Help, learning about the stock market!?!?

Question

OK, so I don't know much about the stock market or anything with it, but how can someone make money off it? My dad told me its a great way of making money and larning about financial repsonsibilities, but I don't know anything about it! Also, what is E-trade? How do I use it, how do i start? Can someone give me an introduction, plz? thanxs

Answer 1

Take this free course:

http://www.morningstar.com/Cover/Classro...

Most people LOSE money in the stock market because no one knows what will happen in the future and people get very emotional and make stupid mistakes.

What you might do is try stock simulation trading and see how you do.

http://www.smartstocks.com/

Meanwhile, learn about index funds and proper investing principles. Here's a good book:

http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-I...

Answer 2

You can learn about the stock market without spending a dime. In fact, that is the best way to learn about stocks.

Classes/education can help, but most people are not in the field of finance. The best way to learn though is hands on. Try out Motley Fool's free stock game. It allows you to learn about stocks and compare your returns with the S&P500 (one of the benchmarks for the US market). Additionally, you get to learn valuable information from your fellow investors.

The best way to learn about the stock market is without the risk of losing capital.

Alternatively, you can start out by investing in a broad based index fund or an ETF/Mutual fund that tracks a broad based index. The aforementioned will ensure that you have a diversified porfolio and reduce the risk of beginner mistakes.

Answer 3

you need to pay 500 dollors to make an e trade account, so if ur young like me that is too much

Answer 4

the other guy who answered the question said you need 500 dollars to start an E-trade accout. 500 dollars can get easily and your dad would definitly be happy to help you. once you have an E-trade account you need to pay $6.99 to $9.99 per trade as a commision for E-trade. when you trade i suggest you buy stocks from the growing market of china and india. for chinese stocks buy from companies who have the government backing them up like Huawei or Baidu.com trust me these are the secrets of many chinese million and billionaire investors.

Answer 5

try share builders.  you can start with very little and they only charge you $4 per investment.  I also suggest for you to go to the library, they have a lot of books about investing, please do not do anything untill you learn something about the stock market.

Answer 6

here are some steps to  prepare you.

Step 1.

First decide what kind of brokerage you want to work with. You can open a brokerage account in your bank, with a large full service brokerage or an internet brokerage. I find when I get help, most people want to sell me things that are better for them….

So I use http://www.scottrade.com because it’s cheap and easy with low frills. I like their streaming quotes and I do my own research and make my own investments. But any low cost internet brokerage service is fine.

Step 2. get a subscription to Barrons or Investors Business Daily… Do this for 6 months or a year. At first, It seems a bit mysterious, but pretty soon you start to understand the terms and things that investors are looking for and what they are afraid of.

Step 3. If you have some money to invest, put it in 3 month CD’s right now. First the market is unstable and second you have some homework in Step 3 to do before you do any investing.

Step 4. Go out to the internet and search on the following subjects. Become very familiar with the concepts.

Asset allocation

Long term investing

inflation  

Roth ira vs ira

Large med small cap

Value vs growth

Indexed mutual funds

No load mutual funds

ETF

Sector funds

Bonds CD preferred stock

dividends

International funds

Market cycles

volatility

Fundamental analysis

Technical analysis

In most cases, I think it is wise to use indexed mutual funds and ETF to build the base of your portfolio.

Step 5 go to http://clearstation.etrade.com/ and sign up for a free account. Play around there by looking at graphs and fundamentals. If you click on the graph names, you will get clear information about what the graph means and how to interpret it. I think it’s also a good idea to pretend you have $10,000 and start buying and selling on paper. Keep track of where you are each day for a month… It’s a lot easier to lose play money then real money….

WARNING: don’t rely on technical analysis alone. These graphs are good at telling you WHEN to buy and sell, but not WHAT to buy.

Don’t get involved with futures, currency, options (unless you get stock options at work), commodities, annuities or other derivative type investments at this time.

It would be wiser to build a portfolio with broad based asset allocation through diversified mutual funds and etf's (After you have spent a lot of time in step4, you will understand what this means and why it is wiser)

Good Luck