During the last couple of weeks, we have all been exposed, in one way or another, to the fragility of the stock markets and the financial system on the whole. It occurred to me than many of you will be fearful of not being able to trade, or learn how to, in trending markets anymore - owing to this climate. This is nothing to worry about, because it is an unfounded concern. It is mainly banking and its associated sectors where short selling is, for the present at least, suspended.

There are plenty of other choices to keep you more than fully occupied in both up and downward trending markets, and still room for more people too.

Here in the UK I trade using a spread betting account, and when all the news broke out and went awol, I went into it to have a look at what I could do in terms of trading, or placing a bet. Could I still short sell? Of course I could and I even had the sell option open to me when pondering which way I thought the share price of a certain bank would go; the sell button shone as brightly as ever.

Another thing you should bear in mind is that because the stock market is a zero-sum game, for every buyer there has to be a seller, and every seller, a buyer. If not, there would be no financial structure in the world. In other words, if you took the short-sell scare to the letter, how would you be able to buy any share, or buy, in terms of a spread bet? For you to buy, someone else has to willing to sell, or short the stock.

So, no don’t be deterred or freaked by the news. The areas where short selling is particularly problematic and disallowed are being reviewed early in 2009 anyway, so the situation may not be permanent.

Penny stock trading systems abound today. Once people realized that penny stocks were ways to make money investing without a huge outlay of capital, the interest soon grew to epic proportions. The natural progression of books and systems came as a result of that growth. Regardless of the amount of capital that you have to invest, it’s important to know what you’re doing to maximize your return and protect that money.

There are different types of penny stock trading systems. Some use the financial information about the company, the information about the product and other companies that make that product. These types of systems use all the fundamentals about the company. They also look at the cycles that the industry that makes that product experience. They take all the things into consideration and then choose the stock according to those that have not just the best financials, but overall potential.

Other trading systems use the technical information about the stock. They graph the stock and look for repeating patterns on the graph to help them decide whether to buy or sell the stock. These types of penny stock trading systems may not care what product the company produces. They could make belts for armored suits and it’s okay, as long as the stock’s technicals are correct. There is a reason that this works. The stock market is not real, any more than money is real.

By now, you’re probably scratching your head. When you go to the gas station, the man at the counter wants real money. That’s true. However, the money is only real because the vast majority of people accept it as thus. The same is true for stocks. The company may be worth a fortune and makes money hand over fist, but if people believe that the company has no value, they won’t pay more for the stock. The technical side uses the past prices to indicate the next. This takes into consideration the actions of the rest of the buyers and sellers in the market by using their past actions to predict the future price.

Other penny stock trading systems use combinations of fundamental information and technical information to judge the best potential penny stock to buy, or the best time to sell a stock. Trading in penny stocks isn’t that much different than trading in larger companies on the NYSE or NASDAQ. You still attempt to use all the available data to judge what the price of the stock will be.

It helps to find a system when you decide to trade penny stocks. The technical systems are just that, quite technical, but once you learn the basics; it becomes easier to see how the stock moves. The fundamental system is much like buying a business, which you actually do when you buy stock. You’d want to know if it made money, how much and whether it had any bad news or press. Both work well for different types of investors so it’s a matter of preference.

Unless you have a crystal ball, a magic genie or the stock angel whispering in your ear, using a penny stock trading system brings you closer to making the right decisions.

Anyone who is interested in purchasing penny stocks is going to wonder how do I buy penny stocks online. Most trading is done through online sources rather than going through a brokerage firm. There are still many people who watch the stocks then put in calls or messages to their brokers but there have many people who have been making use of the internet in order to be able to quickly and effectively trade on the market themselves. In fact, in some cases people have nothing to do with brokers and simply handle everything online through software applications.

There are a few steps to answering the question of how to purchase penny stocks online. The first thing to do is to look into software applications. There are many software applications that can provide you with a way to easily sell and buy penny stocks online.

There are a few things that you need to consider. The service that you use to access the market is the first one. You need to make sure that you are not going to end up handing over profits and dividends to the service in order to make the trades.

The software application should be easy to use no matter what type you are using or your skill level. Everything should be easy to find, and you should be able to make reports with detailed information without difficulty. This is some of the key elements necessary for any good trading software.

Once you have the software application and the service that you want to use when trading the next step is to go through and start making trades. You will want to start out small with your investments until you get the hang of all the steps necessary in answering how do I buy penny stock online.

All that is left is to determine what stocks to purchase. Any stock that is listed is going to be more than likely available for purchase online. You will simply need to either use the service or brokerage house you are purchasing through to access the lists and purchase the stock. There is also the option of purchasing stocks privately from other traders.

This can also be done through services or though access to various forums, chat rooms, and online sites that offer traders a place to get together to deal with each other. There are a few advantages to personal trading. The first is that there are usually no fees attached to the trading. It is simply a basic transaction between two people. This does of course come with its own dangers that need to be considered.

These are the ways that you can purchase penny stock online and successfully start to make a profit in trading on this market. There are risks but the reward is equally as great when you learn how to buy and sell penny stocks online. All you need is a good service, a good broker or website if you want to do private sales and a good software program to help manage your profile.

Well perfect momentum stocks are not quite as rare but I do feel those too happen when three distinct things happen in the stock market.

What are they?

1) Stock market stops going down and starts going up. If investors relied on this one rule they would do ok. You cannot beat the market. Even great stocks will go down (not much) or sideways in bear markets.

2) The stock technically looks great. Technical action does not mean Moving averages, MACD crossovers, and a whole host of other lagging and complete Smoke screen . It simply means price and volume.

3) Fundamentally the stock fits the rules. A great story, fantastic small companies at the right time fit this criteria. What “funny mentals” should you be looking at? Well what I look at are Price to Sales ratio, earning but whilst poast earnings are great to start with it’s the potentialfuture earnings that hold the key, debt ratio, insider holding and institutional holdings. To name but a few.

Well the stock I have recommended to my list fits 2 of the three. And possibly all three IF, IF, the market rallies from here. Which right now it isn’t so I am not going to say this is perfect timing here.

It’s a small cap stock that has produced stellar profits and most importantly the future looks even better. It’s capitalizing on a huge trend affecting the whole of the planet now (most of my great momentum stocks have a great story behind them) Remember what I am always hoping for is a 10 bagger. I do not get many but that’s what I want to try and find. If the stock looks like like it “might gain” 50%,100% at a push I am not interested in it.

You can let me do the groundwork to finding and in effect managing these trades for you. Most importantly is when to exit. Too early and you miss the move. Too late and you lose as well. It’s not easy but I have nailed enough great monster momentum stocks to see how it works.