Margin Accounts:How they Work?

When you open your (non-IRA) account, your broker will ask if you want to designate it a standard "Margin Account." The standard margin is called a "50 percent margin account." That means whatever amount in dollars you deposit into the account, your broker will match your deposit with a loan of equal value. So, if you open an account with $15,000, your broker will automatically loan you another $15,000. Suddenly, you have $30,000 at your fingertips.

Slippage: What it means?

Slippage occurs when you put in your market order to buy or sell, and your order gets filled at a different price that the quote at that moment - higher if you're buying and lower if you're selling. A high degree of slippage can take place when you throw a market order to buy a stock that's "running" or rocketing up in price.

Board Lot in Stock Trading

Each stock may trade at different minimum lot sizes controlled by its price.  This minimum lot size is called a Board Lot. For example, if a stock's board lot is 1,000 then that is the minimum amount of shares that can be bought and any mount above this should also be traded in scales of 1,000. Thus an order to buy a stock with a board lot of 1,000 will reject an order to buy 1,500 and 3,200; but will accept 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 and above as long as it is wholly divisible by 1,000 and not leave any partial lots. 

Charts Used in Stock Trading Analysis

Charts are the life-blood in stock trading especially in technical analysis. This is like the air that the traders breath everyday for them to survive.Not only for monitoring, charts also serves as a tool to predict the future behavior of a stock.