How to buy Stocks?

Question

How exactly do you buy stocks

Answer 1

Depends, you can try to be Joe stockbroker and open an on line account that allows you to trade your own money-

OR

You can go to a brokerage firm and open an account there and let a professional decide what and how much you should buy depending on amount of $, length of time your willing to hold, and risk tolerance. Just do your homework and find a company that has a good reputation-

Answer 2

It's Very Easy I do it all the time from home.

First you'll need a bank account. 2nd you'll need money duh:) 3rd you'll can go to any online stockbroker such as sharebuilder, td ameritrade, e-trade, charles schwab any many more.  Open an account with them. You have to give them your name, social security, and bank account # to transfer your money into your new brokers account. Now pick the stocks you want.  Click buy and done, there yours.

Answer 3

First, learn about the company. You should be able to write a book about the company before you buy the stock.

Answer 4

Find a broker, or..........

Maybe you should start ith a good NO LOAD mutual fund that has no hidden fees.  Money magazine has suggestions in every issue.  You could check Morningstar , a mutual fund rating site for some good choices.  Look for 4-star or 5-star rated funds.  Schwab.com has, I believe, a research tool that uses Morningstar.  When you feel comfortable enough, you can start to invest in individual stocks.

NAIC (National Association of Investors Corp. (see www.betterinvesting.org) is an organization that can help you find and choose good investments in stocks that offer stockholder investment plans, and this organization might be worth the cost of membership.

Good luck.

Answer 5

There are many ways some offer dividend reinvestment plans such as Disney they are also called DRPs or DRIPS OR you can get a self directed investment broker , I use thinkorswim.com I get $2.50 per stock trade ( this is the commission you pay them to get you the shares)  this is how you can aquire shares , you can usually do it through a broker don't get ripped off on commissions I suggest thinkorswim.com great quality.. spend no more then $7 on a stock order though for real. If you choose to do this throughout time and maybe want to dollarcost average I would suggest sharebuilder the thing that sucks is real time trades are $15 there, so if you needed to cut your losses quick this could hurt you more then help you.. real time trades are cheap at thinkorswim.com talk to their live help and you can bargain with them on commissions. Talk with Scott - [e-mail] and tell em you went to a seminar and you want a better commission or no ticket charge. Real time trades there for me are 2.50 for me by the way.. compared to $15 at Sharebuilder, $10 at Options Xpress, and $7 at scottrade.com and $4.95 at tradeking.com ..

So heres the steps required

1.Find A Broker that has low commissions and good service- Your also going to see if they have a minimum stock amount for an order, what the ticket charge is to buy them, and the minimum to open an account. Some will waive the minimum if you tell them you trade at a different broker currently and they will waive that minimum for you to have.

2.Choose what Kind of account you want. Traditional IRA ROTH IRA or regular account ( they are taxed differently so it does matter ) ROTH IRA is highly recommended if its a retirement account. There are many different types of accounts..

3. Your going to need to fill out some information at their open account tab at their website.

4. Usually they send you something that you just verify information with them, but not always, if they do , do this.

5. Fund your account, you can't buy stocks and sell stocks if you don't have the money to do this. The quickest way is a bankwire, they do accept checks and other payment types, and is usually displayed on the website, checks can take a long time before they get where their supposed to, I suggest the bankwire if you really want to do this( which is $25 at Wachovia if you bank there and free at WAMU )

6. After all this is completed you put a buy order on the stock that you want.

                   A suggestion I am liking PCU wait til it splits and hits $35 a share , then I would buy some when it splits, because when it does this it gives a $6.60 dividend or 18.8% return, thats not to mention this stock appreciates well to, and especially the way gas is everyone hedges oil rises with precious metals, which rises as oil does.

                In Addition a good way to create well for yourself is to enroll into a Dividend Reinvestment Plan this is offered free at all brokers, so this would be a great suggestion.

~~Example lets say you bought Citigroup ( C)  now and it yields 8% ( its not a good buy right now wait til Jan next year ). That 8% would go to buy more shares that yield 8%, that would go on to buy more shares at 8% yield, and the process continues as you get your dividends, this is just an idea that you may want to consider.