Entering the Stock Market
The stock market has always interested me. Those crazy brokers on the floor of the NYSE, shouting and waving their hands in the air. It looks like so much fun, I want to try it out. Because the economy and stock market sucks right now, I figured it would be a great time to get into it. Of course I wont be traveling to New York to trade my stocks, I’ll be using two different online brokers.
I’ve had an orange savings account with ING Direct for a few years now. ING has their own investment website called ShareBuilder. It’s linked directly to your savings account so investing your saved money is quick and easy. The great thing about ShareBuilder is that there’s no minimum deposit required. I deposited $100 to open the account.
My first day, I spent about 4-5 hours reading articles on Investopedia.com. Articles on Investopedia are all with stock market acronyms. That helped me to quickly learn different terms. There’s quite a few good beginner resources on that website, and I’m sure I’ll be on there quite often in the coming months.
After 2 days, I felt like ShareBuilder’s website just wasn’t intuitive enough for my needs. Most of their features required a monthly membership. I’m not looking to pay membership fees right away with a broker. I just want to put around, and figure things out. Scottrade.com looked like it might be feature full, and with only $7.00 trades, seemed like the way to go.
Anyways, I’ve decided that $1,000 is all I will use to start out. I’m going to play it safe and spread my investment around esatblished companies that have been around for a while, and realy woudn’t be going anywhere soon.