Probably the best resource for the type of club that you are trying to find would be Yahoo. At last count they had approximately 400 clubs related to futures and options trading. We have provided a link below.

Link: http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Business___Finance/Investments

The process for investing in (FRX) Forest Labs is actually quite simple. You would first need to open a brokerage account (an online account is probably the simplest). You would then simply purchase as many shares of Forest Labs (FRX) as you wish. We have attached links to a couple of the bigger online brokers. If you have additional questions please let us know.

Link: www.ameritrade.com

Link: www.etrade.com

The problem that I see with the strategy you described is that we are in the middle of a bear market and although this type of approach may have worked 3-4 years ago, it would not work in the current market conditions. The percentage of successful trades would be extremely small, ending up with an overall loss. With the market volatility that we are seeing now your trades will unfortunately require much closer observation. You would also need to develop a method for profiting in a downward trending market.

This is a very interesting question. Unfortunately if you owned 1,000 shares of a stock and were also short 1,000 shares of the same stock it would be impossible to make money on either side. If the stock dropped, you would make money on the short but lose an equal amount on the long position and vice versa if the stock went up in price. 

Actually that is not true. If you purchased a put option and the stock were to
increase in price, the option would decline in value until it eventually expired worthless. If you sold a naked put option that would be a different
story.

Link: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/calendar/insider/top10insider.asp

Link: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/calendar/insider/top10insider.asp

Accuinvest:

 

You can simply contact any stock broker and they should be able to assist you in cashing out your certificates. Because the name no longer exists the company could have went out of business in which case your certificates would be worthless. On the positive side though, they could potentially have been bought out by another company. In this case you would then own shares in the company who purchased them.

Accuinvest:

This is an excellent question.

If you are evaluating a company on a fundamental level you would be looking at the internals of the company and how there business is run (profit and loss statements etc.).

If you are evaluating a company on a technical level you would simply be evaluating a stock chart and the price action of the security itself.

Accuinvest:

A call option allows the owner the right to buy 100 shares of a predetermined stock on or before the expiration date at the strike price written in that contract. An August $150 call option would have an expiration date the third Saturday of August and a strike price or right to purchase stock at $150.

If you were to purchase the call option you would have the right to buy the stock for the $150 price even if the stock ended up being worth $250 a share at the time. If you sold the call option though, you would be paid a premium for giving someone else the ability to purchase the stock from you for $150 per share.

Accuinvest:

Enron at this point is a severely damaged stock and even if it did recover, it probably won't be any time in the near future. If you already own the stock and have ridden it all the way down there isn't much you can do at this point. If you are thinking of buying it in hopes that it will recover, our recommendation would be not to. There are plenty of healthy stocks to trade, there is no need to speculate on a stock like this.

Accuinvest:

Thank you for your question. Bollinger bands were developed by John Bollinger and work very similar to moving average envelopes. Bollinger bands are plotted at levels above and below a moving average overlapping the actual stock chart. The bands will expand and contract depending upon the current volatility in the stock. During periods of consolidation the bands will contract, becoming very close together. This is generally a sign that the stock is consolidating and has the potential to make a substantial move. You will notice that as the stock begins to break out of this trading range or consolidation, the bands will begin to widen as the stock heads higher or lower. If a stock trades for a long period of time hugging the upper or lower band it could potentially be an indication of an overbought or oversold condition and may end up leading to at least a short term pullback.

Accuinvest:

The technique I believe you are referring to is called short selling. If you have a margin account with your broker it is as simple as clicking a button to complete the transaction, but the actual process that happens is as follows.

 

Let’s say you had a feeling that stock in XYZ Corp. was going to decline in price and you wanted to short 100 shares of the stock at $20 per share. You would place an order with your broker to short sell 100 shares of stock at the current price. He would then lend you 100 shares of XYZ Corp. which would immediately be sold into the market for the going rate ($20 per share or $2,000).

 

It is now a week in the future and XYZ Corp. has dropped to $15 per share. You still owe your broker 100 shares of stock that need to be replaced to complete the trade. You would now go into the market and purchase 100 shares of XYZ Corp. at $15 per share or $1,500 and return it to your broker. The difference of $500 between the stock that you sold for $2,000 and the stock that you purchased for $1,500 is now yours to keep. This is a very powerful strategy since stocks tend to fall much faster than they increase in price.  

Accuinvest:

 

The best place to go for options quotes is the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). Their website can be found at www.cboe.com .

Accuinvest:

Thank you for your question. Generally most people who trade options never actually intend to buy or sell the stock in the company. If you purchase a put option in a stock you are simply purchasing the right to sell stock in the company for a predetermined price (the option strike price) at some point in the future (the expiration date). Let’s say it is September and you owned Microsoft at $50 and you now purchased a 50 November put option because you thought that the stock was going to go down short term. It is now November and the stock has dropped to $40 meaning that your put option has went up in value almost 1-1 as the stock declined. You could now put the $40 stock to someone for $50 or simply sell the option for its new higher price and keep the stock offsetting your stock loss. This entire option process could also have been done without owning the stock, which would simply be a method for leveraging your capital. Instead of investing $5,000 to short Microsoft you could simply put up $500 to purchase a put option and end up with close to the same profit.

Accuinvest:

Simply contact any stock broker and they can assist you in cashing out your stock certificates.

Accuinvest:

Listed below are a couple of websites that you should visit.

The first is www.freetrade.com . They offer a commission free brokerage account. We’re not sure how quick their executions are but there is absolutely no commission charged on internet orders. 

Accuinvest:

Unless you are willing to dedicate a substantial amount of time and effort into research we probably wouldn't recommend that you manage your own account. Although you could probably see better returns investing your money yourself it takes a considerable amount of effort and if you don't take it seriously you could lose a lot of money. Although you sacrifice a part your income a mutual fund allows you to be involved in the market with a minimal amount of effort on your part. If on the other hand you are interested in doing the work yourself we would probably start by reading the book How To Make Money In The Stock Market by William O'neil. This book is written by the founder of Investors Business Daily newspaper and is very informative yet it is written in plain English and is easy to understand for a beginner. .

A compromise might be to invest a portion of your money into mutual funds and then invest a portion of the money yourself. We wish you the best of luck and if you have any questions in the future please don't hesitate to submit them

Accuinvest:

This is an excellent question. When you exercise an option and purchase a stock for a price lower than its current market value there would be no taxes to pay. This transaction is managed as if you had purchased the stock back when it was available at the lower price. There is no gain to pay taxes on until the actual stock is sold for a price higher than your original purchase price. The reason you don’t have to pay taxes is because no profit is actually made until the sale is completed. You could exercise an option to buy AOL at $50 when the stock is currently trading at $60, then sit on the stock and have it drop back to $45. If you sold it at the $45 level you would actually sustain a loss of $5 per share.

Accuinvest:

A tracking stock is a stock that pays a dividend based on the performance of a particular part of a company. Most companies release tracking stocks to signify the value of a faster growing business unit within the overall corporation. A good example would be a retail chain that also sells merchandise over the internet. With the recent popularity of internet stocks and the profit potential of the internet, they may decide to launch a tracking stock to unlock the value of this particular aspect of the company. These stocks exist as a separate entity from the common stock, include no voting rights, and generally represent no claim to the companies’ assets.

Accuinvest:

Thank you for your question. We are sorry to say it, but at this point we would have absolutely no interest in E-Toys (NASDQ: ETYS). Since October of last year this stock has been on a steady decline from a high of approximately 82.75 to its current low at around the 14.00 level. The stock seems to have established some support at this level but we wouldn’t expect it to go anywhere but down anytime soon. One reason we are so negative on the stock is that it seen some of its biggest losses during a time that most of the internet sector was experiencing tremendous gains (Oct 99-Jan 00). We would suggest that you base your option trades on a phenomenon that you see occurring (i.e. a stock breaking out of a trading range etc.). We would mostly be interested in internet stocks during the months of September through January. It’s during this time frame that the sector experiences its biggest growth as investors buy up the stocks in anticipation of holiday profits.