Initial Public Offering (IPO) is when a company goes public for the first time, and investors can buy its shares before the start of open trading. Often, the shares can be bought “at a discount”. Then, when trading begins, the price of the shares can rise due to the demand of everyone who did not have time to buy at the IPO price.

We accept IPO applications in the Tradernet trading platform; the application has a special “IPO” section. You can follow the nearest placements there, or subscribe to our Telegram group: https://t.me/Ipofreedomfinance

Dividends are a part of the profits that a company pays out to the holders of its shares. There are 2,113 companies paying dividends on US stock exchanges.

To receive dividends, it is enough to buy one share. Although we should note that, the amount of the dividend per share is usually small. For example, Apple pays 92 cents in dividends per share per year on its securities. That is, to receive at least $100 dividends from Apple in a year, you should to buy about 108 shares of the company. The more shares you have, the greater your total dividend.

Typically, companies pay dividends every three months. However, there are some cases when dividends are paid every month, or vice versa - once every six months, or once a year.

To receive dividends, you should buy shares before a certain day, which is called the “cut-off date”. When it comes, the “registry of shareholders” is closed. All shareholders who managed to buy before will receive dividends. To be in time, it is advisable to buy a share at least 4 days before the “cut-off date”. After that, when the register is closed, the shares can even be sold immediately, you will receive dividends anyway.

You can track cut-off dates for each company in special dividend calendars.

Dividends are automatically credited to the account, and tax is immediately withheld. Dividends on Kazakhstan companies’ shares are not subject to taxation.

In financial markets, income is never guaranteed; there is always a risk of losing money. You can only increase the probability of income if you properly distribute funds. Money must be invested in various financial instruments. You need to buy stocks and bonds of different companies from different sectors of the economy. With the right distribution, even if the value of some securities falls, other securities can rise in price and make a profit. Freedom Broker experts will help you to choose the right instruments and build a competent portfolio.

It all depends on the chosen financial instrument. First, you need to remember the rule: the higher the expected return, the higher the potential risks. This means that the basis of the investment portfolio should consist of instruments that are more reliable. High-risk ideas with a likely high return are best bought with smaller amounts to increase the overall performance of the portfolio, but not increase its risk excessively.

According to the increase in risk and profitability, several main categories of financial instruments can be distinguished:

Government bonds: when you lend money to an entire country, it looks like a safe bet. Therefore, the yield of government bonds is usually not very high, around 6-7% per annum in US dollars.

Corporate bonds of the highest investment rating: the most reliable companies can pay about 7-10% per annum on their debts.

Stock Indexes (you can invest through the ETFs): over the horizon of several years, indexes can bring a yield return of 10-15% per annum in US dollars.

Shares of the largest companies: the so-called “blue chips” can bring 20-30% per annum.

IPO: on the shares of companies during the initial public offering on the exchange, you can earn from 30% on a horizon of 3 months. Sometimes such stocks grow by hundreds of percent.

Small cap stocks or cheap stocks (Penny Stocks): it all depends on the situation. Sometimes you can earn tens or hundreds of percent, but the risks are also very high.

Note that for any of these financial instruments, different situations are possible if important news is released on the company, its sector or the economy as a whole. On high-profile news, you can sometimes earn or lose a lot more, so you should carefully monitor the events.

Themain risk is a fall in the value of securities. You can buy shares for $100 pershare, after which the bad news will come out and the share price drops to $90.

Thereare several options here:

1) Ifyou believe in the company and want to hold its shares for several years, thensuch price fluctuations should not bother you much. Over time, the price canrecover and rise much stronger. Sometimes recessions are even a good reason tobuy more shares at a discount. Although, of course, it is better to first studythe situation: why the price fell. If events are really bad for the future ofthe company, then it might be worth considering selling shares.

The share price dependson supply and demand. Let's say shares are trading around $20 per share. Then,big news comes out: the company has launched a new revolutionary product, whichmillions of people around the world are already pre-ordering. This means thatthe company is likely to increase revenue and profit in the coming months.Accordingly, the company has become more valuable and productive in the eyes ofinvestors. It is profitable to buy its shares as soon as possible - demand isgrowing on the stock exchange. At the same time, sellers of shares who holdthis security are in no hurry to part with it at the current low prices. Theyraise the offer price. If the buyers don't back down and deals happen, theprice gradually rises until the share is worth $25 or $30. That is, the marketlaw “Prices rise due to high demand” is applied here.

Thereare several ways:

1) Fundamentalanalysis is when you study the activities of a company; its financialstatements; news background; situation in the sector and industry; overalleconomic picture. Based on all these factors, you can determine how much thecompany's shares are now undervalued or overvalued compared to the real valueof the business. If the shares are too cheap, you can buy them.

2)Technical analysis allows you to select stocks according to the price chart.Stock charts give many clues about distribution of supply and demand. Moreover,they often have repeating patterns. If you know such pattern, you can find itin the early stages and buy stocks in the hope that the pattern will continueto rise, as it happened before.

You canlearn these methods of analysis in the Freedom Academy courses the Freedom Academy courses..

To buy shares, log in to the Tradernet.Global mobile app or the web platform at https://tradernet.global

In the “Quotes” section, select a share from one of the ready-made lists or find the security you need by ticker, for example, search for FRHC.US to buy shares of Freedom Holding Corp.

In the company card, click on the “Trade” button at the bottom of the screen. After that, set up and submit a trade order.

Video instruction: https://youtu.be/13yk3jfny4o

The American stock exchanges NYSE and NASDAQ are open fromMonday to Friday, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm New York time.

Astanatime is:

– from7:30 pm to 02:00 am in spring and summer

– from8:30 pm to 03:00 am in fall and winter

Kazakhstan stock exchanges KASE and AIX are open onweekdays from 11:30 am to 5:00 pm Astana time.

The London Stock Exchange is open from 2:00pm to 10:30 pm Astana time.

MarketOrder is an order to buy/sell securities at the current market price. Buyingwith market order is made at the best offer price (ASK/Offer). Sale - at thebest bid price (BID). The difference between these prices is called “Spread”.

To putit more simply, it is similar to buying or selling currency at an exchangeoffice. You see the US dollar exchange rate KZT 455x459 on the panel. When youbuy a US dollar, you take it at KZT 459 with a “market order”. When you givethe US dollar at KZT 455, you also sell with a market order. The difference ofKZT 4.00 between these US dollar prices is the “spread” which the exchangeoffice earns.

MarketOrders are the simplest and fastest, but slippage is possible. If a stock isactively trading, its price can quickly change, and you will receive securitiesat a price worse than what you saw on the screen a second ago. Let's say youwanted to buy at $55 apiece, you sent a market order, and it was filled at$55.7.