where could I learn about/buy stock ?

Question

I would like to buy stock but nothing over $25. Also could you recommend at good stock to get into (THANKS FOR YOUR HELP)?

Answer 1

www.sharebuilder.com is good but i like firstrade.com.. sharebuilder has a $25/year fee for retirement accounts, and firstrade doesnt.
BEWARE OF TRADING COSTS. the costs are clearly stated.. but
spending $4 on sharebuilder(who is one of the cheapest) ... it would be a losing game to buy any less than $400 worth at a time. the trading cost.. aka the cost to buy.. should not exceed 1% of the amount your buying. otherwise your taking a huge hit right off the bat and the odds are against u doing better than the market.
so dont sign up for their monthly automatic investing unless you have enough money to make the $4 be 1% or less of the amount your buying.. aka unless your rich..
so just turn on your "investment plan" when u have enough and then turn it back off after.

www.firstrade.com is good too.. they dont try and get you to sign up for the monthly automatic crap .. they are a little more expensive at $7 per trade tho.

the most important thing u will learn.. hopefully not the hard way.. is that through buying individual stocks you are very unlikely to do better than the stock market does in general.. there are hundreds of thousands of people paid millions each to try and attempt to beat the market(people that run mutual funds).. but after their fees, taxes etc the vast majority do worse than if they were to just buy the market thru a cheap index fund.

this is very important.
so what do u do? you buy the whole market.

i recommend VTI ..an exchange traded fund. you buy it like a stock and for all your intents and purposes it is.. but owning one share is owning the entire american market. its simple, and cheap.. (expense is 0.07% per year) and you are likely to do better than most mutual funds that invest in america.

if you simply dont have the loot to make the comission of purchasing stocks <1% of the amount your buying... then an index fund is appropriate.. with these you do not pay at all to put money in.. use firstrade.com for these.
so:
appropriate index funds:
VTSMX and VGTSX you will be in most of the worlds markets.
(split 50/50 between the two)

appropriate exchange traded funds:
45% vti- whole american market
45% efa - most other developed nations
10% eem - most developing nations

learning:
http://www.fundadvice.com/home/
http://www.eustis-invest.com/
http://www.morningstar.com/Cover/ETF.html?topnav=etfs
http://www.indexuniverse.com/
http://www.etfconnect.com/
https://www.firstrade.com/en_us/index.htm
http://www.sharebuilder.com/sharebuilder/default.aspx

Answer 2

Ah the barrier of entery guy thinking low prices means bigger profits. Well take a look at GOOG. It started off at $85 and two years later it's in the $500s. Sorry, but you probably won't find good stock under $25 in this 6 year bull market. You want percentages. You would rather have that $100 stock that goes up 10% than that $10 stock that goes up 5%.

Check out investopedia.com. Barchart has technical opinon sections divided up into individual stocks, stocks in sectors and stocks as a whole.
http://www2.barchart.com/sigtop.asp

Answer 3

I would recommend www.sharebuilder.com. This is how I learned how to buy and sell stock. There is no minimum investment and its very easy to use. The only draw back is that the basic account is not real time day trading. You are allowed so many transactions per month, otherwise they want you to purchase their day trading account. This is an excellent way to learn the ropes without worrying about mistakes while learning.

Answer 4

I just bought Energy Conversion Devices, symbol ENER. They make batteries for hybrid cars.

For investment ideas, you should see what the best investors are buying and selling. Check out 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

Good luck.

Answer 5

Search "direct stock purchase plans" and find companies that will let you buy directly from them without a broker.

Also hit up "scott trade" website and check out their education section.

Read read read all the books you can find at the library about investing.

Answer 6

Hi, i suggest a great site with plenty of Issues related to your Investing and everything around it. it also provide clear and accurate answer to many common questions.

http://investing.sitesled.com/

I am sure that you can get your answers in this website.

Good Luck and Best Wishes!