6 Easy Ways to Keep Up With the Stock Market

Being a smart investor means keeping up with current events and how they might impact the stock market. In today’s environment, news is available 24 hours a day,on television, computers, and smartphones.

Even if your investments are focused on companies in one country, the connected global economy means that events across the world can impact the stock market. You may also find that local regulations and changes can affect much larger national companies. The tricky part is sorting through all the available news to get to the most salient updates to your life. Use these six means to keep up with stock market news.

Key Takeaways

• No matter where you hold investments, they can be impacted by global, national, and local changes.
• Staying informed about current events helps protect investments and financial security.
• Combine customized alerts with regular news coverage for timely news related to your investments.
• Follow companies on social media for important changes or updates that may impact investments.

1. News Websites

There are thousands of news websites you can follow or subscribe to in order to stay informed. Many also have a social media presence and daily newsletters. Choose from local, national, or international sites from around the world.

The most important stories will be listed first. Examples of sites that offer 24/7 news coverage are CNN, BBC, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Globe and Mail.

Important

Most sites allow you to personalize your page to prioritize stories so you see important categories first.

2. News Aggregators

Platforms like Google News and AP News gather and organize news and financial data from various sources. The primary benefit of these sites is you can discover new online sites and blogs that you may not have been aware of before, particularly those focusing on international news and markets.

3. News Tickers

Some news websites offer downloadable programs that run a news ticker along the top or bottom of your computer. This news feed often appears on your brokerage trading pages if you are an active trader.

You can customize many of these tickers to show specific news categories, such as business or celebrity news. This allows you to passively monitor news headlines while you are working on something else. Clicking on one of the ticker headlines will bring you to the news site for the full version of the article. You can also sign up to receive Investopedia newsletters about the latest financial news and trends.

4. Podcasts

Podcasts are a great option if you prefer listening to news and current events rather than reading them. You can load up your smartphone with audio updates of breaking news and investing trends and listen to them on your schedule.

News podcasts can include replays of interviews and newscasts or summaries of recent events. This format is ideal for longer-term investments, as the delay between the news, recording, releasing, downloading, and listening is well beyond the time allotted to make a quick trade. Many of these podcasts focus specifically on financial news.

5. Customized Alerts

If you want to get all the news about a particular subject regardless of the source, you can sign up for a service that provides customized alerts, such as Google Alerts or Feedly. You select the subject or keywords you want to follow. Using a combination of algorithms and AI, these sites scan the internet for news. Alerts include news websites, blogs, newsletters, and social media.

For instance, if you’re interested in the impact of droughts on food prices, you can set an alert for “drought food prices.” You can also restrict your alerts to certain types of content, such as images, videos, or news.

You can set your preferences for Google Alerts to get updates instantly or in a daily journal format. Feedly allows you to see your topics in an online account or through their app. These alerts can be used with other news sources to inform you about breaking news and important changes that may impact your investments.

6. Social Media

Many companies will release important news on their social media platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. You can follow these accounts for updates and changes that may impact your investments.

You can also use social media to follow finance experts, the stock market, or specific industries where you invest. Often, these experts will predict changes or notice trends before the companies themselves release any information.

How Can I Start Investing in the Stock Market?

You can start investing in the stock market by opening a brokerage account. Beginners should consider mutual funds to diversify their portfolios, rather than picking individual stocks. Micro-investing apps allow you to start investing with as little as $5.

Should I Pick My Own Stocks?

Stock picking, also known as active investment management, can be successful for some. Still, it’s often prone to human errors and biases that make it a less profitable investment strategy in the long term. Stock picking regularly underperforms a passive investing strategy that tracks broad stock market indexes.

What Does It Mean to Be a Smart Investor?

A smart investor is usually someone who watches for overall trends and invests with a long-term strategy. They use their financial resources to invest continuously, diversifying their investment portfolio to build wealth over many years.

The Bottom Line

Current events can significantly impact investments on a global, national, or local scale. Keeping up with the news is an important part of being a smart investor. Use a mix of news sources, including news sites, custom aggregators, tickers, alerts, and social media, to help you keep track of what matters to your investments.

An immediate way to keep track of individual companies is to follow their social media accounts, as this is where they disseminate immediate information and keep investors updated. You can also follow industry experts who provide valuable insight and predictions.

Read the original article on Investopedia.