top, which indicates indecision, and more importantly the selling occurred on very light volume.

“C” is the recent selling bars as TAN corrected.  Look at the massive selling peak that took place last week with those huge red selling bars.  Now contrast that with this week’s selling volume.  This tells us the selling may be over.

“D” is the MACD histogram, a wonderful predictor of momentum change.  There is a bullish divergence between the histogram bars and the price.  If TAN can get over $7.50 it will be extremely bullish, as that would confirm the histogram’s directional change.

“E” is the slow stochastic momentum indicator.  Yet another bullish divergence is setting up here.

Company Invest Bottom Line: Grab 100 shares here and put a stop at $6.77.  That way if TAN breaks the August lows, you are safely out.

If you just getting started with online trading and need a discount broker, consider Tradeking.  You can click their ad at the top of the page to fill out a quick and easy application, or, if you want to switch from a high cost broker to enjoy $4.95 a trade, .

In the not too distant past, if you wanted to trade stocks you had to pay huge fees to use a full service broker. It was so expensive the average investor could barely afford it and many couldn’t at all. However, today there are many great discount online brokers to choose from and most offer free accounts that take just minutes to sign up for. And trading fees are low, way low. As low as $3-$5 a trade.

Choosing the “best” online stock broker is important since the broker will be carrying out your investment trades and maintaining your accounts. However, finding a good online stock broker can be unnerving due to sheer amount of investment firms and banks vying for your business. Everyone claims to offer the “best trades” and the “lowest prices.” So how do you decide which online stock broker best meets your needs?

EVALUATING ONLINE BROKERS

While choosing an online stock broker, the first thing to take into consideration is whether you need a full service or a discount broker. While full service brokers offer a comprehensive range of services, discount brokers generally only execute trades on behalf of the clients. As a result, discount brokers generally charge lower commissions. Some other parameters to compare online stock brokers on are:

Trading platform: Online trading can become quite confusing and cumbersome, if the software provided by the online broker lacks ease-of-use. If the broker’s website takes too long to load or is too confusing, your trade result can be grossly affected.

Products offered: When choosing an online broker, people generally only think of stocks. However, some online brokers deal in other investment vehicles as well, such as futures, options and gold contracts. If you seek diversity in your investment portfolio, find online brokers who manage multiple investments. 

Minimum deposit: Most online brokers charge a minimum deposit to execute, which may be as high as $10,000. Evaluate your financial capacity and choose a broker accordingly. Note that some online stock brokers do not charge any minimum deposit, although this might mean compromising on some additional services.

Customer service: Since online trading may become boggling at times, it is important that the online broker maintains appropriate real-time over-the-phone and online customer service. Lack of proper customer service may leave you confused and frustrated. Also, ensure that the online broker’s customer service provides regularly account statements, for you to track your progress.

Finally, note that the right online stock broker can make or break your progress on the stock market. Good brokers undertake research activities to keep their clients abreast of the best strategies to optimize returns from stock trading.

I’ve used Fidelity, Sharebuilder, Scottrade and a number of other online brokers.  But I found a broker with a mix of all the right qualities: great customer service, an easy to use website, no minimum deposit, great security, fast trade execution and, most importantly, LOW, LOW trading fees. Tradeking takes the prize in my book. They offer . Sign up today. You’ll be glad you did.  It’s free to sign up and it literally only takes minutes.

It’s been a crazy week on Wall Street.  The move has been mostly down with the exception of yesterday’s tremendous rally because of the GM IPO and a better than expected economic report (Philadelphia Manufacturing).  But all week the retail sector has been strong, and today’s Company Invest pick, Lowe’s (LOW) in particular looks poised for a big rally.

COMPANY INVEST TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Looking at the chart “A” is the 3-day Relative Strength Index.  As you can see the momentum is positive and it is about to break through 50.  RSI readings above 50 are considered quite bullish.

“B” is the price chart.  Notice, instead of the usual candlesticks, I chose to display a line chart.  This is good for seeing certain patterns.  There is a powerful bullish pattern called the “W” pattern.  Essentially it is a double bottom pattern where the stock sells off, rallies, then pulls back again before really taking off, thus forming a “W” shape.  Two keys to this pattern:  #1 the second “V” of the “W” should not dip as low as the first.  What this says is that after a rally, there was just some normal profit taking (not a heavy selloff).  #2  The most powerful occurrence of the “W” pattern is when you see it occur right under a major moving average.  That’s because many short sellers place their stops right above moving averages.  So the theory is, if the stock price breaks through the moving average, those shorts will be forced to cover and buy back shares they sold, thus making the stock move even higher.  If it sounds confusing, don’t worry.  Just look for the W under either the 50 day or 200 day moving average with the right side higher than the left and you’ve got a winner.   And look at Thursday’s chart of LOW.  BINGO!

“C” is the MACD histogram.  Yesterday we got a bullish pPp reversal on the chart.  This is a 3-bar reversal where you have a selling bar, a deeper selling bar, then a shallower selling bar.  Confirmation of this pattern will occur when LOW closes above $21.64 (yesterday’s close).

“D” is the slow stochastic momentum indicator.  Notice the nice higher low the stochastic put in (green up-sloping line).  Also, we got a bullish touch of the signal line (black) with the stochastic line (red).  Look for a solid cross of the signal line to the upside for confirmation.

Company Invest Bottom Line: Looking at the black parallel lines in the price chart it looks like LOW could easily gain 10% in the near future and move to the $23.25 area for a great trade.  Start with 50 or 100 shares and put a stop in at $1 below the purchase price.

Company Invest Recent Picks:  Still holding ERY and QID despite a rough day yesterday.

MARKET STUTTERS DESPITE QE

Despite the implementation of Quantitative Easing (QE2) this week by Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve, there was a swift selloff in the market today.
Very few stocks closed in the green with the exception of Home Depot (HD) and some others in the retail sector.

Gold, oil, and most other commodities sold off hard as the dollar rallied fiercely despite the daily buying of US Treasuries by the Fed through Permanent Open Market Operations (POMO). Speaking of Quantitative Easing, for those of you who don’t know exactly what it is, check out the entertaining video below today’s trade update; it’s priceless!

COMPANY INVEST TRADE UPDATES

ERY: ERY is a triple levereged (3X) Bearish Energy Sector ETF. We suggested getting in last week and got stopped out. We then Re-entered the trade on Monday at $29.25. Since then, ERY has gained a nice 8.25%, closing at $31.67 today. What to do now? This trade is doing fantastic! We believe it has much upside to go. Hold your shares and look to add to your position on any slight pullback (possibly tomorrow). We put a 6% trailing stop in today. That way, worst case we’re still ahead on the trade.

QID: QID is the Technology sector Ultrashort ETF. We recommended QID in last weekend’s post for purchase on Monday morning. We got it at $12.60 on Monday and since then it has gone up nearly 5%, closing at $13.20 today — Not bad for two days! What to do now? Hold and buy more on a pullback (when the market bounces in the next trading day or two).

QE VIDEO

ALSO KNOWN AS PAPER TRADING

 A stock market simulation game is a great way to practice your investment skills before actually investing any “real” money in the stock market.

Simulation games are usually played on the internet, where people can experience the thrill of investing in the stock market without any risks, costs or any fear of losing money when and if they make a poor investment decision.   This is commonly referred to as “paper trading.”

Many teachers and professors of banking and finance are now using stock market simulation games to teach their students about the rudiments of investing in stocks. Most stock market simulation games come with a fee to get started, but there are some that are free of any charge.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

First, players must register. After registration, players are given an initial sum of “virtual” money to invest in companies of their choice. Players build a portfolio of stocks by buying and selling shares in companies. Most stock market simulation games use real-time market data.

The objective of most stock market simulation games is simple:

To increase the value of your portfolio of stocks so that it is greater than that of the other game players.

TIPS ON PLAYING

Below are some tips on choosing a stock market simulation game:

• Choose a stock market simulation game that is used and recommended by reputable colleges, high schools, middle school, investment clubs, brokers in training, corporate education courses and any other group of individuals studying markets in the U.S. and worldwide.
• Choose a stock market simulation game that is comprehensive and easy to implement in any Finance, Economics, or Investments class. A good stock market simulation game should feature trading of stocks, options, futures, mutual funds, bonds from the U.S. and many of the world’s major markets.
• Choose a stock market simulation game that provides a valuable, reliable, and realistic trading simulation at a reasonable price to members and other individuals who are interested in learning more about investing and trading. The simulation game should also have some capability for testing a variety for investment strategies.
• Choose a stock market simulation game that has a toll-free customer service phone number and excellent e-mail support for members. The support function should be able to quickly answer any questions that members/players may have.
• Choose a stock market simulation game that is easy to use and easy to teach even to those who have never had any real hands-on investment experience.

There are many good sites and discount brokers that offer stock simulators such as Wall Street Survivor
, one of our advertisers.  Click the ad at the right to sign up for a free account.  You can trade just as if you were in the market and there are lots of great prizes! And you can paper trade stocks, options, and commodities.  It’s a harmless way to “get your feet wet” while you are learning how to trade stocks.  www.investopedia.com is one site that offers a nice investment simulation for free.

COMPANYINVEST.COM TRADING UPDATE 

Both of our recent picks, QID and ERY are doing wonderfully.  We added shares of QID to our position during today’s trading.  Tune in tomorrow for another great stock pick!

Despite Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve’s $600 billion effort to prop the stock market and economy, it looks as if a correction is in order now.  Now would be a good time to pause, take profits and sell a portion of your long positions, or, if you are aggressive, why not make money when the market goes down?   You can do that by shorting stocks, buying put options, or, our preferred method, buying inverse ETFs.

We know that the market goes down much faster than it goes up because fear is a powerful thing, especially when coupled with money.  Right now the early signals indicate a 5 to 10 percent correction looming in the S&P 500.  And when the S&P 500 goes down, 3/4 of all stocks go down with it so take heed.  If you want to stay in your long positions, that’s fine.  Use a 5 to 8% trailing stop (whatever you are comfortable with).  A trailing stop is a wonderful tool offered by most online brokers.  It is a variable selling point and is great when you’ve already made money and want to lock in your profits.  If you put a 5% trail in, your selling point is always 5% lower than the current bid for the stock or ETF you are in.  That way, if the price keeps going up, so does your stop, however, once it corrects 5%, your shares are automatically sold, and your profits are locked in.

Today’s pick is QID.  QID is a reverse ETF which moves in the opposite direction of the QQQ’s (technology ETF).  That is when the technology sector is going down, QID is going up.

Looking at the chart there are several encouraging signals:

“A” is the slow stochastic momentum indicator.  It has been oscillating in oversold territory since early September!  We think this time the stochastic line has a great shot of going all the way up to 80 (overbought).  If that happens, QID will rally bigtime!  There is a powerful divergence between the stochastic and the price channel.  Look at the severely downsloped price trendline (red), compared to the stochastic lows (green line).  The stochastic line is flat to slightly sloping upward, indicating a change in trend.

“B“is the price chart for QID.  We had a powerful white candle on Friday (typically a selling day) and QID had a positive week overall.  More importantly, are the 3 and 10 day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs).  The green and red arrows in the chart indicate buy/sell signals generated when the 3 day EMA (blue line) crosses up or down through the 10 day EMA (red line).  As you can see this technique gives wonderful stock trading signals.  The last signal (SELL) occured at the beginning of September.  Since then QID has gotten a 36% haircut! As of Friday’s close the 3 day EMA is EXACTLY the same as the 10 day and is just about to cross to the upside.  Monday could be an EXCELLENT entry point.

“C” is the MACD histogram.  Look at the massive bullish divergence between the histogram and the price channel.  This is a powerful buy signal.

“D” is the ADX indicator.  You get a buy signal when the green line crosses up through the red line (heading that direction but hasn’t happend yet).  However, the ADX line (black line) gives early signals.  The ADX line measures trend, and the trend has been up since early September, however that line is now rolling over and sloping down.

Bottom Line: Look for an entry point Monday and buy 50-100 shares of QID with a stop $1 below your entry point.

UPDATE: We had two wonderful stocks here in X (US Steel) and DGP (Double Gold ETF).  Hopefully you took profits and sold all of your shares now.

ERY:  We recommended it last week, but our stop of $29.20 was triggered.  However, ERY rallied hard on Friday and we really like it again as a trade.  Look to re-enter on Monday.

At Company Invest,  we strive to provide analysis to give readers the most accurate forecast for the best stocks to buy based on recent chart signals.  We use technical analysis as our primary trading strategy.  For those who don’t know, technical analysis is the study of stock price charts.  We get signals from a variety of indicators including chart patterns, support and resistance levels, Japanese candlestick signals, moving averages, volume, and a variety of momentum indicators.

Before we get to the charts, on a macro level there are some interesting news events to consider.  With last week’s Federal Reserve decision to enact Quantitative Easing (QE2), many assumed, and rightly so, that the dollar would get trashed while commodities, especially precious metals would soar.  And that pretty much came true last week with gold hitting a new all-time high above $1,400 an ounce.  However, it seems to me this week (in a 180 degree reversal to that theory) that the Fed would like to strengthen the dollar.  There seems to be a sector rotation going on here that started yesterday and continued today.  The sector rotation appears to be a move out of gold, commodities, and treasuries and into stocks.

That brings us to today’s Company Invest pick, ERY.  ERY is a bearish Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) for the energy sector.  With what seems to be a coordinated effort to strengthen the dollar and with the dollar’s chart (UUP) looking quite bullish, the energy sector is setting up for a big correction.  And, by buying ERY, you can capitalize by making money when energy stocks go down.

COMPANY INVEST TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Looking at today’s chart, “A” is the Relative Strength Index (RSI) set to the 7-day period.  At a reading of 10.44, the RSI is more oversold than it has been for at least 6 months (this entire chart).  This tells us a bounce is coming.

“B” is the ERY price chart.  Last Thurs, Nov 4 ERY gapped down pre-market and then continued to sell off throughout the day.  A “gap” occurs when prices move up or down outside of the trading session (in futures trading).  Technical analysis tells us that most of these gaps are eventually filled, meaning there is a very high probability that ERY goes back to the $34-$34.50 area in the near term.  That would mean over an 11% possible gain on a quick swing trade.  Also, yesterday’s candle was a hollow red candle, which indicates a reversal could be imminent.  The hollow red candle meant that ERY gapped down premarket yesterday, moved lower, then rallied the rest of the day to close higher than it opened, yet still lower (barely) than the previous day’s close.

“C” is the MACD histogram.  A shallower blue bar at the end of today’s session would indicate a reversal and a possible bullish divergence between the histogram and the price chart.  These bullish divergences happen when prices make a lower low, but the histogram makes a higher low (see sloping up green line on histogram and sloping down red line on price chart).

Finally, “D” the slow stochastic momentum indicator got a bullish cross (signal line “black” crossed up through the stochastic line “red”).

Company Invest Bottom Line:  This trade has a good risk reward.  You can buy it here and put a stop at $29.20, for a move to $34-$35.

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We strive to supply our readers with the best stock picks and investment advice at companyinvest.com.  Using the trading strategies we apply here, you can make 20-30% returns every year, even in a down year for the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial average.

One measure of computing investment doubling time is the “Rule of 72.”

The ‘Rule of 72‘ is a simplified way to determine how long an investment will take to double, given a fixed annual rate of interest. By dividing 72 by the annual rate of return, investors can get a rough estimate of how many years it will take for the initial investment to duplicate itself.

For example, the rule of 72 states that $1 invested at 10% would take 7.2 years ((72/10) = 7.2) to turn into $2.

The Rule of 72 is not a perfect indicator, but is remarkably accurate and simple. The chart below outlines the Rule of 72 doubling times (in years) for low to high end annual returns.

The low end of the range is a typical return you would get out of a bank savings account or Certificate of Deposit (CD). If you want to create the kind of wealth needed for a comfortable retirement, you simply can’t afford to park your money in an investment vehicle that doubles only every 24 to 36 years!

However, if you follow a disciplined trading strategy, always using stops, along with the techniques taught on this site, you can double your money every 2 to 4 years!  With the power of compounding, you can amass a very sizeable retirement nest-egg over time!