Keeping yourself up to date with daily stock market happenings is necessary if you wish to be successful and grow your money. It is a rule to invest by that I strictly adhere to, and you should too! However this doesn’t mean you need to read every tidbit of information that occurs every day in the market. On an average day, reading a daily summary of stock market news is sufficient enough to keep up to date with the stock market. On other days when there are important events such as earnings reports or fed meetings, you would benefit from keeping up with the stock market on a more frequent basis than just after the closing bell. Regardless of whichever degree you wish to stay informed, here are some easy ways to follow the stock market on a daily basis:

Watch CNBC
In particular “The Closing Bell” (4pm Eastern Time Zone) on CNBC recaps the most significant daily events in the stock market, the economy, and any important variables that affect the two. However if you have the time to watch a few hours of CNBC on any given weekday, I highly recommend you sit down and immerse yourself in the stock market news and discussions displayed on CNBC. You’ll not only catch breaking news, but you’re bound to listen to exclusive interviews with mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers, stock market analysts, and other individuals who have strong influence over the stock market.

Subscribe to a Financial Media Newsletter
Find a reputable source for financial news and get yourself a subscription. Some financial media sites even offer their articles for free. I use the Wall Street Journal Online, but there are plenty of great sources for financial news such as Investor’s Business Daily, MarketWatch.com, and TheStreet.com.

If you have the option between an online subscription and an actual newspaper subscription, choose the online edition. You’ll be able to get much more up to date information as opposed to the newspaper edition. Plus if there is any after-market activity or breaking news that occurs after the final version of the newspaper goes out, you’ll basically be missing out on that late breaking news.

Keep a News Ticker Running on Your Computer
There are many ways to have a stock market news ticker running on your computer. The easiest way is to use whatever tools your online broker has in the form of a news ticker and just leave it running in the background. Periodically check up on the ticker for any major news that can affect the stock market and/or economy. There are also plenty of programs available for purchase out there that will also report stock market news, but I would highly recommend using your broker’s own tools for a simple task such as retrieving up the to the minute stock marke news. It will keep things simple and most likely will be cheaper than purchasing some independent software.