Before stepping towards investment fresh investors always take their first steps towards acquiring the information on the basis of stock trading. Just in the case of riding a bike, trial and error coupled with the ability to keep pressing forth will eventually lead to success.
A great advantage of stock trading lies in the fact that the game lasts a lifetime. Investors have years to develop and sharpen their skills. Strategies used twenty years earlier are still utilized today.
1. Open a stock broker account: Find a good online stock broker and open an account. Become familiarized with the layout and to take benefit of the free trading tools and research offered to clients only. Some brokers offer virtual trading which is beneficial because you can trade with play money. A great tool for contrasting online brokers can be found at StockBrokers.com.
2. Read stock related books: Books provides abundance of information and their prices are most compared to the costs of classes, seminars, and educational DVDs sold across the Web.
3. Read articles: Articles are a fantastic resource for education. Our free Stock Education page here on StockTrader.com lists over 100 unique investment articles broken down into categories. Recommended websites for investment education are investopedia.com and of course Google search.
4. Find an advisor: A mentor could be a family member, a friend, a past or current professor, co-worker, or any individual that has a fundamental understanding of the stock market and will be able to guide you well. A good advisor will be eager to answer your questions, provide help, recommend useful resources, and keep spirits up when the market gets tough. All successful investors of the past and present have had advisors during their early days.
Forums can also be another source for question and answer. Two recommendations include Elite Trader and Trade2Win. Just keep in mind of who you listen to. The huge majority of participants are not professional traders, let alone profitable traders.
5. Study the greats: Learning about the greatest investors of years past will provide a whole new outlook, inspiration, and appreciation for the game which is the stock market. Great figures such as Warren Buffett, Jesse Livermore, George Soros, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch, John Templeton and Paul Tudor Jones, are such renowned personalities.
6. Read and follow the market: News sites such as Yahoo Finance and Google Finance provide a great resource for new investors. By keeping a check on the markets each day and reading headline stories investors can expose themselves to trends, 3rd party analysis, not to mention economic concepts and general business.
TV is another way to monitor the market every day. Turning on CNBC channel once a day will broaden an investor’s knowledge base.
7. Consider paid subscriptions:Paying for research and analysis can both be educational and beneficial. Some investors might have find watching recent news or observing market professionals to be more useful than applying in newly learned lessons.
8. Go to seminars; take classes: Seminars can provide worthy insight into the overall market and specific investment types. Most of the seminars will focus only on one specific aspect of the market and emphasizes how the speaker has succeeded utilizing their own strategies over the years. Some seminars are provided for free which can be of a great experience, just be aware of the sales pitch that will almost always come at the end.
9. Always use simulator while buying first stock or practice trading: With your online broker account setup, the best way to get started it to simply make your first trade. If trading with real capital is not possible then consider using a stock simulator for virtual trading. A diversity of online brokers offer virtual trading for practicing.
10. Passive and follow Warren Buffett: For the majority, trading will be losing proposition. Warren Buffett always recommends individual investors’ simply passive index instead of trying to beat the market trading on their own.