8 WAYS TO STAY HEALTHY

Over half of all serious disease in the United States could be prevented if people adopted healthier lifestyles. By following these eight recommendations, you can lower your risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis and diabetes. Before you know it, you’ll also have more energy and get a boost to your mood.

So take control of your health, and encourage your family to do the same. Choose one or two of the behaviors below to start with. Once you’ve got those down, move on to the others.

1. Maintain a Healthy Weight

Keeping your weight in check is often easier said than done, but a few simple tips can help. First off, if you’re overweight, focus initially on not gaining any more weight. This by itself can improve your health. Then, when you’re ready, try to take off some extra pounds for an even greater health boost. To see where you fall on the weight range, click here.

Tips

• Integrate physical activity and movement into your life.
• Eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
• Choose smaller portions and eat more slowly.

For Parents and Grandparents 

• Limit children’s TV and computer time.
• Encourage healthy snacking on fruits and vegetables.
• Encourage activity during free time.

2. Exercise Regularly

Few things are as good for you as regular physical activity. While it can be hard to find the time, it’s important to fit in at least 30 minutes of activity every day. More is even better, but any amount is better than none.

Tips 

• Choose activities you enjoy. Many things count as exercise, including walking, gardening and dancing.
• Make exercise a habit by setting aside the same time for it each day. Try going to the gym at lunchtime or taking a walk regularly after dinner.
• Stay motivated by exercising with someone.

For Parents and Grandparents 

• Play active games with your kids regularly and go on family walks and bike rides when the weather allows.
• Encourage children to play outside (when it’s safe) and to take part in organized activities, including soccer, gymnastics and dancing.
• Walk with your kids to school in the morning. It’s great exercise for everyone.

3. Don’t Smoke

You’ve heard it before: If you smoke, quitting is absolutely the best thing you can do for your health. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s also far from impossible. More than 1,000 Americans stop for good every day.

Tips 

• Keep trying! It often takes six or seven tries before you quit for good.
• Talk to a health-care provider for help.
• Join a quit-smoking program. Your workplace or health plan may offer one.

For Parents and Grandparents

• Try to quit as soon as possible. If you smoke, your children will be more likely to smoke.
• Don't smoke in the house or car. If kids breathe in your smoke, they may have a higher risk of breathing problems and lung cancer.
• When appropriate, talk to your kids about the dangers of smoking and chewing tobacco. A health-care professional or school counselor can help.

4. Eat a Healthy Diet

Despite confusing news reports, the basics of healthy eating are actually quite straightforward. You should focus on fruits, vegetables and whole grains and keep red meat to a minimum. It’s also important to cut back on bad fats (saturated and trans fats) and choose healthy fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats) more often. Taking a multivitamin with folate every day is a great nutrition insurance policy.

Tips

• Make fruits and vegetables a part of every meal. Put fruit on your cereal. Eat vegetables as a snack.
• Choose chicken, fish or beans instead of red meat.
• Choose whole-grain cereal, brown rice and whole-wheat bread over their more refined counterparts.
• Choose dishes made with olive or canola oil, which are high in healthy fats.
• Cut back on fast food and store-bought snacks (like cookies), which are high in bad fats.
• Buy a 100 percent RDA multivitamin that contains folate.

5. Drink Alcohol Only in Moderation, If at All

Moderate drinking is good for the heart, as many people already know, but it can also increase the risk of cancer. If you don’t drink, don’t feel that you need to start. If you already drink moderately (less than one drink a day for women, less than two drinks a day for men), there’s probably no reason to stop. People who drink more, though, should cut back.

Tips

• Choose nonalcoholic beverages at meals and parties.
• Avoid occasions centered around alcohol.
• Talk to a health-care professional if you feel you have a problem with alcohol.

For Parents and Grandparents

• Avoid making alcohol an essential part of family gatherings.
• When appropriate, discuss the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse with children. A health-care professional or school counselor can help.

6. Protect Yourself from the Sun

While the warm sun is certainly inviting, too much exposure to it can lead to skin cancer, including serious melanoma. Skin damage starts early in childhood, so it’s especially important to protect children.

Tips

• Steer clear of direct sunlight between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. (peak burning hours). It’s the best way to protect yourself.
• Wear hats, long-sleeve shirts and sunscreens with SPF15 or higher.
• Don’t use sun lamps or tanning booths. Try self-tanning creams instead.

For Parents and Grandparents 

• Buy tinted sunscreen so you can see if you’ve missed any spots on a fidgety child.
• Set a good example for children by also protecting yourself with clothing, shade and sunscreen.

7. Protect Yourself From Sexually Transmitted Infections

Among other problems, sexually transmitted infections – like human papillomavirus (HPV) – are linked to a number of different cancers. Protecting yourself from these infections can lower your risk.

Tips

• Aside from not having sex, the best protection is to be in a committed, monogamous relationship with someone who does not have a sexually transmitted infection.
• For all other situations, be sure to always use a condom and follow other safe-sex practices.
• Never rely on your partner to have a condom. Always be prepared.

For Parents and Grandparents

• When appropriate, discuss with children the importance of abstinence and safe sex. A health-care professional or school counselor can help.

8. Get Screening Tests

There are a number of important tests that can help protect against cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and osteoporosis. Some of these tests find diseases early, when they are most treatable, while others can actually help keep a disease from developing in the first place. Talk to a health-care professional about which tests you should have and when.

Conditions that should be tested for regularly include:

• Colon and rectal cancer
• Breast cancer
• Cervical cancer
• High blood pressure
• Unhealthy blood cholesterol
• Obesity or being overweight
• Low bone density

- See more at: http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/contentpage.aspx?id=4514#sthash.RkDsaGeV.dpuf

How To Play Guitar For Beginners

So you’ve finally taken the leap and decided that today’s the day you’re going to start to learn how to play guitar – right on!

Acoustic Hands, by redwood 1

Learning how to play guitar will give you an incredibly rewarding skill for life, and once you know how to play, you’ll find that having a guitar is like having good friend and constant companion (I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true!)

First off, let me tell you that you’ve made a good choice – the guitar is one of the friendliest instruments around, and it’s relatively easy to make fun, satisfying sounds pretty quickly. In fact, you can be playing chords and strumming along to some of your favorite songs within a few days (though your fingers may hurt a little: more on this later).

One of the great things about learning to play guitar today is that there’s never been more educational information available. Here’s the flip side, though: it can be totally overwhelming – how do you even know where to start?

If you’re serious about learning guitar, the most important thing you need to get started, other than an overall love of music and the instrument, is a basic blueprint, or plan – a roadmap for where you want to go. This should be in the form of an incredibly simple list that you can always refer to when you get stuck, or lost, to remind you what you’re trying to do.

Here are the basic steps involved in learning how to play guitar for beginners, boiled down to just the absolute essentials, so it’s not overwhelming:

1. Learn Guitar Chords
2. Learn How To Strum
3. Learn Guitar Songs
4. Learn To Play Guitar Solos

Yup – that’s it. Obviously, there’s going to be more to learn about playing the guitar down the road, but I think that you’ll find that this is plenty to chew on for now. Write these down on a post-it (the best plans all fit on post-its) and stick it somewhere you’ll see it every day.

Learning how to play guitar chords for beginners is the first thing any budding guitarist needs to master. You might have seen other guitar players effortlessly moving their hands around on the guitar neck – without even looking at them! – and perhaps worrried just the tiniest bit about just how the heck they do that.

Am I right?

Well, as you might expect, it is going to take some time and effort on your part. And I’m going to tell you right up front that there’s no way around this part: your fingertips are going to hurt – more than a little, for a couple of weeks – until you develop some calluses.

The good news, though, is that an astonishing number of famous songs, most of them, in fact, are built on a really small handful of chords. Like, six. Seriously, once you’ve learned E, A, G, D, C and F, you’ll be able to play almost any song. For real. Here’s a chart that shows you all of these chords:

(*You might notice that I threw in one impostor chord, B, just to see if you were paying attention.)

Anyway, here are the things you’ll need to know to read the chord diagrams:

• The Xs and Os at the top of each diagram:
  • Xs = strings you don’t play for that chord
  • Os = open strings, where you don’t put a finger on it at all
• The black dots represent your fingers, and the digits beneath each chord diagram tell you which finger you should use to make that dot. Your index finger is 1, middle finger 2, ring finger 3, and pinky is 4
• Now, for the grid that forms the heart of each chord diagram:
  • The vertical lines represent strings on the guitar, with the leftmost string being the low E (it’s also the fattest string), and the rightmost string being the high E (the skinniest string)
  • The horizontal lines represent frets, the silver metal things that divide the guitar neck into segments. In this diagram, the topmost fret is the zero fret, closest to the headstock (that thing with the tuning knobs, that you attach the strings to), and the bottommost fret is the 5th fret, heading down the neck towards the body of the guitar

So basically, all you need to do to play any of these chords is to press the indicated strings down at the indicated frets with the indicated fingers, and then use the fingers of your other hand to strum the strings over the body of the guitar

Like most aspects of music and guitar, though, how to play guitar chords for beginners is much, much better explained through video. I’ve scoured YouTube to find one of the simplest, most straightforward videos to help you learn your first chords. This one won’t win any prizes for flash and special effects; it just does the job –check it out.

Article Source: http://howtoplayguitarforbeginners.net/

How to Create Your Own Professional Music Video from Home

Step 1: Music

Of course a music video isn't a music video without music. Find an instrumental that you want to create a song to and download it. A good program that I recommend for downloading instrumentals would be Frostwire. You can download it from frostwire.com. It is completely free to download and use. Or so it was the last time I checked. Be careful when downloading from Frostwire though. The first two or three files at the top are usually tricks, but you can easily tell them apart. The false ones usually match your search phrase word for word, letter for letter, and are lower case. Also check the file size to the right of each result. Instrumentals and songs are usually at an average file size of 1,000 Kb for each minute of a song. So if an instrumental you're looking for is about 3 minutes long, the file size should be around 3,000 Kb. The false ones at the top are usually at a small file size, around 10-30 kb.

I used to use Frostwire until I began creating my own music with music production software. If you want to make money from YouTube, I suggest you make your own instrumentals like I do. Anyone can learn to make a simple beat. Some good music production software I recommend to use for the PC would be Fruity Loops Studio. The latest version is FL Studio 9, but FL Studio 5, 6, 7, and 8 are just as good. If you want to pay for it, you can buy it at your local computer store or online at flstudio.com, but if you want it for free, I suggest you use Frostwire, since it can also download programs for free too. For the Mac users, your computer should already come with a music production software called GarageBand. In my opinion, GarageBand's instruments sound more professional than Fruity Loops. Both programs have user manuals available in the help menu and Garageband has a beginner tutorial. For any other tutorials, I suggest that you search YouTube for Fruity Loops Beginner Tutorials or Garageband beginner tutorials.

Other PC Music Production softwares include Reason, Sonar, and Nuendo. Another Mac music production software is Logic Pro. The music industry itself specializes mainly with a software called Protools. It's compatible with both PC and Mac, but is usually the software preferred for studio recording. If you decide to use Protools at all, I recommend that you buy it rather than downloading it for many reasons. Trust me on this one.

Step 2: Lyrics

Of course, music videos don't ALWAYS have lyrics, but if you do decide to, make sure you write lyrics to the instrumental and keep them for the studio recording, which we will get to later. (Lyrical tip: Keep your lyrics fairly clean and it may be more marketable! Make it hilarious or comical, and it may get more plays! Ex. Search "White and Nerdy" on YouTube)

Step 3: Home Studio (Session) Recording

The best software for studio session recording starters is Cool Edit Pro. Cool Edit Pro is only PC compatible though. I learned it on my own through experimentation, but for tutorials, I'm sure you can find them on YouTube. There is also a user manual in the help menu. You can also download Cool Edit Pro for free using Frostwire. For the Mac users, once again, congratulations! You can record yourself using Garageband! To do so after you have finished creating your instrumental on Garageband, at the top click Track> New Track> Real Instrument> Create. You will notice that on the left, a track for recording appears that is titled "No Effects". If you have a microphone plugged in, test it out by speaking into it. The green bar next to "No Effects" should rise every time you speak. If not, check your System Preferences for Sound and switch to Built-In Mic/Internal Microphone. Most Mac laptops have a built-in microphone. Most of them are found on the left speaker at the bottom right side, but only on laptops. For PC laptops, your microphone may be found in the top of the monitor in the middle, left, or right corner.

For more advanced users, session recordings can be done with Protools. You can buy microphones, but the cheap ones are usually not good recording microphones at all. If you have a built-in microphone, you're in luck; because believe it or not, it is better than most microphones under $50. Just make sure you adjust the volumes of each separate recording you do accordingly, regardless of which mic you use. You can make a bad mic sound much better than it does by altering the volumes.

P.S Tip: How to Autotune

Unfortunately, I only know how to do Autotune with the Fruity Loops users and the Garageband users. For the FL users, you have to download a plug-in called Antares and drag it into Fruity Loops. As for the Mac and Garageband users..... you guys are very lucky. GarageBand comes with a built-in Autotuning system. To use it, at the top click Track> New Track> Real Instrument> Create. If your Audio Region at the bottom is not visible, at the top, click Control> Show Editor, or just press Apple+E. Turn the "Enhance Tuning" in your Audio Region all the way up. Then look just below that switch, and check in the box "Limit to Key".

Step 4: Recording the video

To record the video, you're going to need a decent quality camera. But just because you have a decent quality camera alone doesn't mean that the video is going to be great. It's all about how you put it together. As far as quality goes, I recommend the Jazz Elite HD Portable Camera for starters. It's a $500 high definition camera, but you can get it for only $240 at electrotech.totalwarehouse.com. I haven't found a cheaper high definition video camera online yet, but if I do, I will let you know. Also, looking into getting a tripod would help for stabilization. You can find those at Wal-mart for pretty low prices.

Also, if you're trying to make money on YouTube, make sure to keep other company products' logos and titles out of the video as much as possible. YouTube can prevent money making from almost any logo being shown publicly in your video. This also includes logos on shirts, so just make sure that whatever clothing you choose to wear for the video, that the emblems or logos of your shirt's producers are not visible.

Step 5: Putting the video together

Hook up your camera to the computer and transport all of your video clips in a folder. For PC video production beginners, I recommend using Windows Movie Maker. It comes with every Windows computer. If you can't find it, just click Start (or the windows icon for Vista users) at the bottom left side of the screen. Go to Programs> Accesssories> Windows Movie Maker, or Programs> Accessories> Entertainment> Windows Movie Maker. If you can't find it in either of those places, go to My Computer, open up the Local Drive (usually C:), and go to the Program Files folder. Look for a folder called Windows Movie Maker and look for the startup icon. For Mac users, there is iMovie. The video clips can be dragged or imported into both of these programs to use. If your PC or Mac came with the Adobe Collection, you may also use Adobe Premiere Pro, which is compatible with both computers. Adobe After Effects is a more advanced software to use for special effects, but you can easily learn it through 10 short tutorials at videocopilot.net. A much more advanced video editor is Final Cut Pro for the Mac users, used by real industry movie makers.

There are video tutorials for all of these softwares on YouTube, but, in my opinion, Windows Movie Maker is ridiculously easy to use; but Adobe Premiere has more tools and effects that you can do to your video. Adobe Premiere also has green screen keying, which Movie Maker does not have. If you are looking to make music video production or music production a future career, I suggest you look into a college called Full Sail University. It is known as the "Harvard of Entertainment and Media Schools" and has one of the three best film programs in the world and the top 5 Recording Arts programs in the country. It is a high-paced school, and you can receive your Bachelor's in either program in 20 months. To look further into this school, visit the Full Sail website.

Make sure you render your video in a high quality setting too. "Rendering" just means saving the video in video format. The higher the quality, the longer it may take to finish saving the video, but it may be worth it. If you have the Jazz Elite HD Portable Camera, you may not have to worry about quality as much.

Extra Step: Earn Money Through YouTube

To earn money, simply reach over 200,000 views with your video. YouTube will send you instructions on how to set it up and will review your video to make sure that there are no copyright infringements.

But as for music videos in general, I've seen the best and I've seen the worst. The quality of the final product all comes down to how you use these tools to the best of your creative ability. Show laziness in production, and lazy is how the final product will appear to be. Happy music making!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3511041

How to write a CV

What is a CV?

CV stands for curriculum vitae, which means a brief account of your career. CVs are used to explain to recruiters what you can do and what you have done, so a good CV looks forwards as well as accounts for what you did in the past. 

A CV should present your knowledge, learning, skills and competencies in a positive, honest way. Despite what you might have seen on The Apprentice, falsifying information on a CV gets you nowhere.

What should I include in a CV?

A CV needs to include enough information for the recruiter to decide whether you are likely to be a suitable candidate, so you should include:

• contact details - name, address, mobile phone number, email address;
• knowledge - educational or professional qualifications, dates of institutions attended;
• skills and competencies - ability to work in a team, manage customers, specific IT skills, level of responsibility;
• work-related experiences - periods of paid or unpaid work, previous employers, job titles, examples of tasks;
• referees - two people who can comment on your paid or unpaid work.

It's important to tailor your CV to the needs of the recruiter and the particular job. So, if there is a job specification or job description, show how you are a good fit by giving examples of how your experience, knowledge and skills fit the requirements of the job, paying particular attention to the ones marked 'essential'.

If you list your previous jobs and there is a gap between them, it's often best to explain why. An unexplained gap can be interpreted adversely.

Reasons for gaps may include:

• contract ended;
• left to continue full-time education;
• took a career break to raise a family;
• made redundant.

For information on disclosing a disability see cover letters.

How long should a CV be?

Ideally, a CV should be no longer than two sides of A4. Overlong CVs may not be read to the end or at all.

Do I need to include a personal summary?

It's not essential and choosing whether or not to add one to your CV comes down to personal choice. If you do decide to include one it should ideally be no more than four lines long and follow immediately after your personal details at the top of your CV.

Personal summaries should be written in strong, positive language and include information on who you are, what skills you can offer and generally what you are looking for in your next role.

Do I list work experience or education first?

This depends on the type of CV you are creating and how much work experience you have. If you have recently graduated and don't have much work experience it is probably best to start with your education. For more information see example CVs. 

Should I include hobbies in my CV?

It's not necessary to include hobbies in a CV but if you do, use them as examples of specific achievements, such as supervision of teams, organisation of rotas, collation and analysis of documents, etc.

How should I present my CV?

Aim to put your most attractive feature towards the beginning of your CV where it will be noticed by a recruiter. Similarly, construct a strong finish with a closing remark that is positive and enthusiastic.

Don't be tempted to keep the length of your CV under control by using a small font or closely packed lines of text. Instead arrange text with space around it. Use tables or text boxes and an easy to read font such as Arial or Verdana to ensure a clear layout; use bold font and capitals sparingly and avoid the use of underline.

If you're not a confident speller, have your CV checked by someone you trust. Often computerised spell checks don't pick up every error.

If you need to post a hard copy of your CV, use good quality paper, staple rather than clip pages together and use an envelope large enough to keep the CV flat in transit. Unless you are advised otherwise by the recruiter, your CV should be accompanied by a cover letter.

Do I need to write a cover letter?

Yes, a cover letter will enable you to further tailor your comments to the requirements of the job role. It also helps to highlight any aspect that you want to draw to the attention of the recruiter. To find out more see cover letters.

19 Ways to build Self-Confidence

1. Get crystal clear on the things that truly matter to you.  If they’re not in your life, you need to bring them in.
2. Write a list of the things you’re tolerating and putting up with in your life, then write down how you can remove, minimise or diminish each one.
3. Look at a great win or success you’ve experienced and give yourself credit for your part in it.  Recognising your achievements is not egotistical, it’s healthy.
4. Next time you’re at a social event, don’t just stick with the people you know – go and have a conversation with someone you don’t know and you never know what – or who – you’ll discover.
5. Next time you talk yourself out of doing something (a party invite, a challenging project or whatever else), say ‘What the Hell’ and go do it anyway.
6. Do one thing each day that makes you smile (on the inside or on the outside).
7. Look for the patterns of thought that take you to a place where you start second-guessing or over-thinking.  Now imagine that your best friend went through exactly the same thought process and ended up holding themselves back – what would you want to say to them?
8. Ask out that girl or guy you fancy the pants off (only if you’re single, don’t want to get you into trouble).
9. You have to keep your mind well fed, so write a list of 20 things that keeps your mind feeling nourished and make sure you’re giving them room in your life.
10. Stop playing different roles and squeezing yourself into boxes based on what you think people expect you to act like.
11. Learn to catch yourself every single time you tell yourself that you can’t have, won’t get or aren’t good enough to get what you want.
12. Take yourself off auto-pilot – make deliberate decisions on what really matters to you.
13. Next time you come up against a risk or a challenge, listen to what you tell yourself and look for a way that that inner dialog can be improved.  Ask yourself, “What would make this easier?”
14. Scared of looking silly? You and everyone else.  It’s no biggie so don’t let it stop you.  Say it with me – “It just doesn’t matter.”
15. Don’t think for a second that you can’t be confident.  There are already loads of things you do with natural self-confidence, you just have to notice them and get familiar with how it feels.  Look for the things you do where the question of whether you’re confident enough never arises.
16. Listen to your doubts but be ready to make deliberate decisions once you’ve heard them.  Sometimes your doubts are there to let you know what you need to prepare for, so you can use them to your benefit as you move forwards.
17. Think of a time when it felt like a whole bank of switches in your head flicked to the on position and you were firing on all cylinders.  What were you doing and what’s the reason it felt so great?
18. You’ve got a whole bunch of out-dated rules that determine what you do, don’t do, should do and shouldn’t do.  These rules limit your thinking and limit your behaviour.  Tear up your rule book and notice how free you are to make great decisions.
19. Do you get annoyed with yourself because you didn’t make the most of something or stepped back form an opportunity?  Don’t beat yourself up because that’s just going to make you feel worse.  Instead, be brutally honest and ask yourself what you gained from the situation and what you lost out on.  Based on this win/lose balance, what’s a different choice you can make next time?

How to Produce Hip Hop Music according to Karli Beatz

Steps

1. Get the equipment. With sound quality is everything. You can buy programs such as FL Studio, Pro Tools or GarageBand, GarageBand is better for beginners and FL Studio has a steeper learning curve but pays off. If you're past that go for a MIDI or MIKO keyboard of something of the sort. Also, if you have a Mac computer, which you should if you used GarageBand, purchase Logic Studio Pro. It's an excellent program with a keyboard that can be hooked up to your computer. If you get a keyboard, obviously, you should have basic piano skills. A good microphone is also key for high quality vocals.
   
   
   
   
2. Start by constructing the base melody of the song. This is basically a repetitive arrangement of notes. Play around with it for a long time, because this is the biggest part of your beat. For hip-hop, try strings, trumpets, choruses, deep, stingy synth pads and electric piano Piano can be used in some situations as well. For pop, try piano, guitar, dancey synth pads or electric guitar but at a calm enough level. Finally, use chords a lot
   
   
3. Add ambience, effects, transitions, and other background loops. One instrument in a song won't cut it most of the time. Listen to great productions and see what goes together. For starters, strings and piano go well together, so do strings and electric piano. Also, add a subtle but audible bass guitar in almost song. It really improves the song. Next, provide transition effects to the chorus and back into the next verse. You have to imagine a song being sung as you produce the song. Freestyle to it to see how it sounds with the vocals. The best sounds for this are pitches that keep going up or down. You can also mute the music for a second or two, and unmute it. This is really catchy. Just try different things. It's your song. Be creative.
   
   
4. Now it's time to create a drum beat. This may seem trivial, but don't treat it like that. In hip-hop, you hear a lot of the simple bass clap bass clap without any variation. Great drum beats are syncopated and don't just use the most basic types of drums. An example of a great drum beat is Dream Girl By Karli Beatz. It uses a rare base and snare, but in a very syncopated rhythm. In hip-hop, you can also add hi-hats. If you do this, it's best do it in after pause or transition within the verse. Also, speed up the hi-hat twice the speed at times for a moment. If you don't understand, listen to hip-hop and pay attention to the drum beat. Creating your drum beat should take at least 15 minutes.
   
   
5. If you've finished your track, promote it by putting it on Facebook, YouTube, etc., and submit it to artists. You never know, you could get picked and get famous. Also, depending on what people say, you may want to sell your beat to writers and minor artists
   
   

• Keep listening to hit songs from your genre and see what instruments are commonly used and how they are used, practice makes perfect.
• Take a class offered somewhere out there.
•  Don't give up just because your beat doesn't sound fabulous the first time. If you have never made a beat in your life, it can take a year to actually create a catchy beat.

How to buy & sell shares

Buying and selling shares

The most common way to buy and sell shares is on the share market using a broker or broking serivce.

You can also buy shares through a prospectus when they are first put on the market or indirectly through a managed fund. Another way to buy shares is through an employee share scheme.

    Using a broker
    Buying shares in a float
    Buying shares via a managed fund
    Buying shares via an employee share scheme

Using a broker

You can choose whether you want to a use an online broking service (sometimes know as a 'discount broker') and make your own investment decisions, or use a full service broker who can provide you with advice and recommendations.
Online broking service

If you are looking for the lowest possible fees, then you should look at an online trading account. The fee to buy or sell a parcel of shares starts from around $30. They charge you only when you buy or sell a share.
Full service brokers

A full service broker will charge more but they can also give you advice on what to buy and sell. The law requires brokers to have a reasonable basis for any recommendation they make to you. They must also tell you about any interests they have in investment decisions which they recommend to you.

Brokerage fees are usually based on a percentage of the value of the purchase or sale. The percentage typically reduces as the amount of the transaction gets bigger. Most brokers have a minimum fee which they charge. Typically, the fee on a transaction of up to $5000 will be 2.5%. For large trades, it may only be 0.1%. Small trades worth a few thousand dollars can therefore be relatively expensive.

Use the Australian Securities Exchange find a broker tool to help you find a broker that suits your needs. You should check whether the broker uses dark pools or internalisation to execute trades, as this may have an impact on the price you pay for shares.

There are a number of share exchanges that brokers can use. See different ways to invest in shares.
Case study: Katarina buys some shares

""Katarina, 35, inherited $10,000 from her grandmother and decided to invest in shares. She has some knowledge of the share market but decided to ask a stock broker for advice to be on the safe side. When Katarina presented her choices to the stock broker, he cautioned her against investing in one company that had recently been hit with a lawsuit. He then organised for her to buy shares in the other companies she nominated. While his fees were higher than an online broker's, Katarina was happy to pay extra for his advice and service.

Buying shares in a float

Companies may decide to offer new shares to the market as a way of raising capital. This is called a 'float' or an 'initial public offering' (IPO). You don't actually need a broker to buy shares in a float. All you do is send the application form in the prospectus and your cheque to the company.

Many popular floats are oversubscribed, which means you may get only a proportion of the shares you applied for, or in some cases, no shares at all. Keep this in mind when sending off your application cheque, because your money can be tied up for a couple of months before you will get a refund. For more information, see prospectuses.

Buying shares via a managed fund

You can buy shares indirectly by buying units in a managed share fund. For more information, see choosing a managed fund.

Buying shares via an employee share scheme

Some companies offer their employees the opportunity to purchase shares in the company. The shares might be offered without a brokerage or at a discount to the market price. For more information, see employee share schemes.

Invest in shares only if you are happy with your understanding of the stock market and are prepared to research and manage your portfolio on a regular basis. Otherwise, you should ask for financial advice and assistance.