Everyone wants to make money, and investing in stocks is a great way to do so. Although it can be a great way to lose money as well.

When it comes to investing in stocks you have to know what you are doing, that is why many people hire a stock broker, but these days more and more people are taking a risk and trying it on their own.

The experts will tell you that they have special tricks, but anyone can learn to invest in stocks.

You have probably heard about these "stock robots" that tell you what to invest to make money. Don't waste your time and money on these stupid things.

I'm going to help you learn stock trading one step at a time.

This article is about following stock patterns...

A stock pattern is the pattern that a stock follows from season to season, year to year, month to month, and so on.

To find the pattern of a certain stock go to www.nyse.com or I like to use www.sharebuilder.com because share builder provides you with a longer pattern. NYSE provides up to 1 year of data while share builder provides up to 5 years!

So go to the site you would like to use and search a stock symbol to find the company you are looking for. 

When you find your company you will be able to see the price per share as well as the open, high, low, and close for the day. There will be a chart displaying the price of the stock for that day, you can also select to view it for the month, quarter, year, or more. This is the stock pattern that you are going to learn to follow.

Reading the stock pattern is pretty simple. When the line is high the stock was doing good, when it's low it was doing bad. You want to buy when the stock is doing bad.

Select month, then quarter, then year, and then 5 years if available.

You may notice that the stock goes down, spikes up, then down, up a little, and down, and then maybe it jumps up to the top.

It seems like there is no way to predict where the stock price will go, well there sort of is.

Cycle through the different lengths of time and look for any patterns, i.e. the stock pattern.

You should notice the stock patterns in the following stock charts...

Did you notice the stock patterns in the charts above?

From the 5 year chart we see that the stock capped out around the same price from 2006 to mid 2008, and from the 1 year chart we see that the stock is getting close to the high point of the following years. Right now is probably not a good time to invest in this stock.

However if you had checked these charts about 6 months back it would have been a great time to invest! If you had bought in at that time you would have about tripled your money!

Even if it is not a good time to invest in a stock right now, it is good to look back and realize in your head when you should have invested. This way you get use to the look of a chart that says; "INVEST!"

By reviewing past charts you will realize when you should invest in the current time line.

You now know how to track and follow stock patterns. 

This simple technique should help you make some profitable investments in your future.

I wish you good luck and keep an eye out for my next stock trading articles.