Investment tips? I am a rookie investor.?

Do you have any investment tips for a rookie investor? I am using ameritrade. Any kind of information would be helpful such as (where to do stock research? any specific stocks that are good to buy?)

It would take me hours to type out a full guide on investment advice for you but to be brief: I could not disagree more with that first response. Buying penny stocks is the stupidest investment decision you can make. Every experienced investor will agree that they are cheap for a reason. You are getting what you pay for. Some of the most famous investors had a rule: dont buy a stock under $10. Look at big companies with accelerated earnings and strong fundamentals that have been beaten down in this bear market. When the market turns around, they are the first to jump really high.

Choose a stock of a solid company(s) (in or outside the USA) that you believe has a future (or a mutual fund), and has a 3-5 year record of consistent growth of its share/stock price. Look in on its price and news articles (like through Yahoo Finance) every few days or daily to make sure nothing tragic is occurring to your particular company or stockâ€™s value. But HOLD it (except in the event of some major free-fall). Jumping in and out (selling the shares and buying them again within 3 business days) to avoid losses is only permitted by law if you are a â€˜margin traderâ€™. As you earn money you should also buy the stock of a company in a different industry, but using the same evaluation technique as above. Eventually you should hold at least one solid company's stock in several healthy industries.

This is a simple stock market plan that should serve you very well. Youâ€™ll need to contact a brokerage to start an account. I like Fidelity and Scottrade. Both have online trading. If you donâ€™t have an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) I would start a Roth IRA as the account in which to keep your stock because all the earnings/gains are tax-free. A HUGE benefit. And max the allowed contributions whenever you can afford to. You canâ€™t withdraw this money until age 59 Â½ without a major penalty, but still the wise thing to start first. You can also start a second regular brokerage account at the same time and place whatever amount of stocks in it, if you feel more comfortable knowing you can sell off and withdraw the money anytime. But youâ€™ll have to pay capital gains tax on those withdrawals.

Good luck.

Jesus is Lord.

Get educated and don't listen to people for stock tip. Learn the trade, study the market yourself or you can just give me the money :)

Not the best time for the market. Good news, hopefully you can get some bargain stocks.
Boomberg.com and Quicken.com are good for getting info, charts etc...
Your best bet is to make regular buys, monthly, quarterly. this is called dollar cost averaging and will pay big dividens in the long run.
Take a look at Apple and Ingersoll Rand.
Good luck

I'd recommend ETFs instead of individual stocks. You can buy the SPY (S&P 500) thru AMTD although it would be cheaper to just get the S&P 500 fund directly from Vanguard especially if you're gonna fund an IRA with money on a monthly basis.

Even the great companies can fall...

Look at Citibank (C) the biggest bank in the world which has fallen from 53 to 24. Now just how many analysts were out there saying C would fall in half ?

I make a habit of not giving buy, sell or hold recommendations.

Instead, I'll give you some very good basic trading trules.
A] There aren't any gifts on Wall Street.

B] Trees don't grow to Heaven - neither do stocks, bonds options, commodities or currency.

C] NEVER trade stocks with the designation .BB [dot BB], .PK [dot PK] or O.T.C. [Over-the-Counter]. These stocks are too risky and extremely volatile.

D] NEVER trade any stock less than $26.50 per share. Don't want become part of any "pity party".

E] NEVER trade any stock between $45.01 to $55. This area is "the doldrums" Stocks just seem to get stuck in this range.

F] V.I.C. P.I.E.
Volume Is the Cause. Price Is the Effect.

You want liquid stocks. NEVER trade any stock with consistent volume less than 400,000 shares per day. When a stock trades less than this amount, it can be very easily manipulated.

1] Plan your trade. THEN trade your plan.
1a] For each and every trade:
ALWAYS do your homework:
1b] ALWAYS check and make notes of the following:
Sector:
Company's Earnings Announcement Date
Splits
News
1c] NEVER "chase" a trade. ALWAYS let the trade come to you.
Have an entry price, a target price and a catastrophic exit price.

2a] NEVER listen to stock tips from anyone. ALWAYS investigate before you invest. When a strock doesn't meet any of your trading rules, don't trade that stock.

2b] Look for reasons to stay out of a trade rather than convincing yourself to get into a trade.

2c] The trend is your friend. ALWAYS trade in the direction of the market, sector and stock.

3] You only have to learn 3 to 6 strategies. ALWAYS have written rules for each and every trading strategy you use.

When you break your trading rules, you run the risk of breaking your trading account.

Paper trade, paper trade, paper trade, paper trade AND paper trade some more.

THEN when you go "live" - with real money, buy only a few shares.

This is THE ONLY way you will become familiar with your software AND your broker's trading site.

4a] Once you're in the trade, check your positon EVERY DAY.
4b] ALWAYS check the news for that stock EVERY DAY.

Bulls earn money. Bears earn money. Pigs get fat.
Hogs [greedy traders] get slaughtered - they lose A LOT of money!

5] A trader can earn money when the market goes up!
A trader can earn money when the market goes down!
A trader can earn money when the market goes sideways!

6] A trader trades people - not stocks, bonds, options, currency or any other commodity.

As far as where to do research: you can use the stock streamer on http://yahoofinance.com

for definitions and A paper trading engine:

http://investopedia.com

There are many others.

Thanks for asking your Q! I enjoyed answering it!

VTY,
Ron Berue
Yes, that is my real last name!

I'd look to start with small cap and/or penny stocks.

Why? You can buy a higher number of stocks for the same price as a bigger stock.

I liked GME (Gamestop, a video game store) a couple of years back. I bought at 18. Now it trades at 50 and has gone through a split. Can you say chu-ching?

I like BMC software as well and it's worked it's way up 12 points since I bought it.

However, if you're looking for fast turn overs, buy small stocks is even better.

Let's say you have $1k
You could buy 20 shares of GME @ 50
You could buy 33 shares of BMC @30 or
You could buy 200 shares of AHT (an REIT) @5

If all of these shares were to go up $1, which are you going to make more money off of?

Now if you're looking for long term dividends, you'll need a lot of money going in, or a long time to acquire preferred stock slowly

Since the market isn't in good shape think of CD's mutual funds until the market is in better shape. See http://hubpages.com/hub/interestincome for more info.

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