Stock Market?

Question

I need to know how the stock market works and how to invest.

Answer 1

Yahoo finance has an excellent investing 101 ed section with links on the left side of the page

http://finance.yahoo.com/

http://finance.yahoo.com/education/begin_investing

But basically you can buy shares in companies (via a broker) that you believe will increase in value or have a dividend rate you like.
You can also buy bonds or CDs that pay a fixed interest rate.

I like Schwab as a broker because the agents are NOT paid on commission so they have no motive to sell you anything. You make all your own buy & sell choices but can ask them questions. They cannot trade in your portfolio, like some brokerages where they churn sales to get commissions.

Answer 2

I think the best way to get started in the stock market is to first see what the best traders are buying and selling and why. This is the idea behind the site http://www.top10traders.com - this is a free site that lets you create a portfolio of stocks with $100,000 in "play" money. Each day the site ranks the best performing portfolios, so you can see how your picks perform compared to other investors. You can also read posts on investing from the best traders, as well as share your own investing ideas.

Here are this month's best traders:

http://www.top10traders.com/Top10Standings.aspx

Hope this help.

Answer 3

The answers could fill a book. Many people develop their own style of trading. I used to trade futures seasonal options. You have to live it. You have to put your heart and soul into it or you will get burned. You will need to be very open minded and look at all issues involved with a stock or futures contract. Such as understanding charting, production numbers, future trends. You will or have to learn much patience and disapline so not to get beat up. Some lessons may have to be learned that way. Just keep them to small hits. Watch your wallet. There are many out there that will want to sell their wares and not have a track record to show or will hide it. Many investing companies are there because they could not make it alone trading. I would suggest going on e-bay to buy some used books. One I highly reccomend on learning some basic charting pertaining to what is really going on with our markets is key in Ted Warren. He was a long term trader that looked at 25 yr charts only.Stay away from Ken Roberts and the hype. His style of trading is for large fund traders only. You will have to look at other traders books and how they survive and then decide what will suit your temperment. Day trading? Options? Seasonal futures options? Long term 25 yr charting?Don't even think about trading until you can get a number of basics down. Trade with risk money only so the emotions will be detached and you can concentrate better.The party was over with our markets back in March of 2000. Still some down travel to be. Be careful and just study!! Then you will see that most things investors say will prove that talk is cheap. Sorry about some things here may have been something you did not want to hear, but the reality of trading is you have to put your heart and soul into it and see if you are cut out for it. Never hurts to study a little bit of everything anyway.

Answer 4

I have just the site for you, see http://ibooyah.com for recommendations as well as how you can get started. This is a great site, I've made money using this site and have also learned a lot about the stock market. Good Luck.

Answer 5

Books:

The super classic is Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre, the story of one of the biggest stock traders ever.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel is also a classic.

The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley is a huge classic, really amazing.

Don't forget The Cashflow Quadrant and Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities, from Martin Pring, is the best for technical stuff.

You can learn a lot by reading interviews of successful investors in Jack Schwager's books (Market Wizards I & II and others).

Jack Bernstein's The Investor Quotient is very, very good.


Web:

See http://www.equis.com/customer/resources/...
for technical analysis formulas.

See http://www.investopedia.com/, an online encyclopedia - very good.

See also http://invest-faq.com/

See http://www.prophet.net for online charts

See http://finance.yahoo.com/ - the best info

But the best website is: http://www.thekirkreport.com

Answer 6

It can be a rather complex discusion. I highly requimend that you may check one of the following books: Investing for Dummies,
Teach yourself investing in 24hrs. You should check out www.fool.com and the finaince section of yahoo

Answer 7

go to sites like icicidirect.com & moneycontrol.com