3 Easy Steps to Start Online Trading

3 Easy Steps to Start Online Trading

Online trading explained: A comprehensive guide to help you begin online trading

For those veteran investors, online trading is almost second nature, but for beginners who are just starting out, it can be a mysterious and daunting place.

Now that online trading is more accessible and more affordable than ever before, executing a buy or sell trade can be completed via an online trading platform in just a fraction of a second. Easy To Use Platform

Online trading has given anyone who has a computer (or smart phone) and internet access, the opportunity to trade the financial markets. Fortunately, nowadays, you don’t need masses of disposable income, a personal broker, or a fancy, suave suit, (tracky dacks are even a suitable attire if you’re that way inclined).

However, there are a few key requirements that are necessary when starting out in online trading. In order to make this transition more seamless and less risky financially, we have outlined a 3 step system to help you successfully participate in online CFD trading.

Step 1: Understand How the Market Works

Global financial markets operate on a system of supply and demand. When you purchase a CFD stock in a company, your hope is that other traders also want to buy the same CFD stock, creating a competitive demand and bidding up the price.

A rising share price can be accredited to a number of factors, however in theory, it is typically due to improvements in the company’s values and potential, also known as their fundamentals.

In reality, share prices can change for any number of reasons including world events, high impact economic announcements, economic conditions and the list goes on.

It’s important to remember that although the exact direction that the price moves is somewhat unknown and pretty difficult to accurately predict, there are steps you can take to ensure that you have as greater understanding of the likely movement as possible. This includes understanding general price movement, as well as short term price action.

Learn how to understand general price movement with our comprehensive guide here. Unsure about short term price action as well? Let us explain here.

Step 2: Researching and Selecting a Stock

There are two main methods for analysing and choosing the right stock for you to invest in:

Fundamental Analysis

The first is fundamental analysis which involves researching the company’s financial reports and public statements in order to determine the health of the company.

Important tools for fundamental analysis include the company’s balance sheets, quarterly and yearly earnings, income statements, expenses, assets and liabilities and news announcements, all of which are available to view online at either the website of the company in question or ASX.

It’s also good practise to check the company’s media releases and history as well as industry trends, as they too can play a key role in fundamental analysis. Bloomberg is an excellent resource for delivering business and market news.

As such, understanding how to analyse a company’s fundamentals involves looking at both quantitative (i.e the financials) and qualitative (i.e the intangible aspects of a company).

Technical Analysis

The second way of analysing stocks is technical analysis. This method encompasses the notion that swings in share prices follow patterns that traders can use to ultimately predict the potential direction of a stock. It involves studying charts of historical price action in order to predict future price movement and often entails using indicators that represent price movement or volume.

The basis of technical analysis is identifying short and long term trends and patterns, price support and resistance levels, the strength of price movements and who’s in control; buyers or sellers (or neither).

Technical and fundamental analysis can either be used separately or in combination, and both methods can result in choosing successful stocks to invest in. Let us show you how to assess the overall state of the market here.

Step 3: Practice, Practice, Practice

As with anything new, online trading requires you to educate yourself and to practice. Aside from using the above analysis methods to assist you in selecting the right stocks to invest in, it is also important to educate yourself on how to actually trade and practice these skills.

Free Demo Accounts

Demo accounts are widely available for beginners to practice their trading risk-free. This provides the opportunity to try trading different markets, time frames and strategies while experiencing a live trading environment, complete with live pricing and the ability to execute trade orders, without risking money.

Practicing your trading skills will not only help you familiarise yourself with the trading platform you’ll be using, but it also enables you to test different strategies so that transitioning to a live account is comfortable and seamless.

Online Trading: The Bottom Line

Online trading has revolutionised investing in the global financial markets. Although this industry seems flooded with stories of those who made or lost millions from the market, it’s important this doesn’t influence your investment decisions.

The above steps are a great starting point for you to learn how to trade online. If you take the time to conduct effective research, educate yourself, and practice your trading skills then you’ll be well on your way to developing a profitable trading portfolio.

Ensure you give your trading account the best opportunity to succeed by choosing the right CFD broker.

To find out how read our: How to Tell if Your CFD Broker is Ripping You Off.

What are the Benefits of Online Trading?

Trade using Leverage

Online trading using CFDs allows traders to make trades using leverage. By using leverage, clients can buy or sell a financial asset with substantially less money than the actual full market value of that financial instrument. The lower the margin requirement, the less capital you need to place into your account to make a trade/s. It is important, however, to remember that increased leverage can also significantly magnify potential losses.

You Can Trade Long or Short

Traders can profit not only from rising markets but also from a downward trending market. This allows you to short the market if you feel a financial instrument will decline in value. This is one of the biggest benefits of online trading.

Global Market Access from 1 x Online Trading Platform

Most online brokers will provide access to a wide range of global financial markets, including indices, forex, commodities, stocks, cryptocurrencies plus more – all on the one trading platform.

Plenty of Trading Opportunities

Online trading provides traders with an almost unlimited array of trading opportunities – again,  including stocks, currencies, commodities, cryptocurrencies and indices. For a complete list of TradeDirect365’s products, view our Market Information Sheet.

Want To Learn More About Online Trading?

Online Trading: How to Trade Online for Beginners

Online Trading: How to Trade Online for Beginners

It wasn’t long ago that investing was reserved for institutions and very wealthy individuals. Even then, early investors needed to go through an intermediary and a simple stock purchase could take days.

From its humble beginnings a few decades ago, online trading has transformed the world of investing. With a bank account and a small amount of capital, everyone now has access to a wide range of assets and investing tools.

Alongside this rapidly increasing accessibility to the investing world there is a growing interest in self-directed investing, particularly in terms of retirement planning.

The high fees and poor results of traditional managers have driven an ever-increasing number of people to start managing their own funds using online brokers.

So how do you trade online? These are the first steps you’ll want to take:

1.) Take online trading courses

2.) Develop a strategy

3.) Practice in a simulator

4.) Open a brokerage account

5.) Share your knowledge

Here is a brief guide to online trading, so you can start managing your own money and seeing the kind of returns that can change your life for the better.

Step 1: Take an Online Trading Course

Education is number one!  You simply can’t succeed as a trader without education. In our courses we take you under our wing and give you every possible advantage of success.

Online traders come from a huge range of backgrounds in terms of education, employment and life experiences. Whatever your background is, an online trading course will introduce you to the basics of online trading, and provide you with a foundation of knowledge and experience that you can then build upon yourself

In contrast to the majority of students who trade the markets alone, students in our classes and chat room have the benefit of working with a team of professionals.

We have traded through 1,000 point market crashes and 10,000% biotech runners.  We’re here to help guide you through the action.

We also have a reading list of books we recommend to all of our students in the chat room which you can find here. This is a great place to start with gathering trading information from experts at a reasonable cost.

Regardless of whether you join our program or not, education is critical.  You need to develop a strategy that you will trade every day.  This strategy will be critical to your success.  Trading online is a career where you can’t be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

You need to master 1 strategy because that will be your means for survival in the market.  Those traders who are able to survive in the market eventually learn.  It takes some traders longer than others but the first step is developing a sustainable strategy.

Step 2: Develop a Strategy

Successful online trading involves finding a niche in the markets and sticking to it. If you’re regularly jumping between asset classes and trading strategies, you’ll find that your results will be purely the product of luck instead of smart investing.

Start by picking an area of the market that you are comfortable trading in. This can be equities, bonds, derivatives, commodities or currencies. Even within these broad asset classes, you are going to want to focus in further on specific sectors so you can truly master one area of the market.

Some trading strategies can involve more than one asset class, but they will still be focused in on a clear and simple investing idea, as opposed to trying to understanding a wide range of different factors that drive market prices.

Once you’ve found your niche, start developing one or more trading strategies that suit your knowledge, experience, skills and goals.

For example, if you only have a few minutes to work on your online trading each day, then day trading might not be the best choice for you.

Similarly, if you have no idea how derivatives work, then you should avoid complex option strategies.

Your trading strategies will constantly evolve as you grow as a trader. Start simple and small, and then build up in sophistication and complexity as you gain experience.

Step 3: Practice in a Trading Simulator

Open a demo account where you can practice your strategies without risking real money. There are a couple different brokers out there that have demo accounts but we have found the best ones to be Warrior Trading Simulator.

We will begin with $50 risk per trade and build up to $200 per trade risk.  This will get you on track to make $2k/week or 100k/year within 3 months.

The most important thing to do is to track all of your trades in an excel document. This allows you to begin tracking your success!  It’s critical that you understand your percentage of success, and profit/loss ratios.

These numbers will tell us if you have a successful and sustainable strategy.  When I work with new students I always ask to see the record of their trades.  I use this data to determine what we need to work on first.  If for example a student has several huge losses I’ll recognize the importance of capping losses.

If a student has a 30% success rate we need to focus on taking better quality setups.  If you don’t know your statistics, you can’t improve!  I don’t recommend new traders try to build up this data with live trading.  Live trading unproven strategies is too risky.

Step 4: Open a Brokerage Account

Transitioning from a simulated trading environment to trading with real money is a big step!  We review the performance of our students before giving them the OK to move out of the paper trading account.

It’s an absolute must that if you are going to be successful trading online that you have been successful paper trading.

If you can’t succeed in a demo account, there is no reason to believe you can succeed with real money.  We teach our students the strategy we use every single day to profit from the market.  This are proven strategies.

Our goal is to see you succeed as a paper trader and then switch you into real money trading.  Whenever a student makes the transition we begin with 100 share max positions.

We start slow to allow trades to acclimate to the experience of a loss.  It takes time to adjust but this approach of starting with 100 shares and then increasing by 100 shares each week has been very successful.  If you aren’t sure which broker to trade with check out this post on the Top 3 Best Online Trading Brokers.

Step 5: Give Back What You Have Learned

The final step is when you become a profitable trader.  You are now in a position to give back to your trading community by teaching new students the skills you have learned over your months and years of trading.

For some, the road to success in trading only takes a few months while other struggle for years.  If you find yourself treading water or struggling to increase profits we are happy to work with you.

Surround Yourself With Successful Traders

If you are learning to play tennis you want to learn from people who are better than you, right?  This same philosophy is true for trading online.  You want to surround yourself with the type of people you want to become.

This improves your chances of learning to trade like them.

We host a live day trading chat room everyday from 9am-4pm EST.  I trade the markets and allow all of our students to watch over my shoulder as I’m trading.

There are many trading groups that you can find but it’s important to make sure you feel comfortable with the group you are with and have a good level of compatibility with the primary strategies traded in the room.  In our room we trade momentum and reversal strategies that are easy to learn.

Final Thoughts

The high failure rate in trading tells you just how hard trading really is, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You need to set up your trading like a business and have a plan to reach your goals.

If you just open an account, put money in it and start trading there is a very high chance that you are going to be putting more money in it in the near future or brushing up your resume to send out to potential employers.

Take it slow and learn the ropes with traders who have already experienced what its like to start out as a new trader.

Automated Online Trading: A World of New Opportunities

Automated Online Trading: A World of New Opportunities

Automated Online Trading: To the average Joe, the world of trading would appear deceptively simple-press a button and you can buy and sell securities within the blink of an eye. Of course, theories are almost never true in practice and anyone who has spent some time in the stock market is acutely aware of the wide chasm that is ever present between retail traders and their institutional counterparts.

For years banks and financial institutions have banked on complex algorithm based trades brought about by HFT software systems. For the most part, HFT systems have remained out of reach of individual and small-time trader mainly because of the initial expenditure on hardware and software as well as the large volume of capital investment required to keep an HFT system running optimally.
All that has changed in the recent past. Sure there is no way for retail traders to close the hardware gap between them and institutional traders but the advancement of neural networks and automated trading platforms mean that retail traders are now on an equal footing than they had ever been before.

Automated Online Trading

So how does having an automated online trading platform help a retail trader out? Let’s take an in-depth look at 3 of the primary advantages that automated trading platforms bring to the table and why they have grown to become a must-have arsenal in every retail day trader’s arsenal.

1. Copy Trading through Automated Platforms
One of the preconceived notions about trading stocks and securities is that it requires a lot of knowledge and skill. While this may have been true in olden days, with the advent of automated trading platforms, even newcomers into the field can turn over a tidy profit just by copying the trades which are being put in by stalwarts of the market. One of the best places for someone to start trading is through Forex MetaTrader 4 platform (aka MT4) as it guides the growth of a fledgling retail trader. Copy trading while not immensely profitable is the first stepping stone to understanding the trading world while riding on the coattails of people who have already made it big as an investor.

2. Making Use of Social Trading
While copy trading maybe well suited for turning in a quick profit, as one gains experience as a retail trader, there is an urge to experiment and branch out into newer avenues and try stocks from niches that are off the beaten track. This is where social trading kicks in as the presence of a social backbone mean that like-minded people can interact and share ideas with each other while they work. One of the primary benefits of having a social aspect to automated online trading is the fact that newcomers don’t ever feel alone and there is always someone around to show them the ropes. However, even experts sometimes make the wrong call, after all, to err is human- and that is why we have specialized algorithms and trading bots.

3. Algorithmic Trading
Algorithmic trading is entirely data-driven and this is why it is often considered one of the best forms of trading. While sophisticated platforms like  MT4 always provide retail traders to come up with their own set of rules and trading parameters, the real brilliance of modern automated platforms lies in their predictive capabilities. Expert Advisor bots are incredibly advanced pieces of software that can crunch through an enormous amount of market data and come up with prediction models that are incredibly close to real life trading scenarios. These trade bots can not only go through with a trade in the blink of an eye, they can also provide statistical analysis as well as visual cues like graphs and charts that make realizing the market trends easier than ever before. While financial institutions and banks have had these systems for years, the recent improvements in machine learning and neural networking means that Algorithmic trading has taken automated online trading platforms by storm.

While we went into detail about these 3 factors, there are numerous other factors at play here. Automated trading platforms take the emotions and the rash decisions away from the retail trader and make sure that the plan is followed to the letter. Automated trading platforms bring about a sense of stability in even unstable markets and it is because of them that retail traders are able to make their presence felt in the global trading scene once again.

5 Tips for Choosing Best Online Trading Platform

5 Tips for Choosing Best Online Trading Platform

Choosing an online trading platform is not easy as it sounds. It is a major commitment since you are parking your money and you need to be sure that it is reliable for your daily trading. Such a decision has to be made with a sound mind because any wrong decision can leave you deeply dissatisfied. Also before evaluating which platform will be the most suitable for you, you need to decide upon your trading decisions and needs. Once you have that in place, you will know what platform to choose.

Select Best Online Trading Platform

The following points need to be kept in mind while selecting an online trading platform. They are:

1. Accessibility
The need of every investor is very different; in short, all of them have unique investing patterns. To cater to the needs of all, we will need a platform which offers that sort of accessibility anywhere and everywhere. With the right app, you could perform transactions of all kinds. Hence, it becomes important to select a platform that blends into your lifestyle in a way that you do not have to take efforts and gives you the convenience and accessibility to trade online from mobile phones.

2. Information Accessibility
An online trading platform should provide you with all the information regarding trading under one roof. Most of these online securities trading providers’ gives you access to technical and fundamental information regarding securities. It gives you information regarding key financial data like price-earnings ratio, earnings per share, dividend yield, balance sheet and income statement. There should also be a facility for providing live news to give real-time updates on the things that are going on. This provides convenience to the investors since they do not have to change platforms to access information.

3. Value for Money
There are several charges that come along with a transaction. Nobody really tells you about those charges like banking fees and services charges. Such charges inflate your total transaction cost and can have an effect on your personal profit and loss calculations. For the same reason, an online trading platform should come with a live calculator which gives you clarity on the charges that you have to incur with each transaction. This gives you a real picture of additional costs thereby stating the true value of your investments.

4. Connectivity
You would want to opt for an online trading platform that offers a global connectivity and a wider reach. What if an investor chooses to trade on international markets rather than local or regional? For this, your platform needs to well equip with its connectivity to various international stock markets like New York Stock Market, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Boerse and many more.

5. Trading Tools
The one factor, that makes a good trading platform best is the kind of trading tools it offers. Amongst a few are the ones like Stop Loss which directly stops the transaction as soon the price of the stocks moves down sharply below an indicated level. Another being GTD or Good Till Date. This tool indicates your preferred validity date wherein you do not have to re-enter your details and it automatically gets updated. Some even have SMS alerts and notifications to inform any major changes regarding your stock. Apart from this, alerts are also sent in case there is any security or stock that fits into your category. Such tools can prove to be really helpful to the investor and makes investment easy and fun for them.

One such app that provides a trading experience like never before. Capital.com is an app uses artificial intelligence that helps you trade the world’s top companies, popular indices, commodities and many more. This app gives you real-time news, latest charts, and trends, receive price alerts, learn risk analysis and avoid any biases. This app gives you withdrawals within 24 hours, full segregated deposits and security of personal data. This app is available for both Android and iPhone and helps you trade across the world given its artificial intelligence which also helps you keep a track of your portfolio. One needs to learn the art of investment by investing smartly and by not losing money. Your investments will go a long way.

Best Online Stock Brokers for Beginners 2018

Best Online Stock Brokers for Beginners 2018

When you’re a beginner investor, the right brokerage account can be so much more than simply a platform for placing trades.

It can help you build a solid investing foundation — functioning as a teacher, advisor and investment analyst — and serve as a lifelong portfolio co-pilot as your skills and strategy mature.

What is a stock broker?

A stock broker is a person or an institution licensed to buy and sell stocks and other securities via the market exchanges.

Back in the day, the only way for individuals to invest directly in stocks was to hire a stock broker to place trades on their behalf. But what was once a clunky, costly transaction conducted via landline telephones now takes place online in seconds, for a fraction of what full-service brokers used to charge for the service.

Today, most investors place their trades through an online brokerage account. (A little lost? Check out our explainers on what a brokerage account is and how to buy stocks.)

NerdWallet offers financial tools and advice to help people understand their options and make the best possible decisions. The guidance we offer and info we provide are deeply researched, objective and independent.

We spent over 300 hours reviewing the top online brokers before selecting the best for our readers. And to help you find the one that’s best for you, we’ve highlighted their pros, cons and current offers.

5 Essential Tips for Investing in Stocks

5 Essential Tips for Investing in Stocks

Buying stock is easy. The challenging part is choosing companies that consistently beat the market.

That’s something most people can’t do, which is why investing in a diversified mix of low-cost index funds and exchange-traded funds is a smart long-term strategy for the average investor. So smart that even diehard stock jocks swear by indexing for the money they’re not using to buy individual equities.

But you’re reading this to get better at investing in stocks. We’ll assume you’ve got a yen for research, time to let your investments ride through many market cycles and have set parameters for the amount of money you’ll put on the line. (We recommend no more than 10% of your overall holdings be invested in individual stocks.) And let’s not forget this vitally important investing PSA: “Money you need in the next five years should not be invested in stocks.”

Here are five investing habits essential for success in the stock market:

Check your emotions at the door.
Pick companies, not ticker symbols.
Plan ahead for panicky times.
Build up your positions with a minimum of risk.
Avoid trading overactivity.
1. Check your emotions at the door
“Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ … what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.” That’s wisdom from Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, oft-quoted investing sage and role model for investors seeking long-term, market-beating, wealth-building returns.

Buffett is referring to investors who let their heads, not their guts, drive their investing decisions. In fact, trading overactivity triggered by emotions is one of the most common ways investors hurt their own portfolio returns.

All the investing tips that follow can help investors cultivate the temperament required for long-term success.

2. Pick companies, not ticker symbols
It’s easy to forget that behind the alphabet soup of stock quotes crawling along the bottom of every CNBC broadcast is an actual business. But don’t let stock picking become an abstract concept. Remember: Buying a share of a company’s stock makes you a part owner of that business.

Remember: Buying a share of a company’s stock makes you a part owner of that business.

You’ll come across an overwhelming amount of information as you screen potential business partners. But it’s easier to home in on the right stuff when wearing a “business buyer” hat. You want to know how this company operates, its place in the overall industry, its competitors, its long-term prospects and whether it brings something new to the portfolio of businesses you already own.

3. Plan ahead for panicky times
All investors are sometimes tempted to change their relationship statuses with their stocks. But making heat-of-the-moment decisions can lead to the classic investing gaffe: buying high and selling low.

Here’s where journaling helps. (That’s right, investor: journaling. Chamomile tea is a nice touch, but it’s completely optional.)

Write down what makes every stock in your portfolio worthy of a commitment and, while your head is clear, the circumstances that would justify a breakup. For example:

Why I’m buying: Spell out what you find attractive about the company and the opportunity you see for the future. What are your expectations? What metrics matter most and what milestones will you use to judge the company’s progress? Catalog the potential pitfalls and mark which ones would be game-changers and which would be signs of a temporary setback.

What would make me sell: Sometimes there are good reasons to split up. For this part of your journal, compose an investing prenup that spells out what would drive you to sell the stock. We’re not talking about stock price movement, especially not short term, but fundamental changes to the business that affect its ability to grow over the long term. Some examples: The company loses a major customer, the CEO’s successor starts taking the business in a different direction, a major viable competitor emerges, or your investing thesis doesn’t pan out after a reasonable period of time.

» Learn more: How to buy stocks

4. Build up positions gradually
Time, not timing, is an investor’s superpower. The most successful investors buy businesses because they expect to be rewarded — via share price appreciation, dividends, etc. — over years or even decades. That means you can take your time in buying, too. Here are three buying strategies that reduce your exposure to price volatility:

Dollar-cost average: This sounds complicated, but it’s not. Dollar-cost averaging means investing a set amount of money at regular intervals, such as once per week or month. That set amount buys more shares when the stock price goes down and fewer shares when it rises, but overall, it evens out the average price you pay. Some online brokerage firms let investors set up an automated investing schedule.

Time, not timing, is an investor’s superpower.

Buy in thirds: Like dollar-cost averaging, “buying in thirds” helps you avoid the morale-crushing experience of bumpy results right out of the gate. Divide the amount you want to invest by three and then, as the name implies, pick three separate points to buy shares. These can be at regular intervals (e.g., monthly or quarterly) or based on performance or company events. For example, you might buy shares before a product is released and put the next third of your money into play if it’s a hit — or divert the remaining money elsewhere if it’s not.

Buy “the basket”: Can’t decide which of the companies in a particular industry will be the long-term winner? Buy ’em all! Buying a basket of stocks takes the pressure off picking “the one.” Having a stake in all the players that pass muster in your analysis means you won’t miss out if one takes off, and you can use gains from that winner to offset any losses. This strategy will also help you identify which company is “the one” so you can double down on your position if desired.

» No brokerage account? Here’s how to open one

5. Avoid trading overactivity
Checking in on your stocks once per quarter — such as when you receive quarterly reports — is plenty. But it’s hard not to keep a constant eye on the scoreboard. This can lead to overreacting to short-term events, focusing on share price instead of company value, and feeling like you need to do something when no action is warranted.

Nerd Tip: Returns are only one part of the investing equation — fees can easily erode much of what you earn if you are not careful.
When one of your stocks experiences a sharp price movement find out what triggered the event. Is your stock the victim of collateral damage from the market responding to an unrelated event? Has something changed in the underlying business of the company? Is it something that meaningfully affects your long-term outlook?

» Stock trading: How to begin and how to survive

Rarely is short-term noise (blaring headlines, temporary price fluctuations) relevant to how a well-chosen company performs over the long term. It’s how investors react to the noise that really matters. Here’s where that rational voice from calmer times — your investing journal — can serve as a guide to sticking it out during the inevitable ups and downs that come with investing in stocks.

Want to Trade Stocks Online? These 8 Expert Tips Can Help Get You Started

Want to Trade Stocks Online? These 8 Expert Tips Can Help Get You Started

It seems like the easiest way to make money: Invest a few dollars in a company, wait for the stock to go up, then sell, sell, sell!

But trading stocks successfully is a tricky business, and you can easily fail trying to “short the market.” 

“Stock trading without knowing all the rules is a really good way to lose money,” says Sam Seiden, chief educational officer for Online Trading Academy. He says customers will often start trading first, realize they’re hemorrhaging cash and then come to his site for help.

If you want to skip this doozy of a life lesson, do your research before ever opening an E-Trade account. Of course, you’ll never completely isolate yourself from losses — that’s just not how trading stocks works.

“Even guys who are thoroughly professional, do this for a living and have all kinds of resources say that 80% of their trades are losers,” says former UBS managing director Jeremy Hardisty, who now recruits executives for top trading firms. “A brilliant trader is getting trades right 55-60% of the time, max.”

If you’d like to inch toward brilliance, here’s the step-by-step guide to doing it. These tips won’t make you rich overnight, but hopefully they can save you from losing big your first time at bat.

How to Get Started With Online Stock Trading
1. Know the Difference Between Trading and Investing
Sure, both involve the markets, but they’re drastically different.

In investing, you plunk money into a broad range of funds and leave them there long term. Trading is buying something (stock, gold, foreign currency, commodities), with the belief that its value will rise in the very near future, at which point you’ll sell it.

“When you invest you want to diversify — that’s best for passive investing,” Hardisty says. The idea is as the years pass, some investments will grow while others won’t. Trading is done in the very short term.

2. Find Your Niche
Since specialization is key to successfully trading, you need to pick the assets you’ll trade with care. Options include stocks, bonds, commodities, gold and foreign currency.

Buying and selling stocks on the New York Stock Exchange is probably the best-known option — it’s also where the popular online marketplaces usually let you trade — but it’s not the easiest.

Hardisty says trading foreign currencies is much more simple, since they’re less volatile.

However, his advice isn’t to necessarily go with the easiest. Instead you need to figure out, “What do you think you have expertise and enthusiasm about?” To really become an expert trader, you’re going to need to know the inner workings of whatever industry you’re quite literally hedging your bets on.

3. Make Your Hypothesis
Every move you make on the stock market should look like this: I am buying this thing because I think it is at too cheap of a price. I believe the price will go up for X reason. I will sell it when it reaches Y price.

“Buying Whole Foods because you like it as a company may or may not work as a strategy,” Hardisty explains. “The big question is, why are you doing this? Why do you think it’s going to generate income? What’s your hypothesis?”

Ultimately, winning in stock trading is all about anticipating what might happen next. To strike with precision, you have to have to think critically about all of the possible variables that could affect the price of a stock between when you buy it and when you sell it.

4. Practice On Paper
It’s not very glamorous, but Hardisty says the best way to get started is with zero real dollars on the line.

Pick a stock, figure out your hypothesis for the stock, write it down and then wait. As the market moves you’ll see whether you were right or not. “And be honest,” Hardisty says, adding that it’s very easy to say I would have done this or that in hindsight.

5. Realize Your Limitations
These days, computers do the vast majority of trades. And when it comes down to it, you’re really no match for a robot — sorry to burst your bubble.

Computers trade using algorithms instead of gut instinct, and decisions are instantaneous. In fact, Hardisty says there’s been debate about how to make trading more fair, since computers closer to the NYSE can actually trade faster than those farther away.

Information travels quickly over fiber-optic networks, but distance matters. The fractions of milliseconds it takes for info to travel across town add up when a big investment firm is making thousands of trades a day.

You’re never going to be as fast or emotionally detached as a computer. So stock trading will likely never be as lucrative for you as it is for corporate Wall Street firms. If you’re thinking of this as your main means for generating retirement income, definitely think again.

6. Pick Your Website
Seiden says competition has, for the most part, pushed trading fees so low that the cost of trades is almost nothing industry-wide.

Still, since your account info will be synced with either your bank account or a credit card, you want to make sure you’re using a site with a good reputation.

Hardisty says most people choose their trading platform via the information it provides.

“People are looking for more data, more news, more research,” Haristy explains. He’s right. A 2015 survey of “self directed investors” by J.D. Power found what investors wanted most was access to guidance.

7. Put Most of Your Money Elsewhere
Robert Johnson, Ph.D., president of the nonprofit American College of Financial Services, says the money you allocate for stock trading needs to be small.

“Maybe this is what you do instead of going to Vegas,” he says.

The rest of your invested funds need to be in well-diversified, long term investments — and preferably ones providing compound interest.

Hardisty puts it like this: “At the end of the year this is not going to be a W-2 you can live off of.”

8. Understand the Psychology of Loss
Winning feels great, but losing hurts. And it hurts at a rate unequal to the joy we feel when we win.

This is called loss aversion, a well-known tenet of behavioral psychology and economics. Loss aversion is the reason people sell when the market slips.

“Our tendency is to take the loss to avoid further loss,” Hardisty says, adding, “And sometimes that’s the right choice. Sometimes it’s not.”

To avoid being “whipsawed,” a term for constantly reacting to a share’s most recent price change, you need to have a firm strategy in place and the discipline to stick to it — even when things are painful.

What is Online Trading?

What is Online Trading?

Online trading is basically the act of buying and selling financial products through an online trading platform. These platforms are normally provided by internet based brokers and are available to every single person who wishes to try to make money from the market.
Most brokers, like iFOREX, provide a variety of financial products including Shares, Commodities, Indices and Forex. While trading Shares like Google or buying and selling Commodities like Gold or Silver might be quite familiar, Forex trading has gained extreme popularity over the last couple of years due to some of its major features.
What is Forex?
To make this simple, imagine you are getting ready for a trip to New York and you exchange 500 Euros into Dollars. A week later, your trip is unfortunately cancelled and you decide to change your Dollars back into Euros. Surprisingly, you end up with 505 Euros: a profit of 5 Euros!

This is known as a profitable foreign exchange trade. You initially purchased Dollars at a certain rate of exchange and during the week that followed, the value of the Dollar went up against the value of the Euro.

Without even meaning to do so, you managed to make a small profit as you bought your Dollars at a low rate and sold them back at a higher rate - the aim of any successful trade.

Nowadays, there is no need to go to a bank or post office, or even leave your house for that matter - you can simply trade online using your home computer or mobile phone.

As mentioned above, from the palm of your hand you can trade Forex, which includes currencies such as the Dollar or Euro, a variety of Commodities such as Gold or Oil and even major market indices.

Here are just a few examples of products you can trade with iFOREX:
You don’t have to be a professional to trade online. You can open a trade by selecting a product, amount and direction, and close it if your trade is in profit at any time you choose.

Lower spreads on every deal
With iFOREX you can open trades with some of the most competitive spreads in the industry!
On top of our lower spreads, we take care of our customers by providing them with further spread discount campaigns!
Leveraged Trading
Typically, if you buy at a low rate and sell at a higher rate -
then you will make a profit. However, if you invest with only a small amount, the profit you can make will also be relatively small. By trading with iFOREX you can use leverage of up to 400:1

When using leverage you can increase your purchasing power and simultaneously increase your profit
potential. Instead of a 5 Euro profit you made when you exchanged your 500 Euros to Dollars and back, you could have made a profit of upto 2,000 Euros.
Please note that while trading with leverage can work in your favor, it can also work against you and cause higher losses. Just remember that with iFOREX you can never lose more than you invest!

Singapore Dedicated Servers

Singapore Dedicated Servers

This website "Singapore Dedicated Servers" provide information about dedicated server hosting services in Singapore and other related dedicated server hosting solutions in Singapore.

1. What is dedicated server ?

A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. Using a dedicated server hosting service offers the benefits of high performance, security, email stability, and control. [ More info ]

2. Where is Singapore ?

Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian island city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres north of the equator. Singapore is a hub in the submarine networks for connections from East Asia to South Asia, Persian Gulf, Mediterranean, and Europe regions, and vice versa. There are 15 submarine cable systems landed in Singapore making Singapore an Internet hub for the region. [ More info ]

3. Dedicated server hosting offers

[ Asia / Singapore ] Xeon Quad Core E3-1230V2 8GB ECC Dedicated Server Fr US$140/mth

Order now from our "SSL Secure Singapore Dedicated Servers Online Ordering System"

4. List of dedicated server hosting service provider in Singapore

NewMedia Express Pte Ltd

8 to Infinity Pte Ltd

Cybersite Services pte Ltd

Exabytes Network (Singapore) Pte Ltd

Hostsg Pte Ltd

IT Works Interactive Pte Ltd

Readyspace (SG) Pte Ltd

Ready Server Pte Ltd

Sparkstation Pte Ltd

Usonyx Pte Ltd

Vodien Internet Solutions Pte Ltd

Signetique IT Pte Ltd

Wired-Media Pte Ltd

DISCLAIMER: "Singapore Dedicated Servers" have made reasonable effort to ensure that the information provided in "Singapore Dedicated Servers (www.singaporededicatedservers.sg)" is accurate, however, no guarantees for the accuracy of information are made. "Singapore Dedicated Servers"'s information is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, whether expressed or implied. Use "Singapore Dedicated Servers"'s information or resources at your own risk.

© 2013 Singapore Dedicated Servers (Business Regisration: 53237476B). All Rights Reserved.

Top Considerations for Choosing a Cheap Dedicated Hosting Server

Top Considerations for Choosing a Cheap Dedicated Hosting Server

A website that is hosted on a dedicated server doesn’t share space with anyone else. So, you have access to an exclusive server and enhanced security. Choosing a cheap dedicated hosting server might seem impossible because dedicated servers are considered as the most expensive type of web hosting services. But it is not that difficult. The market has a number of dedicated server providers that are competing with each other and coming up with several plans with discounts and offers. Also, with the growing popularity of other platforms of web hosting, you can expect to find a much cheaper dedicated server. All you have to do is choose the dedicated server with a particular package that meets your specific needs.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Here are some of the factors that you should consider before choosing the services of a cheap dedicated hosting server:

Price: Whenever you hear the word cheap with any product or service, you think that it will be a poor quality product or service. The fact is that here cheap means affordable or cost effective. If you choose a cheap server, it is good for your company because you will get all the benefits without any compromise on the quality of the services and you will also reduce the cost of operations. Ensure that you choose a package that has only those features that are a must for your business needs. In this way, you will cut down on the cost of those features that are a waste.

Speed: Your key focus when you choose any service should be how good will be the experience of your customers. No doubt, user satisfaction is the most important priority of businesses of all sizes. There is no client that want to spend more than few seconds on website loading. Look for a high-speed server, so that your clients come back to your website as well as refer it to others. If you think that the hosting provider that you are choosing will meet the satisfaction level of your users, it is the right one for you. 

Uptime: The host should be capable of offering maximum uptime to boost your online presence. Websites that cater to huge traffic or have heavy media content can’t work without good uptime.

Features: What are the features and services offered? You should be given the choice of customizing your server with any software or hardware. The hosting company should also give you the choice of either cheap Linux dedicated server hosting or Windows dedicated hosting. Ensure that you get good bandwidth and disk space, dedicated RAM and processor power. 

Support: Since you are opting for a cheap dedicated server hosting, it is imperative to know the level of support services. Choose a hosting provider that offers excellent support services because you will need them at some time. Ask some of the below questions to ensure that you are making the right choice.

Does the hosting provider offer support services 24 hours a day? What if a problem arises on a holiday?

How will they handle your problem? Whether their support team will be available by phone, email, or live chat.

What is the response time taken by the support team?

Look for these simple things to make sure that the services of a cheap dedicated server are the best for you. Remember not to compromise on the quality of services, even though you are making money savings.

Go4hosting is a leading web hosting provider that serves all types of businesses with many cheap dedicated hosting server plans. It also gives the choice of cheap Linux dedicated server hosting and Windows dedicated server hosting without any compromise on the quality of services.

Top Considerations for Choosing a Cheap Dedicated Hosting Server

Top Considerations for Choosing a Cheap Dedicated Hosting Server

A website that is hosted on a dedicated server doesn’t share space with anyone else. So, you have access to an exclusive server and enhanced security. Choosing a cheap dedicated hosting server might seem impossible because dedicated servers are considered as the most expensive type of web hosting services. But it is not that difficult. The market has a number of dedicated server providers that are competing with each other and coming up with several plans with discounts and offers. Also, with the growing popularity of other platforms of web hosting, you can expect to find a much cheaper dedicated server. All you have to do is choose the dedicated server with a particular package that meets your specific needs.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Here are some of the factors that you should consider before choosing the services of a cheap dedicated hosting server:
Price: Whenever you hear the word cheap with any product or service, you think that it will be a poor quality product or service. The fact is that here cheap means affordable or cost effective. If you choose a cheap server, it is good for your company because you will get all the benefits without any compromise on the quality of the services and you will also reduce the cost of operations. Ensure that you choose a package that has only those features that are a must for your business needs. In this way, you will cut down on the cost of those features that are a waste.

Speed: Your key focus when you choose any service should be how good will be the experience of your customers. No doubt, user satisfaction is the most important priority of businesses of all sizes. There is no client that want to spend more than few seconds on website loading. Look for a high-speed server, so that your clients come back to your website as well as refer it to others. If you think that the hosting provider that you are choosing will meet the satisfaction level of your users, it is the right one for you. 

Uptime: The host should be capable of offering maximum uptime to boost your online presence. Websites that cater to huge traffic or have heavy media content can’t work without good uptime.

Features: What are the features and services offered? You should be given the choice of customizing your server with any software or hardware. The hosting company should also give you the choice of either cheap Linux dedicated server hosting or Windows dedicated hosting. Ensure that you get good bandwidth and disk space, dedicated RAM and processor power. 

Support: Since you are opting for a cheap dedicated server hosting, it is imperative to know the level of support services. Choose a hosting provider that offers excellent support services because you will need them at some time. Ask some of the below questions to ensure that you are making the right choice.

Does the hosting provider offer support services 24 hours a day? What if a problem arises on a holiday?

How will they handle your problem? Whether their support team will be available by phone, email, or live chat.

What is the response time taken by the support team?

Look for these simple things to make sure that the services of a cheap dedicated server are the best for you. Remember not to compromise on the quality of services, even though you are making money savings.

Go4hosting is a leading web hosting provider that serves all types of businesses with many cheap dedicated hosting server plans. It also gives the choice of cheap Linux dedicated server hosting and Windows dedicated server hosting without any compromise on the quality of services.

Top 10 Dedicated Web Hosting Companies

Top 10 Dedicated Web Hosting Companies

Standard web hosting is shared web hosting, but for many websites — particularly ones with lots of traffic or a big reputation to maintain— sharing a web server just won't do. Enter dedicated hosting: designed to give big-reputation, in-house, high-traffic, and high-security sites the level of reliability that only one's own dedicated server can provide.

Shared vs. Dedicated Server Hosting

How a web hosting company "hosts" your website is by keeping it accessible at all times on a computer or network of computers that are always left turned on: aka a "server". You could, in fact, use your own computer as the server for your website, if you kept it on 24/7/365.

Of course most people (and certainly most businesses) want more certainty (and less hassle) than housing and maintaining their own server could provide. And for the average website owner, sharing the computer network that serves their website with other websites is sufficient, but for some — who receive heavy traffic, whose visitors expect the utmost in service, speed, and reliability every time they visit, who rely on the utmost in privacy or security — sharing a server or server network with other businesses just isn't adequate.

With dedicated hosting, you essentially rent or lease your own server: your own high-quality computer housed in a state-of-the-art datacenter under top-notch security and environmental controls. This not only gives your customer the consistently greatest experience of your website, but it gives you total power and control over how that website is managed (more on that in a moment).

Dedicated Internet

Dedicated hosting also frees you from the concerns of bandwidth and disk space allotments imposed by most shared hosting plans. Remember, disk space determines how much information your site can offer, or put another way, how "big" your website can be, while bandwidth determines how much access visitors have to your site, or put another way, the size of the roads bringing traffic to and from your site.

When you own your own server (even if it is just rented or leased), you don't have to worry about sharing any of that with anyone. That's because a dedicated server comes with its own dedicated IP address, which means its own dedicated connection to the Internet.

Server Updates on Your Clock

Servers need to update regularly; they need to update their own technology (i.e. their operating software) and they need to update the information that the websites they serve are providing to visitors (i.e. the "content"). When servers update, they go offline for some amount of time, often several hours, during which websites hosted by that server will not be available to visitors (barring a backup server). With shared web hosting, you generally have to accept the server update times set by your shared host; with dedicated hosting, you can set the clock for server updates to occur when it's most convenient for you and your visitors.

Dedicated Support

Many dedicated hosting plans come with a dedicated customer support representative. This means anytime you have a concern or need assistance, you'll be dealing with the same individual, who you know by name and how to reach directly, and who's been familiar with you and your website since you started service with their company. Oftentimes, in fact, these dedicated support representatives will take you on a personal walkthrough as you set up your dedicated web hosting service on day one.

Remote Access

With most dedicated hosting plans, you'll get some form of remote access to your server that allows you to control it from your own computer at home or work as if you were sitting directly in front of it. Some dedicated hosts will even go so far as to give you remote access when needed to a service tech in the datacenter to act as your physical eyes and hands while you fix a technical problem requiring more in-person attention. This is of particular importance with dedicated web hosting because you, the customer, instead of the datacenter are responsible for maintaining the hardware and software running your server, down to the very cables themselves.

Creative Flexibility

Having a dedicated server is kind of like having a private workshop to play with. A dedicated server allows you to experiment with different versions of your website to see which gets the greatest user response, or to explore adding different apps to your website's functionality without upsetting your whole system.

Self Control

Of course, having this level of control over your dedicated server assumes that you know what to do with it. It's not enough to understand how to use web-based control panels like a shared hosting customer. Different servers run on different operating systems (e.g. Linux, Windows, CentOS, Fedora, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc.) and either you or someone on your staff will need to be fluent, or at least familiar, with one of the operating systems offered by the dedicated web host you choose in order for a dedicated server plan to work for you.

That also means when choosing a dedicated hosting plan, be sure that the software provided is the software you know how to use, and vice-versa. (The exception to this is the occasional Managed Hosting plan offered at some sites, in which you pay for a dedicated server but get help setting it up and monitoring and maintaining it.)

Privacy & Security

If control is the number one reason why companies choose dedicated server plans, then privacy and security are a close second and third. By not sharing computer space with other websites, other businesses and individuals are kept from inadvertently (or advertently) accessing your files and interfering with your operational flow.

Despite availing the datacenter you use of its physical site security systems, with a dedicated server you are the sole entity responsible for your site's online security. Again, with great power comes great responsibility... (who said that?).

The Trade-Offs

The trade-offs with dedicated hosting is firstly, of course, that it is considerably more expensive than traditional shared hosting, and secondly, that it demands more time, knowledge, and responsibility from you to maintain. With shared hosting, the shared hosting company's own staff handles many of the tasks that you would otherwise have to take on yourself, were you to use a dedicated server. The bottom line is you or somebody on your staff should really know a thing or two about managing a web server to make dedicated hosting a practical and cost-effective solution for you.

Key Differences Between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting

Key Differences Between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting

If you’re determined to spend as little as possible – just choose shared hosting and hope for the best.

But if you want stability and security, it’s time to take a serious look at dedicated servers.

The key difference?

A dedicated server hosting plan means that your website is the only site hosted on the server. With shared hosting, the amount of disk space and bandwidth you are allotted is limited because there are others sharing the server. You will be charged if you surpass your allotted amount.

When choosing between shared hosting and dedicated hosting, the decision comes down to understanding what your organization requires. While there are pros and cons to both options, it’s also important to understand the differences between shared hosting and dedicated server hosting to clarify this vital choice in establishing and maintaining your business.

Sites Hosted on the Server
With a shared hosting package, there are other organizations that host their sites on the server, right alongside your organization.

A dedicated hosting plan means that your organization is the only user hosted on the server.

Bandwidth & Disk Space
With shared hosting, the amount of disk space and bandwidth you are allotted is limited since there are others sharing the server. You will be charged more if you surpass your allotted amount of bandwidth, and penalized if you exceed your amount of disk space – just like a utility.

Even if you’ve fairly purchased resources, some hosts will add extra rules to penalize you for having elements like videos or music—regardless of whether you hit your bandwidth cap!

With dedicated hosting, bandwidth and disk space are dedicated entirely to your organization and its server. There’s no resource sharing, so limitations on the amount of disk space and bandwidth are up to your organization’s requirements.

Costs
With shared hosting, the server’s resources are shared among several users – so operating costs are divided up among the users. This makes shared hosting more affordable, and ideal for smaller organizations or businesses just beginning to establish their web presence.

Because a dedicated server is dedicated solely to one user, it costs more. However – there’s a benefit! With a dedicated server, you’ve got far more operational flexibility to deal with traffic spikes, customize your server or install specialized software to meet your needs.

Required Technical Skill
With shared hosting, your organization doesn’t need a staff with specialized technical skills. Maintenance, administration and security are managed by the shared hosting provider. This dramatically simplifies operating the server. The tradeoff is that it limits what your organization can do.

With your own dedicated server, your organization should anticipate needing IT & webmaster skills to set up, install, administer and manage the server’s overall health.

If that’s too daunting for your organization because of time or money constraints – but you still need the power and space of a dedicated server – fully managed dedicated hosting plans are available at a higher cost.

Fully managed dedicated hosting plans are more expensive than colocated dedicated servers. However, it’s important to understand that the cost of managed services is typically still far less than building, staffing and onboarding your own IT department.

Security
With shared hosting, the hosting company installs firewalls, server security applications and programs. Experts in security are tasked with providing a safe & stable operating environment for the organizations on shared servers.

Securing a dedicated server will be your organization’s responsibility. Configuring software to detect and mitigate threats falls to your IT department, while your hosting company is only responsible for keep your server powered and physically secured.

On a dedicated server, your IT team will be able to control the security programs you install. However, since there your organization is the only user, there are fewer chances to acquire viruses, malware and spyware because of poor neighbors and misconfigured security.

While it seems counter intuitive, there is actually a higher risk of attack vectors being exploited through shared hosting. As the adage goes: “Good fences make good neighbors,” and your own dedicated server is the ultimate “fence.”

Website & IP Blacklisting
Shared servers introduce an interesting risk vector: there’s a chance that Google and other search engines will blacklist your websites because someone else on the server engaged in illegal or discouraged practices like spamming.

Bad neighbors on a shared server can get the entire IP address blacklisted, making your websites practically invisible.

On your own dedicated server, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll get blacklisted – unless your organization engages in unethical or illegal internet practices. We really don’t recommend that!

Server Performance and Response Time
On shared hosting, unexpected bursts of web traffic could drain the server’s limited bandwidth resources. This leads to slow response times and slow loading times, through no direct fault of your own – frustrating customers and employees alike.

You’re at the whims of someone else’s customers. If your neighbor suddenly and unexpectedly gets popular, you’re stuck in a traffic jam with nowhere to go.

This same traffic jam scenario is very unlikely on a dedicated server. Since you’re are not sharing resources on a dedicated server, you can count on your server to be highly responsive with adequate bandwidth when you need it.

Level of Control
Shared hosting means less control. The hosting company ultimately holds the keys to the kingdom, and makes choices on your behalf. While hosting companies do their best to keep things running smoothly, many organizations require more granular control over how exactly their server is utilized.

A dedicated server offers a great deal of custom options and settings. Your organization will have full control over the server. You can add your preferred programs, applications and scripts to meet your operational requirements.

Dedicated servers offer tremendous latitude to control your operational flexibility and security – which is very beneficial for many businesses with the requisite knowledge and skills.

If you’re looking for a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, fully managed hosting services offer the speed and flexibility of a dedicated server combined with expert management from seasoned IT veterans – the best of both worlds, at a small premium.

Make an Informed Decision
Choosing the right kind of hosting solution involves evaluating your operation’s budget, understanding the options that exist, realistically grasping your needs and comprehending what degree of control is appropriate for your organization.

No matter which type of server hosting you choose, we want you to make an informed decision. If you’re looking for help, contact our expert system architects to evaluate your organization’s requirements. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses develop a comprehensive hosting strategy to meet their needs – big, medium or small.

GigeNET has over 20 years of web hosting experience. We partner with our clients for life – some of our partnerships are older than up-and-coming hosting companies that exist today! We have a seasoned, industry-leading support staff and three data centers across the United States: Chicago, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.

If you’re ready to explore the options and see what fits your organization, we’re ready to lead you in the best direction for your future. Partner with us and help make a better internet for everyone.

Key Differences Between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting

Key Differences Between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting

If you’re determined to spend as little as possible – just choose shared hosting and hope for the best.

But if you want stability and security, it’s time to take a serious look at dedicated servers.

The key difference?

A dedicated server hosting plan means that your website is the only site hosted on the server. With shared hosting, the amount of disk space and bandwidth you are allotted is limited because there are others sharing the server. You will be charged if you surpass your allotted amount.

When choosing between shared hosting and dedicated hosting, the decision comes down to understanding what your organization requires. While there are pros and cons to both options, it’s also important to understand the differences between shared hosting and dedicated server hosting to clarify this vital choice in establishing and maintaining your business.

Sites Hosted on the Server
With a shared hosting package, there are other organizations that host their sites on the server, right alongside your organization.

A dedicated hosting plan means that your organization is the only user hosted on the server.

Bandwidth & Disk Space
With shared hosting, the amount of disk space and bandwidth you are allotted is limited since there are others sharing the server. You will be charged more if you surpass your allotted amount of bandwidth, and penalized if you exceed your amount of disk space – just like a utility.

Even if you’ve fairly purchased resources, some hosts will add extra rules to penalize you for having elements like videos or music—regardless of whether you hit your bandwidth cap!

With dedicated hosting, bandwidth and disk space are dedicated entirely to your organization and its server. There’s no resource sharing, so limitations on the amount of disk space and bandwidth are up to your organization’s requirements.

Costs
With shared hosting, the server’s resources are shared among several users – so operating costs are divided up among the users. This makes shared hosting more affordable, and ideal for smaller organizations or businesses just beginning to establish their web presence.

Because a dedicated server is dedicated solely to one user, it costs more. However – there’s a benefit! With a dedicated server, you’ve got far more operational flexibility to deal with traffic spikes, customize your server or install specialized software to meet your needs.

Required Technical Skill
With shared hosting, your organization doesn’t need a staff with specialized technical skills. Maintenance, administration and security are managed by the shared hosting provider. This dramatically simplifies operating the server. The tradeoff is that it limits what your organization can do.

With your own dedicated server, your organization should anticipate needing IT & webmaster skills to set up, install, administer and manage the server’s overall health.

If that’s too daunting for your organization because of time or money constraints – but you still need the power and space of a dedicated server – fully managed dedicated hosting plans are available at a higher cost.

Fully managed dedicated hosting plans are more expensive than colocated dedicated servers. However, it’s important to understand that the cost of managed services is typically still far less than building, staffing and onboarding your own IT department.

Security
With shared hosting, the hosting company installs firewalls, server security applications and programs. Experts in security are tasked with providing a safe & stable operating environment for the organizations on shared servers.

Securing a dedicated server will be your organization’s responsibility. Configuring software to detect and mitigate threats falls to your IT department, while your hosting company is only responsible for keep your server powered and physically secured.

On a dedicated server, your IT team will be able to control the security programs you install. However, since there your organization is the only user, there are fewer chances to acquire viruses, malware and spyware because of poor neighbors and misconfigured security.

While it seems counter intuitive, there is actually a higher risk of attack vectors being exploited through shared hosting. As the adage goes: “Good fences make good neighbors,” and your own dedicated server is the ultimate “fence.”

Website & IP Blacklisting
Shared servers introduce an interesting risk vector: there’s a chance that Google and other search engines will blacklist your websites because someone else on the server engaged in illegal or discouraged practices like spamming.

Bad neighbors on a shared server can get the entire IP address blacklisted, making your websites practically invisible.

On your own dedicated server, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll get blacklisted – unless your organization engages in unethical or illegal internet practices. We really don’t recommend that!

Server Performance and Response Time
On shared hosting, unexpected bursts of web traffic could drain the server’s limited bandwidth resources. This leads to slow response times and slow loading times, through no direct fault of your own – frustrating customers and employees alike.

You’re at the whims of someone else’s customers. If your neighbor suddenly and unexpectedly gets popular, you’re stuck in a traffic jam with nowhere to go.

This same traffic jam scenario is very unlikely on a dedicated server. Since you’re are not sharing resources on a dedicated server, you can count on your server to be highly responsive with adequate bandwidth when you need it.

Level of Control
Shared hosting means less control. The hosting company ultimately holds the keys to the kingdom, and makes choices on your behalf. While hosting companies do their best to keep things running smoothly, many organizations require more granular control over how exactly their server is utilized.

A dedicated server offers a great deal of custom options and settings. Your organization will have full control over the server. You can add your preferred programs, applications and scripts to meet your operational requirements.

Dedicated servers offer tremendous latitude to control your operational flexibility and security – which is very beneficial for many businesses with the requisite knowledge and skills.

If you’re looking for a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, fully managed hosting services offer the speed and flexibility of a dedicated server combined with expert management from seasoned IT veterans – the best of both worlds, at a small premium.

Make an Informed Decision
Choosing the right kind of hosting solution involves evaluating your operation’s budget, understanding the options that exist, realistically grasping your needs and comprehending what degree of control is appropriate for your organization.

No matter which type of server hosting you choose, we want you to make an informed decision. If you’re looking for help, contact our expert system architects to evaluate your organization’s requirements. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses develop a comprehensive hosting strategy to meet their needs – big, medium or small.

GigeNET has over 20 years of web hosting experience. We partner with our clients for life – some of our partnerships are older than up-and-coming hosting companies that exist today! We have a seasoned, industry-leading support staff and three data centers across the United States: Chicago, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.

If you’re ready to explore the options and see what fits your organization, we’re ready to lead you in the best direction for your future. Partner with us and help make a better internet for everyone.

Top 10 Dedicated Web Hosting Companies

Top 10 Dedicated Web Hosting Companies

Standard web hosting is shared web hosting, but for many websites — particularly ones with lots of traffic or a big reputation to maintain— sharing a web server just won't do. Enter dedicated hosting: designed to give big-reputation, in-house, high-traffic, and high-security sites the level of reliability that only one's own dedicated server can provide.

Shared vs. Dedicated Server Hosting
How a web hosting company "hosts" your website is by keeping it accessible at all times on a computer or network of computers that are always left turned on: aka a "server". You could, in fact, use your own computer as the server for your website, if you kept it on 24/7/365.

Of course most people (and certainly most businesses) want more certainty (and less hassle) than housing and maintaining their own server could provide. And for the average website owner, sharing the computer network that serves their website with other websites is sufficient, but for some — who receive heavy traffic, whose visitors expect the utmost in service, speed, and reliability every time they visit, who rely on the utmost in privacy or security — sharing a server or server network with other businesses just isn't adequate.

With dedicated hosting, you essentially rent or lease your own server: your own high-quality computer housed in a state-of-the-art datacenter under top-notch security and environmental controls. This not only gives your customer the consistently greatest experience of your website, but it gives you total power and control over how that website is managed (more on that in a moment).

Dedicated Internet
Dedicated hosting also frees you from the concerns of bandwidth and disk space allotments imposed by most shared hosting plans. Remember, disk space determines how much information your site can offer, or put another way, how "big" your website can be, while bandwidth determines how much access visitors have to your site, or put another way, the size of the roads bringing traffic to and from your site.

When you own your own server (even if it is just rented or leased), you don't have to worry about sharing any of that with anyone. That's because a dedicated server comes with its own dedicated IP address, which means its own dedicated connection to the Internet.

Server Updates on Your Clock
Servers need to update regularly; they need to update their own technology (i.e. their operating software) and they need to update the information that the websites they serve are providing to visitors (i.e. the "content"). When servers update, they go offline for some amount of time, often several hours, during which websites hosted by that server will not be available to visitors (barring a backup server). With shared web hosting, you generally have to accept the server update times set by your shared host; with dedicated hosting, you can set the clock for server updates to occur when it's most convenient for you and your visitors.

Dedicated Support
Many dedicated hosting plans come with a dedicated customer support representative. This means anytime you have a concern or need assistance, you'll be dealing with the same individual, who you know by name and how to reach directly, and who's been familiar with you and your website since you started service with their company. Oftentimes, in fact, these dedicated support representatives will take you on a personal walkthrough as you set up your dedicated web hosting service on day one.

Remote Access
With most dedicated hosting plans, you'll get some form of remote access to your server that allows you to control it from your own computer at home or work as if you were sitting directly in front of it. Some dedicated hosts will even go so far as to give you remote access when needed to a service tech in the datacenter to act as your physical eyes and hands while you fix a technical problem requiring more in-person attention. This is of particular importance with dedicated web hosting because you, the customer, instead of the datacenter are responsible for maintaining the hardware and software running your server, down to the very cables themselves.

Creative Flexibility
Having a dedicated server is kind of like having a private workshop to play with. A dedicated server allows you to experiment with different versions of your website to see which gets the greatest user response, or to explore adding different apps to your website's functionality without upsetting your whole system.

Self Control
Of course, having this level of control over your dedicated server assumes that you know what to do with it. It's not enough to understand how to use web-based control panels like a shared hosting customer. Different servers run on different operating systems (e.g. Linux, Windows, CentOS, Fedora, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc.) and either you or someone on your staff will need to be fluent, or at least familiar, with one of the operating systems offered by the dedicated web host you choose in order for a dedicated server plan to work for you.

That also means when choosing a dedicated hosting plan, be sure that the software provided is the software you know how to use, and vice-versa. (The exception to this is the occasional Managed Hosting plan offered at some sites, in which you pay for a dedicated server but get help setting it up and monitoring and maintaining it.)

Privacy & Security
If control is the number one reason why companies choose dedicated server plans, then privacy and security are a close second and third. By not sharing computer space with other websites, other businesses and individuals are kept from inadvertently (or advertently) accessing your files and interfering with your operational flow.

Despite availing the datacenter you use of its physical site security systems, with a dedicated server you are the sole entity responsible for your site's online security. Again, with great power comes great responsibility... (who said that?).

The Trade-Offs
The trade-offs with dedicated hosting is firstly, of course, that it is considerably more expensive than traditional shared hosting, and secondly, that it demands more time, knowledge, and responsibility from you to maintain. With shared hosting, the shared hosting company's own staff handles many of the tasks that you would otherwise have to take on yourself, were you to use a dedicated server. The bottom line is you or somebody on your staff should really know a thing or two about managing a web server to make dedicated hosting a practical and cost-effective solution for you.

How to Choose the Best Dedicated Server: An Ultimate Guide

How to Choose the Best Dedicated Server: An Ultimate Guide

Choosing the best dedicated server for your business could be a task. But once you have found your soul web hosting provider, it is a ‘hurrah!’ moment.

Before deciding on the best dedicated server for you, let me clarify what ‘best’ means here. Best is a very subjective term. For finding the best dedicated server, you need to understand your requirements, look for the web hosting providers who fit those requirements, and then make a decision.

Finding Best Dedicated Server: Baseline Qualities to Look for

Technology

1. Processor: How powerful you want the server to be?

For virtualization, video-transcoding, SQL, or specialized applications like chat servers, you need a Xeon or dual Xeon server.

2. Bandwidth: After having an idea of the traffic to your website, decide on the bandwidth required. If your website sees high traffic, go for more bandwidth. If you plan to run scripts, have HD pictures, or stream multimedia files, then go for high bandwidth servers.

3. Memory: Memory is important in order to decide the efficiency of your server and faster loading of your website. More RAM = Better Speed.

4. OS: Depending upon your needs, decide if you want a Windows dedicated server or Linux dedicated server. You must also take into account the type of your application.

5. Storage: Know your data storage requirements of your website. You can pick from several hard drive options. Usually, RAID is preferred because if there is a hardware failure, all your data will be lost. RAID is critical for mirror copying.  best dedicated server

6. Application: You need a Windows Dedicated Server if you are looking to host MS SQL, ASP.NET or Microsoft IIS. Go for Linux Server if you use LAMP or MEAN stack or an application that does not need a specific Microsoft license.

Datacenter

Tier

Tier 1: 99.67% uptime, no redundancy, 28.8 hours of downtime/year.

Tier 2: 99.74% uptime, partial redundancy in cooling and power, 22 hours downtime/year.

Tier 3: 99.98% uptime, N+1 fault tolerant, 1.6 hours of downtime/year.

Tier 4: 99.99% uptime, 2N+1 fully redundant infrastructure, 26.3 minutes of annual downtime.

Security

Before choosing a dedicated server hosting, you need to ask questions related to access to data, power supply, hardware, fire protection, building, data privacy etc.

best dedicated server

Analyze Your Requirements

If you go in the market without analyzing your requirements, you may not find anyone who will fit the bill. I know self-introspection could be hard. But if done (correctly), it will surely give you the best results.

Here are some of the important aspects you should consider while analyzing your requirements:

1. Types of Server: Depending upon your activity, you can consider:

File Server

Database Server

Domain Server

Application Server

Communication Server

Print Server

2. Traffic: How much traffic do you see in a month?

3. Application: If it is a resource hungry application, then you should go for a server having high computing power.

4. Operating System: Are you looking for Linux Dedicated Server or Windows Dedicated Server?

Budget: Obviously, money is an important factor, always. But if you find the right dedicated server for yourself, it is going to be worth the investment.

Having difficulty analyzing your needs? Get assistance from a certified professional.

Other important aspects

Customer Reviews: If you have a chance to get in touch with their customers, then do take a review. Ask about the guaranteed uptime, how swift they respond, the time they take to solve queries, and more.

Do they provide any additional services for free? For example, DDoS protection. (If they do, they care for you!)

No server should go live without the backup. If it goes, there are chances of you losing the data.

Case Example

Here’s a hypothetical example to comprehend the situation better:

“I run a Jewellery website. Usually, the traffic is somewhere between 40,000-45,000 in a month. There are about 4,000 products listed on my website. Which dedicated server will fit my needs?”

best dedicated server

In this case, the best possible fit would be a server having memory 64GB RAM and a good process. Prefer going for an SSD for a better UX. The main job of SSD is to faster the speed. Since you have a lot of product images, RAID 1 will be preferable. This will mirror your data to the second drive, so that, if by any chance, a drive fails, you can still recover it and continue the operation.

Assuming there will be a good number of high-quality images, 2TB Bandwidth would suffice the purpose. Depending upon your Operating System, you have the choice of Windows and Linux dedicated server.

Conclusion

To be honest, deciding on the best dedicated server is not a stroke of luck. Instead, it’s a well-planned decision that will pay off in the long run.

While you compare different hosting providers, don’t forget the value for money they offer. People usually make the mistake of seeing the high prices and closing the tabs. You need to find if that service provider justifies the amount they are asking for. If they do then make a judgment call.