A Newbies' Forum perhaps?

[bb88]

I am new to this and wondering if there is a possibility of a forum for newbies to ask stupid questions or if not, a thread to help the newbies.

Immediately, I don't have a clear idea what is meant by 1 basis point, XD, CD, etc.

Heck, when I going to an internet trading portal I am also not making much sense of how to correctly read the data.

[newborn1000]

i think you can just ask here.......in this thread

But investing/trading means hard work

XD = exclude dividends

CD = cum dividends

for a proper definition of basis point..........visit investopedia.com

it has everything a newbie needs and more

[cyborg]

From Investopedia.com :

What Does Basis Point - BPS Mean?
A unit that is equal to 1/100th of 1%, and is used to denote the change in a financial instrument. The basis point is commonly used for calculating changes in interest rates, equity indexes and the yield of a fixed-income security.

[yeokiwi]

You may want to read some books first to familiarise with investment concepts.

Easy reading...
One up on wall street by Peter Lynch

Must read...
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

As for stock screen data, there should be some user's guide from the broker.

[arthur]

There is nothing as a stupid question. All human are born only with a knowledge of suckling. Thus even the greatest investors of all would hv asked "stupid questions" in his life.
But the problem is many do not comprehend the power of internet search but expect spoon feed thus leading to being ignored. We prefer to spend our times in mre useful endearvours in such cases. You can feel free to ask trading or investing questions. Some of us do both styles.
Cheers.

[kazukirai]

Hi bb88,

As many of the other forummers have replied, there is no stupid question. But as Arthur-san has said, it would be best if you did your own reading and use this forum as a means for clarification or how what you've read may apply in the local context (after all, many great classics on investing out there are written for the US context).

Some books written by local authors include those by Adam Khoo, Goh Kheng Chuan has a 'Handbook for stock investors' and Curtis Montgomery (the founder of Wallstraits which was pretty much Value Buddies previous previous incarnation) has some for beginners as well.

I myself only started investing in 2007 (Which makes me still a newbie too! Probably not a new newbie but an old one). I probably was reading everything I could get my hands on investing 1-2 years before that but I'm kind of a passive learner which made things a little slow. OH! And read some forummers' blogs. I reccomend MusicWhiz's and 8percentpa's to begin with. Keep reading the forum and don't hesitate to ask whenever you come across something you don't quite understand due to jargon (many things in the investing is actually more jargon-ish than rocket science).

I leave you with a quote from Charlie Munger which he attributed to Benjamin Franklin- "In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time , none, zero."

Good Luck!

[Zelphon]

Hey,

I started purchasing my 1st stock on 14 Jan 2008.

Read a little bit here and there and I amassed about 3GB full of ebooks on financial stuff..
FA/TA.. etc..

You name it, I probably have it...

Too many to read and I am pretty lazy.. Only managed to finish some books..

Looking back, all I can say is that one learns more by making mistakes and actually walk the talk..
You can only get the rough idea via books...
Frankly speaking, no matter how much books one reads, it will all end up being financial garbage and only a few principles will be applied..

Anyway, I have so much more to learn...

Hopefully, I will be able to find a winning comfortable investment strategy for myself...