Stock buying question?

Question

If I were to buy stocks, I always said I wanted to buy part of a stock I knew would be consistent like McDonalds or G.E or even Starbucks. I know thesee re big corporations. I'm pretty sure it's not as easy as I think it would be. Are shares in these things expensive? I always thought they would be a little cheaper b/c they are so huge. Please I'm just interested, be nice and give helpful answers. Just a gal trying to better her life

Answer 1

blue chips are the best ones - and they can be anything from $20 - $200+

the stock market trades 9:30 to 4:30 Eastern Time in the US and about $25 billion per day changes hands

I am finding better success in FOREX trading - that's the Foreign Exchange for currencies. They trade around the world beginning about 5pm on Sunday night and going through 5 pm Friday afternoon.

They trade a measly $3 trillion a day.

Other differences include the fees to trade. e.g. (for example) The broker you register with and deposit monies to will charge you a fee on each side of the trade($7-$10 so that becomes a value of $14 to $20 'round trip')(buying and selling=  a round trip)

AND

There is also the difference between the Bid and Ask price - which the trader on the "floor" charges to handle that transaction. So you buy 100 shares of stock @ $20 /per = you pay $2007 for the first transaction. Now if the "trader" charges 25 cents a share to sell, then they will give the seller $19.75 x 100 and pocket the $25 as his commission.

Say the shares go up $5 a share (woohoo!) and you want to cash out:

So you send the SELL order. The person buying pays $25 x 100 + their $10 fee to their broker. You get back $24.75 x 100 - $7 selling transaction to your broker (remember the "trader" gets $25 ( a quarter x 100) so you make 2475-7 = 2468 minus your original 2007 = $461 pure profit.

****

In the Forex market - you don't have a broker, you only have the bank acting as your trader. I 'play' a trading game using play money on

http://www.oanda.com and they 'charge' anywhere from 2.5-4 pips as their commision. And you can readily see this in the quote box.

Take the Great Britain Pound and US Dollar pair. 1 pound = 1.8749 at the beginning of the 1 am hour. by the time the hour finished, it had climbed to 1.8762. The incremental difference of 13 pips, or price incentive points, means that had you "bought" this pair and then sold it, you would have made a minimum of 9 pips (-4 for the dealer) and that happend in a 5 minute window - so depending on the size of your "lot" you could have made some  money!

Right now in the 3 am hour - it's at 1.8761 (dropped a little from it's 2 am close) and it has already fallen 10 in the first 5 minutes - ooops 15)

and I missed the trade

no worries - was my day to watch - my goal is 4 pips a day = 20 for the week - and I already have 29! So I am done!

I think another good learning site for the details is baby pips . com

some good lessons

and you can start with a $1,000 - $2,000 investment - BUT - play the

'game' first and lose the monopoly money. I left a trade over last weekend - and had to go to work - dropped my account $3k of my $100k play) OUCH - the lesson hurt - but only my pride!

all the best

Answer 2

don't quit your day job. You have a LONG way to go before you have any business investing money in stocks.

Answer 3

just google "x corporation investor relations" and one of the first few sites that pop up will take you straight to the page were you look up the sort of stuff. the address should be pretty obvious. once there you can look up all that stuff. the closing stock prices for the day as well as over certain periods of time will all be there.  

Answer 4

I wouldn't start out buying individual stocks, I believe that if you want to invest properly the first thing you should do is invest in your 401K, if you have one, at least to get the company match if 1 is offered.  Then fully fund Roth IRA's if after that you still have money to invest diversify your holdings into mutual funds with a low cost broker (such as vanguard) look to diversify your holdings between growth, growth and income, and international.  I would advise investing less than 10% of your total investments into speculative stocks.  No single stock is going to be consistent, at one time General Motors was the largest corp in the world and today they are running very close to bankruptcy.  By diversifying your portfolio you will run the least risk and enjoy gains in the market.  Remeber one thing, these type of investments are for the long term.