When to buy and sell stocks

Nobody can tell you the perfect day to buy or sell — anyone who claims otherwise is selling something. What you can do is stack the evidence in your favour. This guide explains what buy and sell signals actually are and how to use them without fooling yourself.

1. What a buy or sell signal really is

A signal is not a prediction. It is a rule that fires when the evidence lines up: the price trend, the company's published results, its valuation and the trading volume all pointing the same way. A buy signal means “the checklist passed”, not “this share must go up”. Thinking of signals as evidence checks rather than fortune-telling is the single most useful mindset shift for a beginner.

2. The evidence worth checking

  • Trend. Is the share in a real three-month climb, or did it just jump this week? Sustained trends are worth far more than one good week.
  • The market. Is the share beating its index — the FTSE 100 for London shares, the S&P 500 for US ones? Rising with the tide is not skill.
  • Earnings. Are reported profits and revenue actually growing? Published results are the hardest evidence there is.
  • Valuation. Are you paying a sensible price compared with similar companies, or a fashionable one?
  • Volume. Is real money behind the move, or is it drifting on thin trading?

The model behind this site scores exactly these factors and turns them into a BUY, HOLD or SELL — you can read every factor and weight on the Method page.

3. Why confidence matters more than the label

Two BUYs are not equal. One might have scraped over the line; another might have every factor pointing the same way. That is why each verdict here carries a confidence percentage — a measure of how clearly the evidence points one way, adjusted for how jumpy the share is. Treat low-confidence signals as “worth watching” rather than “worth acting on”.

4. Mistakes beginners make with signals

  • Acting on a single week's price move — the noisiest evidence of all.
  • Buying a share that is rising while its profits are shrinking.
  • Ignoring valuation because the story sounds exciting.
  • Checking signals once and never looking again — verdicts change as facts change.
  • Betting more than they can afford to lose on any single idea.

5. Putting it into practice

Add a few shares to the UK watchlist or US watchlist and watch how the verdicts behave over a few weeks before risking a penny. The backtest replays the same rules over past prices so you can see how they would have performed, and the Assistant can scan the market for high-confidence ideas. If you haven't read charts before, start with how to read stock charts.

Not financial advice. Signals are generated with fixed rules from delayed public prices and reported company financials. Do your own research before trading.