ONLINE STOCK TRADING...how to start? what to do?

I want to play with my money a bit..in hopes of a profit ofcourse!
I know nothing about stocks .please help? where to begin, how and what to invest in..pretty much the basics.
thanks!!!

Before youy even think about opening a brokerage account, or spending any of your money, you better learn what you doing first. You can take some of the advice in some of the responses, but you'd better be careful.
At least read the response from someone that has been investing for over 55 years and has spent 40+ years in the industry.

Before you invest in any security, the first investment you should make is in yourself, and the best investment you can make is by educating yourself.

Start your education by learning why you should invest and the importance of being able to make your own decisions or what the proâ€™s make theirs. Start by reading,
What Works on Wall Street by James O'Shaunessey
Beating the Street by Peter Lynch
One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch
The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom
Trading For a Living by Alexander Elder
Mastering the Tradeâ€ by John Caster
How to Make Money in Stocksâ€ by William Oâ€™Neil
The Disciplined Trader by Mark Douglas

Get into the habit of making daily visits to some websites like MSN Money and Yahoo Finance. (http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp http://finance.yahoo.com/ )
While at MSN following the strategy lab analysts to get a feel for what the pros are doing and why. This site has some basic information for beginners. If any site offers free information, take it. Other website that can provide instructions and help with procedures and terminology are
Investopedia - http://www.investopedia.com/ Stock Charts - http://stockcharts.com/
Other - http://www.investorshub.com/ http://www.1source4stocks.com/

Visit some of the more professional websites like Zacks - http://www.zacks.com/
Smart Money - http://www.smartmoney.com/ Schaefferâ€™s â€“ http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/
Some of these web sites will have advertisers who are worth looking into also. And remember, if they offer free information, get it.

Attend all the free seminars you can, just be careful and donâ€™t get pressured into anything you really donâ€™t want or need. Most schools offer courses in finance and economics, but very few will have courses on the mechanics of the investment markets, if they do try taking the course. You may want to consider on-line courses, the New York Institute of Finance use to have such courses. Try to get some fee information from the stocks exchanges they all have (had) free booklets, SIAC and some of the regulators (FINRA SEC MSRB CBOE) may provide some free literature.

You at least have made the right decision to start investing, this is the first big step and it wonâ€™t be your last. Keep taking those steps forward and along the way never take the advice from people that are not in the market or try to tell you not to invest.

Good luck on your journey

liana, please dont fall into what others may be telling you, i advise you to use zecco, its highly recommended by the largest firms, but only after you confirm this on your own, trust me you'll feel better about it. they also are the only ones that have free stock trades {4.50 if acct is less than 2500, wich is still the cheapest in the industry!} no minumum to open either.

http://friends.zecco.com/r/697a2d7e6fe4102b8555

I knew nothing about stocks then I found this website

I use it - and have joined the members area

http://www.investmentintelligence.com.au/cmd.php?Clk=2208474

Best regards

There are many brokerage.coms, such as Ameritrade, DLJdirect, SureTrade, Datek, Charles Schwab, E-Trade. These competitions bring benefit to investor, due to the price wars from those companies. To be successful in online trading, you must pay attention on how much they charge for commission, and how frequent do you trade. To choose a brokerage company, you should consider:
â€¢ The service they gave, like technical analysis.
â€¢ How reliable is the trading system, is there any fatal error / bug in the system.
â€¢ How easily do you use the trading system, when you want to trade is it easy for you to give the instruction.
â€¢ How fast do you log into the trading system, the more people using the system the slower the system will run.

investing for dummies book

Research company. Debt to equity ratio. Divide total liabilities by owner equity. If above 1, those companies are relying more on debt. Those companies may lack the funds (assets) neede to pay of those debts.

Return on equity-
Net income divided by total owners equity. (Income earned from each dollar invested).

Stay away from options. Options are advanced for the beginner in stocks. Personally, I'd get preferred stock rather than common stock. Why? Much much less of a risk. Although, common stockholder do get voting rights. May be you don't want voting rights? May be you just want a few shares of stock? If you are willing to take a huge risk, then you can go for common stock. Remeber-the higher the risk, the bigger the payoff. I'm not into risks.

check out the P/E ratio. Earnings per share is calculated by dividing the total income after taxes by number of common shares outstanding. All this info is on their balance sheet, Statement of Cash Flows and Income Statement. I'm still learning about EPS and P/E ratios and I'm doing research on NSANY (Nissan).

The first thing you need to do is go to Y! Finance or CNN Money or Forbes or any other financial website and do researcch on the type of company you want to invest in. Find something that you think may be in a growth or stable stage.

Investing in Nike may not be a great choice at first glace-I have not looked at their financials. However, in thinking about the economy- may be more people are walking and taking a bus to where they need to go (as opposed to driving) and therefore-more people are purchasing new walking shoes? Some thing goes for hybrid cars. Check out all of the distributors for your local stores. The economy will help you decide what stock or what market sector/industry to research.

A good website to start investing is www.sharebuilder.com They have low fees for purchasing stock. As for what to purchase look at companies that you personally like and do as much research on their financial reports (income statement, balance sheet, etc.) as you can. You could also pick up some books on the subject at Barnes and Noble or whatever book store is around you.

IÂ´ve been investing for more than 20 years and trading for almost 14, and I can tell you that if you want to make BIG and FAST profits, I recommend you trading rather than investing, trading can help you to go from rags to rich.

If you are investing, you must have already achieved some degree of financial success, long term stock investing and FOREX can help you become much richer than you are today.

My experiences as a Nasdaq Market Maker, Head trader of several brokerage firms, and currently as a professional trader and private hedge fund manager, I can suggest you that:

We trade because we want quick, short term profits on a consistent basis. We want to cash flow the market. Milk it like a cow.

Make consistent, small, short term gains rather than trying to hit a home run on every trade. Don't ever forget that.
Don't marry a stock, marry the idea of making money trading stocks. That's the only way to do it.

For me "All stocks are equally worthlessâ€

I don't hold on to any illusion that the stock market will continue to go up and provide a nice retirement for me.
I could care less which way the market goes. It's irrelevant to me if the market goes higher, crashes or moves sideways for the next 50 years. I really could care less. Stocks are just four letters with two prices next to them that I use to make a living trading.

Trade ONLY when you have a clear, easy and identifiable advantage, because without a CLEAR EDGE your odds of success are NO better than a flip of a coinâ€¦ ThatÂ´s why so many new traders (and investors) lose money.

Take a look at any daily chart of any index or stock and you'll probably see the most volatility and the biggest opportunity for profit during the first Hour of the stock market's opening.

The popular thinking and conventional wisdom is that you should wait about an hour before you start trading.

But if you do, you'll miss the big, fast moves that stocks make as all the amateurs let their emotions out through their
online accounts, usually right after they read some news headline or hear Maria Bartiromo go off about a stock on CNBC.

It's easy to see why trading the open is the market's prime time for profiting from other online traders.
The market's open is very volatile - that is the perfect environment for LARGE, FAST profits.

Learn to trade as a professional Market Maker ,not as an emotionally driven amateur trader or investor with few thousand dollars in an account at Etrade.

There isn't any other time during the day or any stock you can invest in, that can make you 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or more points
in minutes OTHER than during the first hour the stock market is open. That's why I love trading the open so much.

I trade only when I have an edge and that means "only the first hour the market is open".

If you are a beginning trader, you can give yourself an unfair advantage in the market trading this way.

I can carry on with the advises about how to make money trading, but if you ask me:

"What is the best thing you can do for me?

I will say:

Give yourself a BIG favor and go to this "Top Secret" site and learn how to get the BEST stocks that will make the largest and fastest day trading profits youÂ´ve ever seen...

www.onehourtrading.com

After you review this site you wonÂ´t need system, strategy, book, software or mentor to tell you what to do,
you will be able to profit HUGE every day.

Good luck and good trading,

Jonny

I would recommend to do the research on the company first of which you want to buy the stocks for by looking at its financial information such as ratios like EPS(Earnings per share, P/E (price per earning), looking at the financial statements.

You can also follow this link to look for almost any company's important financial information to help you make your investment decision(s):

http://finance.google.com/finance

GOOD LUCK!

I would start with scottrade with at least 2000 in the account and make sure it has margin and options enabled to further your knowledge and start by buying one stock at a time its very easy and once you have your own money involved you will pick up rather fast....experiece is knowledge...and for further tips on the right stocks or options to buy that will make you money every day...go to tradeking.com and join the community club called before the bell speculators ...the stock suggestions there are 95% accurate....you cant get any better than that....I would do that now after you read this message that way you can be on your way

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment:

Archive: Forum -Forum -Finance - Links - 1 - 2 - RSS - All RSS Feeds
The Causes and the Results. 0.054
Copyright (c) 2011 Financial Crisis Monday, May 28, 2012 - Terms of use - Privacy Policy