I want to invest in stocks using ING direct, whats the best way for a Newbie in Investing??

Question

I know that you can also stick to mutual funds, but i want to invest, and do the minimum of 50$. Im also opening a CD through ING

Answer 1

Its great that you are looking at investing your money. I suggest that you get the book " The Motley Fool Investment Guide" by David and Tom Gardner. Its a great book for a beginner and they make it real easy to understand. I invest in the market and have made a great deal of money so it is a great tool for building wealth but you need to have a plan. ING is great, especially the sharebuilder portion which is a great tool for beginners because you can buy fractions of a share of stock. I also would stay away from mutual funds. Most mutual funds don't beat the major indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow and they also have high management fees. Be sure to look at ETF's  (exchange traded funds) instead. They are great tools for invest tools for beginners. Good luck ! p.s.  you can get the book on amazon.com for about $10

Answer 2

identify your investment style, including your long-term (or short-term) goals. know your risk profile, your time horizon, liquidity needs, and any other specific relevant info.

maybe try being an event-driven investor. you identify some macro type trend, like for example, all the rural people moving into the cities in china. so that points you towards investing in china. so you have a notebook w/a heading 'China'.....then you start to do your research and keep notes, and always refer to your basic tenets of your investment profile and needs.

Or keep notes based on sector. do you do fundamental analysis? yes, if you're in it for the LT. if you have a section in your notebook that keeps 'hotlisted' stocks ...have a column of important financial ratios that you always fill out to give you some perspective on how healthy these companies really are.

you'll get more ideas jsut from reading the WSJ and other good sources of info, but don't spend too much time worrying about HOW you're going to organize your investment thoughts, but rather WHAT your ivnestment thoughts are. spend more time learning than organizing. although organzing your thoughts is obv. important.

you can look up some small cap mutual funds, and then, on morningstar for example, you can look up their holdings. or also check on www.sec.gov for their filings which would provide some idea of what they're investing in.

there are more sophisticated tools out there also where you can screen by size, etc but they tend to be expensive. bloomberg is the best one out there but it costs like $30K a year.

Answer 3

Investing in mutual funds are safe considering stock market. You can invest in share market if you are interested in taking risks and making money. It presents a great opportunity to make money.