Book Review > Online Investing On The Australian Sharemarket - 2nd Edition

This book would be a handy reference for all AIA members. Most of us would be among the 1.5 million Aussies Kinsky says have online trading accounts, and some of us might have contributed to the Commsec record day of 28,000 online trades.
Roger Kinsky shows himself to be a very sensible and experienced trader. For the absolute beginner, he explains absolutely everything you will need to set up to trade online. He also explains strategies to make sure this exercise is interesting, fun and effective. He gives examples of trading plans and gives heaps of great reference sites with lots of free information.
As a somewhat experienced online trader, what I got out of Kinsky's book was a greater awareness of all the 'free' tools available online to help me to trade more effectively and profitably.
What he calls the 'Kinsky Principle' has been drummed into my head: 'Never pay for anything you can get elsewhere for free', and when it comes to the Internet, that's a lot!
His favourite sites with lots of free information are www.incrediblecharts.com, and www.bigcharts.com, for the technical analysis buffs, a US-based site, but to access Australian stocks, you put in au:wow or au:xao etc. Kinsky devotes a full chapter to website addresses providing free tools for every aspect of online trading.
Kinsky also explains how to navigate around Australia's biggest online broking sites. He gives sample trading plans for speculative and 'long term' stocks. He has strategies for those who want to spend only an hour a week on online trading, and those who have unlimited hours to hone their skills.
This is important, because when trading online, it's easy to do your head in, worrying about whether you're doing enough, whether you should be home right now monitoring your shares, because if something goes wrong, there's no broker to blame.
He uses the basic principles of share investing (buy only on uptrends, start with Top 50 stocks with high yields, low PEs and reliable dividends, cut losses and let profits run) - he has also written a book called 'Teach Yourself about Shares' - and explains how to get the information we need to make decisions from (mostly free) online sources.
And for the 'trigger happy' among us, he also gives a timely warning - that just because it's cheap to trade online, doesn't mean it's a good idea to over-trade; sometimes you can get the same profit by buying and holding instead of jumping in and out of a stock, just because you can in the privacy and anonymity of your own home.