I wanna get involved in the stock market. What do I do?

What is all this stuff with trades and options and stuff?

As i have said before:

It's a gamble basically. I would suggest studying up before you invest. You may spend $1,000 learning how the stock market works but in the long run the chance of you losing your money is lessoned because of it.

Maybe subscribing to one of the financial magazines would be a good idea, and there are lots of books out there. There are also alot of websites started by people who have succeded and many of them to courses and seminars.

I am also reading books like rich dad poor dad and the book called why we want you to be rich by Richad Kowosaki(or however you spell it) the same author as rich dad poor dad and also by The Apprentice maker Donald Trump. They teach you alot about the stock market but more about financial management as a whole which is important when thinking of investing in anything.

You better educated yourself very well in this field. Very risky and you better have a strong stomach to lose money.

What you need to do is reaserch the certain stocks, if there is a certain company your interested in, look at there % rate, if its low it is good to buy because its cheap, but if it just plain out sucks your not going to make any money, and also dont buy something when its very high and going up fast, because its most likely it will shoot down after awhile, but if you do decide to buy it, sell it quickly and dont wait a long time

Try learning by joining an investment club and just putting in a few dollars a month. Go to www.betterinvesting.org to find a club and for inexpensive classes where you can learn. Or read www.fool.com or any of their books. Or read, "How to Buy Stocks without a Broker" for more details: it's at www.drip-investor.com

Easy. Set yourself a limit of money you will allow yourself to lose, and open an account.

Study study study. I put the links to the best sites to use below.

You'll want to start off by educating yourself. Go by a library or a bookstore and get an intro book, or also cruise by Morningstar.com or investopedia.com. In a nutshell stocks are partial ownership stakes in corporations--if you own a share of stock in, say, Apple you own a small part of the company (something like 1/800 millionth in Apple's case) and are entitled to a share of the profits the company makes. In addition to this people may be willing at a later date to pay you more for the stock you've bought than you paid for it.

First start by opening an online brokerage account (www.scottrade.com, www.tradeking.com). Make sure you get a broker that has low commissions (the fees for selling stocks; preferably under $10/trade) and doesn't charge a user fee (something like an 'account maintenance fee') just for having an account.

If you're under 18 (or 21 in a couple of states) you may need your parents to open an account for you.

Once you have an account I'd recommend buying what are known as exchange traded funds. These are mutual funds that trade on the stock market like stocks, and allow you to own a little stock in a large number of companies. This saves you the trouble of researching individual stocks and eliminates the chance that you'll pick a bad stock. Two examples that track the S&P 500 (a list of the 500 biggest US companies) are the SPDR fund (SPY) and the iShares fund (IVV).

I took the online investment coarse at http://investools.com. I am now taking the options course. Two weeks ago I made a 142% return on an option and over 75% return on another. Today I'm sitting on a 30% return and a 8% return on two options I bought into last week.

Most people are affraid to spend money to make money. I know now that wealth isn't for everybody. Only those who are willing to take some risk. And then there are those who expect to get rich from visiting Yahoo Q/A Investing.

read the following books first before you invest any money.

1 the intelligent investor
2 security analysis
3 a financial accounting text book

For a great website to look at try http://www.goldenbullstocks.com they are very informative.

Standard investment advice is that you should invest in a diversified mix of stocks, bonds, and money market funds. You want to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks as individual stocks are too risky. Most folks have a dificult time buying a properly balanced portfoilio of stocks on their own. They will misbalance their portfolio by buying all small stocks or all growth stocks, or some other misbalanced assortment of stocks. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best to buy mutual funds. I like Vanguard.com, other people like Fidelity, TIAA-CREF, and DFA. Buy no-load, low cost funds. If you are like most people you will invest part of your money aggressively in stock funds, and part conservatively in money market funds and bond funds. Vanguard.com has an on-line questionnaire which will give you an idea of how to do "Asset Allocation," determining how much to put in each type of fund.

If your company offers a 401K plan at work, try to invest the most you can. The money grows tax free, and some companies will match your contribution. Investing in a mutual fund IRA is also a good idea. If you have children, you may want to consider a 529 plan or other college savings plan that grows tax free.

I like index funds. Because of their broad diversification, you are less likely to have a dramatic drop in value. They also have the lowest expenses. For stock funds, I would suggest putting ~70-80% of your money in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. and ~20-30% in a foreign stock index fund. However, there are many different opinions out there on what the best mutual funds are. Read the links below and form your own opinion.

If you have high-interest debt, like credit cards, it is best to pay this off first before trying most of the investment ideas above. You should also have 3-6 months of salary saved up as an emergency fund in a bank or money market fund before trying more risky investments.

Believing advice you get on Yahoo answers can be risky, so read these websites for further information. If you find it too confusing, contact a professional financial advisor. They will charge you significant commissions, however.

Sources:

http://www.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/planni...
http://www.fool.com/school.htm
http://sec.gov/investor/pubs/assetalloca...
http://www.diehards.org/readsites.htm
http://finance.yahoo.com/education/begin...
http://finance.yahoo.com/funds/basics

Asset Allocation Calculators
(Determining how much to put in stocks and how much into bonds and money markets is a personal decision depending on your financial status. These Asset Allocation questionaires give you a rough idea how to do this. I like Vanguard best, but try some of the other sites as well.)
https://personal.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/...
https://ais2.tiaa-cref.org/cgi-bin/WebOb...
http://www.ifa.com/SurveyNET/index.aspx

Web forum: http://www.diehards.org/
(Many investment web forums are overrun by scam artists. This one seems the most legitimate site.)


529 plans: http://www.savingforcollege.com