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does anyone know how online stock sites like ING work
you sign up, link to your bank acct then you deposit money from your bank acct then you lose all your money if you don’t know what your doing (that’s how it wen’t for me)
If you have to ask such a question, do yourself a favor and first read about a dozen books that explain investing fundamentals. Then ask yourself if you have the particular set of middos required to succeed in the market. most people do not.
A short list to get you started:
– The little book that beats the market, Joel Greenblatt
– How to value a business, Frank Singer
– The intelligent Investor, Particularly chapters 8 & 20.
– F Wall Street, Joe Ponzio
Never invest more than you can afford to lose. Stocks are not like money in the bank. You can invest $5000 today, and have it drop to $3000 in a few weeks. And in some cases, the $3000 will never get back to the $5000 you started with (been there, done that). Still, stocks should be a part of your investment mix. Figure on 20% of your assets, not more. The bulk of your $ should be in a bank where its safe. (unless you’re talking about 6-7 figures, in which case you need a proffesional money manager)
Also consider buying a mutual fund instead of a particular stock. In the 80s, almost stock you touched turned to gold. Not so easily done in today’s market.
I think you mean ING’s Sharebuilder program.
This is set up to take advantage of dollar cost averaging strategy. The idea is that you set up an account with automatic stock buy orders on a regular basis (once a week). The amount spent each week is the same (it should be an amount that is safely discretionary out of your net pay), but the share price will vary. When the price is high you will buy fewer shares and when it is low you will buy more shares.
Dollar cost averaging is a very good strategy to be aware of, but if you are just “testing the waters” I don’t think blindly signing on to ING’s program is a good idea. You should probably learn something about the stock market and investing first. Investing in mutual funds before going into individual stocks is also an excellent “feet wetter”.
If and when you do decide that you are ready to trade stocks individually, know your investment strategy beforehand (i.e. what you plan on doing with the money when your brokerage account is all set to go). Then practice that strategy on paper for a few months (6 months is a good amount of time) first, to see how well it plays out and how well you understand what you are getting into. Many brokerage companies offer a “virtual” trading account for free, as a service so that your “paper trading” is easy, quick, and completely realistic.
Forget individual stocks. You CANNOT beat the market. Even highly experianced investors cannot. Put your money in index funds, which average as good returns as mutual funds, but with much less fees.
Forget stocks. Derivatives are the way to go, especially if you’re only first starting your investing career, likely with only a small sum. They’re much cheaper.
q for 2morecents, what would you say are the Middos needed? – thanks
derivitaves are things like options (option to buy a stock etc. at price x at time y) or futures (buying 3000 bushels of wheat deliverable in 3 months) usually you can get alot more leverage so the profit potential is higher(as is the risks) If you want to spend time each day you can make alot of money in derivitives. if you only want to check once in a while choose a few good stocks that you think will go up and invest in those. theres less profit potential but also less time spent and less chance you will lose all your money( if you go into derivtaves without any clue what youre doing you will lose all your money)
Samzyr!!
Advice from someone who can explain “derivitaves are things like options” in 2 1/2 lines is excatly what you shouldn’t follow.
The only sensible thing in the whole posting was ” if you go into derivtaves without any clue what youre doing you will lose all your money” Almost, because you need a lot lot more than just a “clue”
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