15 Things I Look at Before Trading a Stock I recently shared my stock trading analysis template along with my recent moves on the stock market. Today, I’ll be sharing my list of 15 things I look at before trading stocks. Numbers are obviously a big part of it. 15 Things To Look at Before Trading #1 Dividend Yield Since I want to build a dividend portfolio, I look at the dividend yield as one of my first criteria. #2 Dividend Payout Ratio A high dividend yield is good. #3 Dividend Growth This is definitely the key behind dividend investing: holding the stock long enough to see the dividend grow to a ridiculously high yield. #4 Sales Growth Another interesting factor is to look at how the company is growing. #5 Earnings Growth Same here; climbing sales is good, making more money is obviously better. #6 P/E Ratio This data really depends on the industry you are looking at. #7 Trend While this won’t be the deciding factor in my analysis, I love to match the stock trend with its 200 days moving average. #8 Company’s Industry Google+
Moneychimp: learn Stock Investing, Index Funds, Valuation Models, and more. Quick Practical, Tactical Tips for Presentations In the past I’ve given some tips for handling meetings effectively, covering topics like: - How not to let your meeting go down a rat hole; - Dealing with the elephant in the room; - Dealing with skeletons in your closet; - How to make meetings discussions, not “pitches” - A tale of two pitches (I eventually invested in the first company that pitched) Today’s post is a subtle one about positioning yourself in a presentation. This might be a VC meeting but also might just be a sales or biz dev meeting. It’s any meeting where you are in a small room and are being called on to present on some form of overhead slides 1. Sit closest to the projection screen – Many times a week I have entrepreneurs who do presentations for me and often I’m with some or all of my colleagues. If you look at Diagram A above you’ll see that the presenters are sitting at the opposite end of the table from where the screen is. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. So, there you have it.