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With the rise of financial websites providing trading tips and tools (like ours), and books such as “deleteyourbroker.com”, many investors feel that the broker is redundant. Sure, we can all conduct our own analysis and execute trades on the platform ourselves, who needs the broker?

That’s true to a certain extent. Which is why the brokerage industry has turned into a commodity business for the most part – lowest commission wins customers. This article is to teach you how to use your stock broker. They are actually very useful!

As a retail investor, few of us have access to institutional research reports, especially those of companies which we are interested in. This is because global research houses sell these reports and no one is allowed to distribute it freely. Such reports are useful for view points of analysts, especially when they just release their analyst target prices, which can move markets. Well anyway, your broker has access to these reports. Say you have a portfolio of stocks that you want to monitor, or a new company you want to check out. Asking your broker for research reports on these companies is a good start.

As mentioned, the brokerage business has become a commodity. And brokers have to get innovative in serving their clients – that’s you. Another very useful analysis these stock brokers can do for you is comparables analysis. So if you are interested in REITs for example and want a table comparing all the REITs in your market for you to see which gives you the highest yield, your broker can do it for you.

So do tap on your stock brokers for this added advantage. Some leechers actually sign up with numerous brokerages just so they have 10 stock brokers at their service. While that is sneaky, know also that brokers keep track of how much commission you are generating for them. Sooner or later, they will realize that you are not generating much commissions for them and will ignore you.

So pick a good and resourceful stock broker, stick to him, get research and analysis from him, and give him some business for a sustainable relationship!

for update on tuas view shipyard and brazil shipyard too.

A gap is a change in price levels between the close and open of two consecutive days. Gaps are identified as blue circles in the following charts.

Break away gaps often appear at the completion of an important price pattern. When it appears, it signals the beginning of a significant market move. Such moves should ideally appear on heavy volume. Upside gaps usually act as support area on subsequent market corrections.

Run away gaps are a sign of market strength, and usually appear after a trend has been established for a while, and suddenly prices jump up further. This is a situation where the market is moving effortlessly on moderate volume. Run away gaps also act as support on subsequent corrections.

Exhaustion gaps happen when a trend has been around for a long time and it is near the end of a market move, then prices jump forward in a tired attempt to push forward. This quickly fades and prices turn lower within a couple of days.

One reversal pattern which is interesting is the Island Reversal. This is identified when prices gap up, and the next few days trading is in a narrow range, and this is quickly followed by a gap to the downside. This is an indication of a market reversal.

To understand a market cycle can provide you a framework to construct a forward forecast of what might happen in the future. A cycle is a pattern that has consistently repeated itself over a period of time. While some cycles only last for a matter of months, other more reliable cycles have tracked through time with an uncanny level of certainty.

• In 5 out of the last 11 decades, the US market has set an important long-term bottom in a year ending in “2″
• Since 1900, 19 out of 30 presidential election years ended bullish with an average performance of 18.3% in the DJI
• The Decennial Cycle, one of the most stable and solid cycles for equities, signals a market bottom nearing.

Since 1886 the market has followed a natural cycle with a fair degree of accuracy every 10 years – commonly referred to as the decennial cycle.

The decennial cycle has had an amazing track record in forecasting recessions, share market crashes and periods of abundant growth. Essentially the decennial cycle looks at the market in 10-year blocks such as from 1900-1909, 1910-1919, 1920-1929 and so on until you reach the current year 2011.

Once the 10-year block has been formed it will then look at each year in isolation. So for example, it can then reveal what has been the average performance of year “7” in each set of 10 years – i.e. 1907… 1987… 2007 and so on.

The decennial cycle is only interested in one year’s performance, so was the year “7” on average a positive year or a negative year since 1886? What is interesting about the decennial cycle is that it tells us about the past and how can we apply this to the future. So what does a decennial cycle look like?

On average, years 0, 1 and 7 are generally the worst periods to an investor if you are trying to go long in the market via an index exposure, but far more beneficial if you are trying to short the market or profit from a falling market. You only have to think about years such as 2007, 1987, 1907 for prime examples of fallen markets or crashes.

Did you also know that in most cases recessions on average occur around the start of the decades like 1930, 1981, 1990, 2001? This make sense then that the share market performance during these periods of times tends to be flat to poor for an upwards or bull market orientated investor. In these instances, one needs to be far more nibble in which assets they hold in the pockets of opportunity as opposed to the total market.

So how would one make money out of this period of time? Well from a traders perspective range trading would possibly by an ideal strategy during this particularly time period for 0 and 1 year. Possibly also looking at short or taking advantage for falling markets will also need to be a strong focus in ones kit bag of tricks. For long only investors focused only on the upside, one would need to be in pockets of opportunities rather than just an index exposure to maximise potential upside opportunities.

The safest periods of time to invest for an investor focused only on the upside would be from years 2 to 6. In fact, between 2002-2006 this held very true with strong upwards movement up year after year.

Well. It true for sembcorp marine if the above are accurate and real ! Back in 2002, " sembie" was still a penny. In 2007, it balloned into a sgd 6.00 valued stock. Seems to me, the 2012 is a very good time to buy and hold this babe.

It could be sgd 7.20 -8.60  in Year 2016