Does anyone have some good advice for trading stocks online?

Question

I have never traded stocks online but I would like to start. What site is best for trading? How do I pick stocks? Where can I find good fundamental and technical analysis? Are there any sites out there that seem to pick consistent winners?

Answer 1

I can tell that you are a value investor. You want to ask 3 questions for the price of 1... well, here you go.

What site is best for trading?
Every one has different needs. If you're new and don't keep much money in your brokerage account, then Scottrade is probably good for you. They're real time charts are pretty good, but no CD's are available, the cash account only pays about 0.5%, and they charge pretty heavily for mutual funds. If you want to leave money sitting in a MM that pays 5% while you're out of the market, like a choice of no load, no fee mutual funds, has an excellent site for research, want to buy competitive CDs on line, all in one place, then you might like fidelity. It's what makes you happy. If you don't like the sevice, then you can always change.

How do I pick stocks?
An answer would take volumes to provide, so let me suggest some literature:

I would recommend William O'Neil's "The Successful Investor" as a good starting point. Follow that up with Peter Lynch's "Beating the Street". That should provide you with two strategies that you can learn from in building your own investment strategy.

Other good books include "The Motley Fool Investment Guide" by Tom and Dave Gardner or "Real Money" by James Cramer.

I have read all these books and many others and devised a strategy that adopts a bit from each one.

Another thing you can do is invest using a fictional portfolio. Let that run for a few months to see if you are ready to start trading with real money. In the meantime, invest in mutual funds. Once you are ready, sell the fund and invest on your own.

Remember, the time spend learning about investing is far less then the money lost by not being prepared.

Where can I find good fundamental and technical analysis?
You're on your own for this. There's a multitude of excellent sites out there, where you can get fundamental ratios. Try Zack's, Yahoo Finance, MSN finance, and a multitude of others are out there for free. As far as technical analysis, you need to research and find what works for you. As far as charting goes, Bigcharts is a good free site. Personally, I like Telecharts, which has a fee, but well worth the 50-75cents per day for the sorting capability, fast way to cycle thru many charts, and the ability to write your own personal critera.

Are there any sites out there that seem to pick consistent winners?
No. And anybody that says they can is a liar.
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Answer 2

So far the answers you've received are totally wrong. Watching CNBC can give you a "feel" but it's the worst place to take specific investing advice from. This would be true of any other TV, radio or newspaper, magazine or newsletter.

Scottrade is a great broker but it's not good for a newbie. I have no idea about Amertitade. I can tell you that Schwab and Fidelity are more geared to the new or less involved trader that needs some help along the way.

I've tried Gorilla Trades. They're fair at best. A good service is going to have 40% - 65% good picks. The real way to profit is with the correct Money Management (risk to reward ratio)..... combined with a proper "asset allocation".

If there was a great service "out there" don't you think everyone would be using it?

READ... LEARN.. READ... LEARN.....

If done correctly stock investing is not gambling. Mutual funds would (however) be a good way to start & and a great way to learn.

Work hard. Don't take "tips". Keep "fees" low. Always use good money management.... you'll do fine!

Answer 3

You should try with Penny Stocks Trading (you can find more info here: http://pennystocks.toptips.org )

Penny stocks, also known as cent stocks in some countries, are common shares of small public companies that trade at low prices per share.
I've been subscribing to this PennyStock web site for about a year now and have loved the objective advice they give. He really does look for quality stocks and I've made some pretty nice profits on a lot of his suggestions. Being still fairly new to investing I have been dabbling a lot in penny stocks to try and grow my account. I may not have a big account, but it's a lot bigger than it was a year ago. On just one of Nathan's picks this year I managed to make my investment back ten-fold! Be careful! Penny stocks are notoriously risky but if you follow the right method the risk is almost 0. I suggest to invest only little money first and then reinvest the profits. This is the site I'm using: http://pennystocks.toptips.org
Bye

Answer 4

Trading online is the easy part. Just contact any of the online brokers (etrade, scott trade, etc). If you're starting to trade, I would suggest reading couple books. The easiest book is "rule #1" by Phil Towns. His method is based on value investing (warren buffet's strategy) 4 things you need to know about how to choose the right company to purchase their stocks. 1. meaning- do you want to own the company, the products are something you care about. 2. moat- does this company have a 'unfair' advantage, that no other company can mimic, or compete 3. management- is the management (CEO) responsible, does he/she take blame when things don't go as planned, and will be able to admit guilt and come up with solutions (fluffing is for porn stars) 4. margin of safety-if all these goes well, calculate when to jump into the market with a margin of safety, such that if the stock doesn't do well, you atleast break even. Don't buy into diversification. if you are well diverse, basically you'll just stay status quo. if one sector does well, while another does poorly, you end up even.

Answer 5

Based upon my own experience, I can save you from the mistakes I made when I started trading stocks a little over a year ago.

1) My #1 mistake was trying to "learn the ropes" of stock trading using real money. It is not necessary! I urge you to set up a dummy portfolio at Yahoo, Google, MSN, or other sites first. You can "trade" stocks and follow your results using pretend money before putting real money at risk.

2) My #2 mistake was jumping in and out of individual stocks too fast. It's too easy to check the market every morning and sell whatever is going down, buy whatever is going up. It seems like a slam-dunk strategy, but it does not work! Stocks can and do reverse direction in a minute. By the end of the day, you can end up wishing you had not bought what you bought, and had not sold what you sold.

3) Research. Research. Research! My TV stays on CNBC or Bloomberg 90%+ of the time. I have learned that a stock the experts call a "buy" one day can be a "sell" the next day. Research is easy on the internet. Whatever web browser you use has a "finance" tab with a stock quotes key.

4) Read #1 again. Set up your portfolio and start trading with pretend money first! It's easy to do, and your lessons will be just as real even though your losses will not be real money.

Answer 6

Honestly, this is something you'll want to investigate thoroughly. Check out some of the major investment firms such as Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, or some of the online brokers eTrade and Ameritrade to get an idea of what's out there. Most firms have minimum initial investments for certain products. Fidelity requires $2500 for initial Mutual fund investment, $1000 for cds. Vanguard starts at $3000 with the exception of Vanguard Star Fund (which is a fund of other Vanguard funds) which starts at $1000. You might also benefit by checking out Morningstar.com and/or Valueline. Morningstar offers a no-frills membership to their site, which is fairly helpful in analyzing investment choices. I also like Smartmoney.com.

I also highly recommend checking out a few other resources. First, ask around family and friends. See if they'll tell you what worked or maybe didn't work for them and why. Also, purchase or borrow an investment text. Most college-level personal finance texts should be adequat for learning basic terminology, ideology, and methodology of sundry investment products. I also have used Investing for Dummies, thought its analysis seems a bit trite at times.

Whatever you do, try to resist the urge to baby sit your investments, especially if they are long term (college, retirement, etc.) Once you find an investment, invest, then cut the chord. There are several investment profiles from Conservative to Aggressive Growth. Invest to your comfort level.

Answer 7

I use TD-Ameritrade. I found they were less expensive than E-Trade. I use technical analysis to buy and sell stocks. There are several good books out there like "Technical Analysis of the Financial markets" by John Murphy or "How to make money in stocks" by William O'Neil. I can tell you that you should paper trade prior to using your hard earned money first. It is easier to loose money than to gain it. This is because if you use a non-proven back tested buy-sell system, your losses can exceed your gains. I am getting gain/loss ratio > 4:1 averaging 30% per year. Check out yahoo group ComputerProgramPicks. Best of luck to you. Luck is using your skill, being patient and seizing the opportunity and being ready to sell when you are wrong.

Answer 8

This penny stock service has years of proven experience. Ultimately it is the best service for beginners to use https://tr.im/pennystockguide
You will have to wait between 3 and 10 days to get into the system in most cases. When I signed up it took 8 days. I wished it was faster, but if you can wait a week or two to start earn life changing money than you will have what it takes to make it in this business.

Answer 9

you have an abundance of options when it comes to choosing a broker, tdameritrade, etrade, scottrade etc. they are all acceptable. You can't rely on websites to pick stocks for you, the best thing to do is educate yourself as much as possible and make your own picks. Watch CNBC and read various financial websites. If you must simply take picks from a site, try Gorrilla trades (but you must pay). Good luck

Answer 10

http://StockSalad.com software analysis many variables of the stocks from Dow Jones and NASDAQ 100. Millions of calculations are made in real time to determine how each stock is being valued on the stock market.

StockSalad.com then presents a simple recommendations list of the analyzed stocks, ranked according the extend of the overvalue or undervalue on the market. Depending on the technical indicators in combination with fundamental data, StockSalad.com also generates "buy" and 'sell" recommendations, targets and support levels.