Always wanted to invest in stock the market? Any advice or tips?

Totally a babe in the woods here and I'm talking the minimum investment amount allowed.





Thanks!Always wanted to invest in stock the market? Any advice or tips?
Well best thing you can do is watch it, DO NOT buy anything yet, as you know the stockmarket is very volatile at the moment and it is quite fascinating to watch, well if you happen to like that sort of thing! But you absolutely must have some idea of what you are doing before you start putting any money into anything. Spend some time doing research, just get a few stocks on your monitor and watch how they perform on a daily basis and take it from there, adding and removing stocks as you go, you'll soon get a feel for what markets interest you.


Anyhow, you can paper trade to start with, most people will recommend you do this although I personally do not think it teaches you a great deal, there is nothing like losing your own money, but at least it is somewhere to start. I think the Mail website has some tools for paper trading.


Register yourself at Money AM which does have free streaming, and although you will be regularly logged out, it is free and it is live. If you do decide to take it further you can obviously pay for continuous streaming or level 2.


Take share tips in papers and magazines or anywhere else for that matter with a pinch of salt. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, more important than anything else. Also register yourself at ADVFN they have a great message board and you can really find out a lot of information here, obviously most people only have their own interests at heart but there are some posters on that site do a massive amount of research and it can be very helpful, you soon get to know who is genuine, although of course nothing will ever beat your own research so do plenty of it first. There are plenty of other sites of course, Motley Fool, iii to name a couple.


Realise that you WILL lose money, we all lose money at some point, you could not trade if you never lost money, but most people who do trade will tell you that they never lost any money!! Do not rely on or trust anyone else, like most things in life. xAlways wanted to invest in stock the market? Any advice or tips?
I would wait till the market gets better.
I suggest that you practice and learn investing using play-money before you start using real money. Because best learning comes from making mistakes. And it's best to use play-money for learning. Because this will decrease the cost of your self-education.





Here is one website which has a Stock Simulator where you can practice investing and stock trading for free:


http://www.investopedia.com/beginner.asp
Buy low and sell high is the rule of the game. Only invest what I call ';play money';, money you can afford to lose, or to live without for a while. You have to be willing to sit things out sometimes, to wait for the market to change. Before investing, watch the market for a while, particularly stocks you are interested in, and see what happens with them over a period of time.





I don't do much investing in the stock market, but I do find it interesting, and I did once have quite a few shares in a company that did a 3 for 1 split, so I did well with that investment.
The way things are today i wouldn't bother.
Here is my advice: Invest NOW.





Everyone who says ';sell sell sell'; is being somewhat foolish in my opinion. The mantra always is: Buy Low, Sell High. Right now it is just about as low as it can get. Any money that you invest now will turn a massive profit in the long run. I would say in five years or so you will see that buying now was a smart decision. If you wait for the market to calm down you may make a bit more money in the short run, but in the long run you will lose out on a great opportunity. Remember, Patience, Patience, Patience is the rule when you are investing.





Now what kind of portfolio do you want to invest in? You want what is called an ';Index Portfolio'; An index portfolio simply gives you the most diversity, safety, and tax efficiency for a beginning investor. It is not too risky and should make you a nice bit of money :-)





Good luck!
Good time to buy when prices are at the lowest levels for several years.