Hello and welcome to our community!

[Gunnski]

Hey! Better weed that garden. I fell out of my chair. You are either $loaded, or have not read the book. Take care!:wink:

[Justin]

Welcome!

[Justin]

Hello Dan and welcome! Hello Shauna and welcome to our community! One thing you need not feel is intimidation - especially here. You are going to find that this community holds some of the most helpful and encouraging individuals each with different levels of experience. We are all learning this process and do our best to help others along the way.

Step 1 - Read absolutely everything you can get your hands on reguarding investing. You'll find volumes of information within our discussions as well. The archiving nature of our forum will enable you to jump in on any discussion old or new. But start with the basics - things like building searches for a Rule #1 Investment: http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/searching-investment/

A well refined search can yield some 20-100 potential Rule #1's. Then move on to the fundamental analysis of each of those businesses. This is where you start disqualifying the businesses that don't meet your demands - after all we are looking for the best of the best here right? You can find tons of information reguarding fundamental analysis in this section:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/fundamental-analysis/

This would be a pretty good time to check out the sweet tools our Margin of Safety Calc Developers have been working on these past few months. With or without Microsoft Excel, we have a way to speed up the task of identifying potential Rule #1 investments. Days? Weeks? How about 10 or 20 seconds? These calculators are sure to impress Don't forget to thank the Developers when you get a chance, they've really outdone themselves with their efforts. Check em out here:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/automati...y-calculators/

Your searches are going to yield some interesting results. Businesses you thought were viable investments turn out to be a total crapshoot when you see the numbers. Others will seem like complete home runs and well below their margin of safety. Keep in mind that a wonderful business at an attractive price will take time to find. Our community has ran thousands upon thousands of searches yet only returned 70 or 80 potential Rule #1 investments. Best of the best remember? Well if you find a business that you think might warrant further group evaluation, its time to head over to the Homework Examples Archive. Scan that list of discussions to see if your company is listed - many of your scans will yield businesses that someone has already found so a quick search never hurts. If you don't see your company listed, please start a discussion in the Homework Examples Archive and let the collective efforts of our community dig even deeper. If there's skeletons in the closet - someones going to find it and report it. Check this section of the forum out here: http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/homework-examples-archive/

Once you've identified and FULLY dissected a viable investment that meets the criteria, you can think about taking a position. This is where the technical analysis stuff comes in to play. The emotional behavior of the traders and their silly "efficient market theory". Yet as silly as efficient market theory is, its a very real force and it does have a very real impact on the stock price. Read everything you can about Technical Analysis. It's a wild ride here but a lot of fun. You'll learn how to set up and interpret your tools. Moving Averages...MACD...Stochastic... These terms will soon become second nature to you and you'll begin to understand the fine line between the traders and the investors. You can find a ton of information on Technical Analysis and setting up your charts here:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/technical-analysis/

Pretty soon you'll begin to understand how market price interacts with intrinsic value, and why the two figures are seldom alike. Thats when you should consider taking your next step - buying something. Like everything else, we are going to take it slow here too. I'd strongly reccomend jumping in on one of the revolving paper trading competitions. This is monopoly money - you make nothing and you lose nothing. But you do gain some of the BEST knowledge and experience possible by taking this step. Just a heads up though, you're going to get burned a few times at first. We all have - this is part of the learning curve. Just figure out what went wrong, maybe even ask some questions on the forums. We'll figure it out together - and hopefully prevent someone else from making the same mistake Read this post on how the paper trading competitions are set up:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/ro...1-read-me.html


And of course jump in on one of our competitions here:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/ro...g-competition/

Sorry for the long post, but truth be told - I didn't even list half of the reasons you are going to love it here.

[Justin]

Hello Rudy and thanks for the kind words!

See ya around on the boards

[Justin]

Welcome folks!

[jasonok]

A big warm Irish welcome to you Barry :)

[jasonok]

Welcome Dan, i am on this forum about 5 weeks and all I can say is WOW..each week i think it cant get better and low and behold the guys here just shock me..truely gifted people on this site a great addition to Phil's book, if Phil ever does an updated edition I would be very suprised he doesnt recommend this place. Enjoy the journey.

[Danklsr]

Thank-you very much. These links will help.I've been on this forum quite a lot already. I have problem with the calculators. The only one that works is Auto_msn209. The newer ones give Bad data errors. I see many with similar situations. But hey, the one I'm using is already a gem.

Thanks again,
Dan

[Danklsr]

Thank you, I am seeing what you mean...Dan

[steve44]

Welcome Barry