I'm interested in investing in stocks, but don't know how. Where can I start?

This is something I'd like to do, as so many prices are low now, I've heard. But I don't really know a thing about it, let alone where to start. Any suggestions?

What are your interests? (besides plunking down some money on a stock that rises so you can sell it--you can do that at a casino and "investing" isn't really a "crap shoot").

What do you think will be big in the future? If you can't imagine that, then what do you perceive is big and important today, then figure out who does that kind of thing best.

Another approach is the easy mutual fund: exchange traded funds, or ETFs. You hear the news reports every day, "The Dow went ..." or "The S&P..." well you can buy into those. The Dow Jones Industrials are composed of 30 solid companies that have been big and profit often enough to be getting still bigger. If you check out the stock symbol DIA (commonly called Diamonds) then you can simply and easily and cheaply buy a batch of those 30 companies. In this case the American Stock Exchange bought a bunch of those 30 companies in a trust, and then sold unit shares of that trust fund. Similarly, there is another such ETF for the 500 (or so, last I heard they were down to 498 but they will add a couple of names to round out the list fairly soon) companies that represent the ones that the rating agency Standard & Poors things are solid and likely to grow in value or worth. When a company or two merges or no longer fits the selection criteria and falls off, then the ETF manager replaces that with another. This ETF symbol is SPY (commonly called Spydrs and there are interesting variations). By holding these ETFs then every time you hear the financial news you know exactly what your investments did that day.

If you really want to pick your own, the idea of selecting something you like and are interested in has merit over most methods. Every now and then some college or high school project somewhere compares student guesses of a good company with a dart board method (placing a stock listing on a wall and tossing a dart then whatever it lands on or closest to is what you have selected for the trial stock exercise). If you like a store, product brand, local industry, or whatever is making your most admired or coolest gadget, then you would have a direct interest in it. When they continue to do well, you are a part of it, you have shares in it.

Don't worry about prices. When you have more money to invest in it, or them (say a short list of 3, 4, or 5 different kinds of companies that you are interested in), then when the price is relatively low, you can buy more shares, you just got them "on sale", and when the price is relatively high, you aren't buying as many shares at the premium price.

If you are "investing" it is for the long term, so don't sweat the swings, just put your money into things that make money (the companies on the DIA or SPY lists, for instance) or in things that interest you. You will do fine.

tradeking.com is a new site. $4.95 per trade. that's a lot lower than the previously mentioned etrade and scottrade.
as a beginner, dont buy anything until you have tracked it for 30 days or more. it will give you a good idea of how the stock performs and wont leave you holding the bag on a volatile stock...which most are right now. my personal feeling is that you should go after lower priced stocks, because they wont lose as much day-to-day as the higher priced ones. also, only buy companies that you know about or are a customer of. dont buy something just because you heard it mentioned on tv. most importantly, do your research before ANY buying and selling!

first of all, set up a trading account with a stock broker.

This site will give you some good information about the stock market.

http://www.stocks-simplified.com

Walk into an investment broker's office and say that you have some money saved and want to invest in a mutual fund. He or she will ask you a few questions. It might be a good idea to start educating yourself about stocks, what they are how they work, business financial statements, how the stock market system of trading works, what to look for in an investment. You can learn much by reading the Wall Street Journal, the Business Investors Daily, or Barrons-a weekly newspaper. These are all available at most public libraries.

Educate yourself on stocks and start with low cost, no load mutual funds.

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