I want to start playing the stock market...but I am clueless about it.?

Question

Im a stay home mom and I would to do something with my spare time, and the stock market seems interesting to me.
I live in Edmonton Alberta Canada, can someone help me out or give some advice?
Any good sites?

Answer 1

If you are cluelss then 'playing' in the markets is a very good way to lose a lot of money. I have an MBA in finance and I wouldn't 'play' in the market. There are way too many participants in the market with expertise and sophisticated computer programs waiting for you...

If you want to invest then put your money in a mutual fund. The key to investing if you aren't an expert is to diversify and hold for the long run (10 years or more.) Unless you can diversify (buy 20 or more companies stock) then a mutual fund is the only way to go.

If you are determined to play, try this. Take any market index The djia is one, rank all the stocks by their price-earnings ratio. Buy the bottom quintile, (the bottom fifth) wait a year. At least one of those will be way undervalued and make a lot. The others will muddle along. But this should get you a return of 12-14% over the year. Rerank one year later and buy the bottom quintile again, etc.

Answer 2

Hello there,
At first sight the stock market seems to be interesting, but in fact it's extremely risky and not that simple.
So...what do I mean:
At first you need to determine your goals- Do you need to earn more money for shorter time? And you are ready to lose them as well?...Or you don't want to gamble and need reasonable investment?
If you want to play the risky way I suggest you buy CFD.
I have never played with CFD's but I think this site has something for you: gcitrading.com (As I say don't trust them at 100% :)
If you want to invest not that gambling, try "futures" or "options".
I have experience with both and as well in forex, so far I prefer forex above all, but that's not a stock...just a currency trading(forex=foreign exchange).
Or you could invest your money in some kind of public fund and
a broker will manage them for you with a very small monthly return.

Just play your cards by the best possible way :)

Answer 3

I think the best way to learn about investing is to see what the best investors are buying and selling. You can find this information at 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. There is also a charting feature , so you can see how your portfolio performs compared to the S&P 500.

Here are this month's best traders:

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

Good luck.

Answer 4

Like the above guy said it is very easy to lose money in the market. You are up against wall street gurus and think tanks who do nothing day after day but plot and scheme how to outwit the average investor and take money from the market. You are also up against every industry insider and employee who has access to channel checks and industry information before you do. Just fair warning.


You could take a look at www.motleyfool.com, I don't really care for them but it might have some educational value.

Answer 5

Try Sharebuilder.com, they are the easiest online stock broker. You'll learn how to trade stocks easily with them!

It's also very cheap to invest with them. Just $4 to buy stocks!

Just go to http://www.sharebuilder.com/ and check out the Investor Starter Kit at the Retail Store.

Answer 6

First of all, you never "PLAY" the stock markets. You either "TRADE" or "INVEST" in the stock markets. This may be just a change of words but a very important one that governs the way you approach this serious matter deep in your mind. People who frequently use the word "play the stock markets" usually find themselves broke in no time and people like me who use the word "invest in the stock markets" tend to last a very long time.

Ok, getting down to business. Technically, it is extremely simple with today's information era to invest or trade stocks and shares. You simply need to open a trading account, fund that account, buy a stock and sell it later at a higher price for a profit. Simple?

Well, that simplicity is exactly the sheep skin that hides the wolf beneath. That is exactly the expressway to wasting a lot of money.

Investing or trading the stock markets never start from opening a trading account... it starts from adequate investment and trading knowledge. There are quite a number of things you need to learn before you can even start thinking of the stock markets ...

1. You need to understand how the stock market works and what it is exactly about.

2. You need to know what are the different styles of trading in stocks and shares.

3. You need to read about why so many people lose their shirts in the stock markets so that you can avoid their mistakes and also decide if this is a risk you want to take.

For all these issues and more, you can read about them from some of the articles that I wrote at http://www.mastersoequity.com/articles.htm

After you are adequately armed with the basic concepts and ideas, you need to know how to find profitable stocks to trade or invest in. You can do that the easy way by subscribing to stock pick services (example http://www.stockpickmaster.com ) or you can learn to use charting tools and softwares to find stocks with parameters that you can pre-define. (example http://www.worden.com )

Remember, the slogan "Just Do It", Just won't do for the stock markets. If profiting in the stock markets is as simple as buying a single stock , then why are so many people still poor?

After you have all the above mentioned knowledge, you need to ask the following golden questions before you can decide whether a stock is worth buying or not :

1. Why are you of the opinion that this stock will rise?

2. Is your opinion valid in the first place?

3. When are you expecting it to rise? Can you hold on for that period of time or longer?

4. What is your expected entry price? After what price would your expected profit margin be too thin to enter upon?

5. Where is your expected stop loss point? What is your stop loss point based on? Where will you tell yourself that it is time to take a loss and get out?

6. Where is your expected profit taking point? What is your profit taking point based on?

7. Does the way you are buying the stock allow you to hold on until your expected profit taking point?

8. How much of your money should you dedicate to this one trade?

9. What is the level of primary, secondary and idiosyncratic risk you are undertaking when deciding how much of your fund to use?

10. What is your cashflow need? Does your cashflow needs allow you to hold the full lifetime of the stock?

After you are able to answer all these questions confidently, THEN you are ready to... PAPER TRADE your stock strategy. Yes, even at this point, you are NOT READY to trade for real. You should trade on PAPER for at least 6 months and become consistently successful BEFORE you take your stock strategy into real life.

Then.. you are ready to start... but there is still no guarantee of success as paper trading is very different from real trading. You will need another maybe 1 year or 2 trading very little money and be consistently successful BEFORE you are ready to increase your stakes.


So, as you can see, success in the stock markets is not easy at all the the less knowledge you have, the more risk you undertake. I lost hundreds of thousands in the stock markets before I become successful.

Take heed and good luck.


All in all, investment and trading is a lifelong education and non stop learning. No one is ever done learning and catching up with changes in the markets.

If you care to read about how I went from completely broke to retired millionaire trading stocks and options by 28 years old, you can go to http://www.mastersoequity.com/

Hope these information helps.


http://www.optiontradingpedia.com/

.

Answer 7

Investopedia.com has a simulator that uses real stocks and other traded investments found on ''Wall Street'' Try there first they have alot of good basic tutorials.

Answer 8

I was like that in 1999 and in 2002 I was 145,000 dollars poorer.Now on the road to recovery I own a 5.5% very safe cd.

Answer 9

invest time first

study ebooks PPT on 4shared.com

aptistock freeware 4 tech analysis

do mock trading & then

START

details visit my blog