Please help a newbie learn to buy stocks

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Buy High, Sell Low. Er, maybe I was sleeping that day in class.

Or, ask me for detailed advice. Then do the opposite.
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As Tony knows, I was doing pretty good at playing around with a couple of stocks earlier this year. He put me on to them. They were low-dollar and volatile, but something I felt I could live with if I had to, which I now have to.

Anyway, what I did was to shoot for $100 profit in-and-out, and do it as often as possible. If price was going down I would make several buys, and then sell them at my profit margin when it came back up. It was fun.

It was like when K-mart shot craps a few years ago. It happened while we were driving to Florida and I heard it on the radio. So I bought some. A couple hours down the road I sold it, and made some decent money.

I use Ameritrade and have never had any problems with them.

[funtime2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close funtime2]

I will pass on the advise my dad gave me what I first bought stocks. "Only invest what you can afford to loose." I thought it was sound advise.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

e-trade, scotttrade, and sharebuilder

I have used /played with eTrade TDWaterhouse and Sharebuilder. DW used Scott and Schwab. Personally, I don't like Sharebuilder's automatic purchase program, although it is $4. I used it twice and it usually bought at the highest point in the day which is worse than the $$ you may see, besides, unless you buy ETF, you will have to readjust anyway.


eTade allows you to put money into other currency.

Unless you do day trade, I don't think you will feel any difference in any of them. You probably pick one with less fee per transaction. I believe in this case will be Scott.

They all provide rich interface, and tracking ability for tax purpose.

If you just start, instead of buying a company, you may want to buy ETF which is a pure index funds. You will not get too high return like a specific company, but you will guarantee see them return. And there are a lot of ETF. Like SPY, DIA, QQQQ, SPM all tracking part of more generic US market. You also have a lot of gloabl regional index like EWH, EWS, EPP, FXI, VWO, RXS, that tracking like China, Singapole, Hong Honk, Russia, ... There are also special sector's index. But at this moment, most likely a few companies will go under, mutual fund company can get rid of them, index will be much harder until the group that make the index get rid of them, so if you try to get in like Financial section, you maybe better buying mutual fund.

If there is some cheap companies you know very well, and has confindence with that company, you can buy them also.

Jya-Ning

[Icc5 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Icc5]

Been there, wish I listened

I will pass on the advise my dad gave me what I first bought stocks. "Only invest what you can afford to loose." I thought it was sound advise.

I also was told this by my parents and have followed the advice. The bad part for me is selling. I was considered rich at one point because my stocks had done so well except, I never sold anything. Now I have these same stocks and feel so stupid. Some days I have lost more in the one day then what my first house cost me. I am currently down about 55%. Most of the stocks I own are high dividend payers so I at least get that though my biggest holding BAC cut the dividend in half. As low as it had gone though makes it still a great yield on the dividend.
My advice from getting burned. Decide on a price to sell and when it hits that point, sell. The moon is a long way away and even if stocks seem headed in that direction they will never get there. Another words don't set your sight unrealistic. Take your profits and go on from there.
Bart

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

If you're looking to really learn about stock purchasing, there are a couple of organizations. You might be interested in this one if you'd like to join an investment club: BetterInvesting - Non-profit Investment Education. Or you could just join the organization on your own and read their magazine. They have tools that you can use to evaluate companies and stocks.

Another resource is AAII: Unbiased Stock Investing & Personal Finance Education from a Nonprofit Source.

Both of these groups are there to educate people on investing.

I also like Kiplinger's Personal Finance for general financial information.

Not that I haven't lost my shirt these last few weeks.

Sue

[3kids4me Super Moderator and Super Mom Find all posts View Profile Close 3kids4me]

I had to bump this. Go back and look at my post 10 on this thread. I did buy some EYE and wish I had bought a ton more. I bought it at around $4.00/share (or something very low like that) and it's now $22.00/share as it's potentially being acquired by Alcon. I only wish I had put a lot more into the stock, instead of the pretty meager amount I invested!

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

If only we could invest with hindsight. I think we are at or near the bottom of the market and the indicators were looking good today- I even bought some stock.

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

I started learning stock futures in an online class last night. Oh my poor head. I have 2-2 hour session per week for 3 weeks, plus homework, plus an online text session with tests.

Next is High Probablility Trading, and anti-acids.