If you want to start trading stocks, this post is designed to help you not to make some very common mistakes that can affect you. Avoiding them will enable you to have a better experience.
As the economy is going down a stock trader’s life is getting harder. However, a great stock trader will always find a way to make money through none other way than stock trading. How could this even be possible? Like in everything else knowledge is power. The more you know about the trading market the easier it gets for you to make money from it.
That’s why even when the economy is not doing so well, a great stock’s trader will always know what to do and will also make sure that he or she is making profits on his or her invested money.To become a successful stock’s trader there’re several factors you’ll need to take into consideration. Until you do so you could be putting yourself into a lot troubles.
When you’re trading stocks you’re actually investing your money into the companies. In fact, it means you own a tiny portion of those companies in which you’ve invested your money. When those companies make profits you do too, but when losses occur you lose as well.
However, your losses and the companies losses are somewhat different. When a company loses, that money is gone right away. But in your case as an investor, your money is not really lost until you decide to sell your shares. It’ll always be up to you to know whether or not you should sell. Some people will hold on and pray that the losing trend reverses and starts gaining some of their losses back, while many others would just accept the loss and sell the rest of their shares. It’s a decision you’ll always have to make on your own if you ever got caught up in a situation as such.
How to start trading stocks
In order to be able to start trading stocks you’ll first have to open a brokerage account. It’s through this broker you’ll be able to execute your transactions. Whether it’s to buy or to sell your shares, your broker will be the middle man. The requirements are not much. You’ll have to be at least 18 or 21 years of age depending on the state where you live, which is very important. And you’ll also need to have a social security number which will be used as your ID number and for tax purposes.
You may find it a little difficult to pick a broker because there are many of them. It’s extremely important that you pick the right one for your trading habit. All brokers are not created equal, they have their own characteristics. One may be the right one for you while another one is totally the opposite. When it comes to fee per transaction, it varies from broker to broker and those fees can significantly affect your portfolio.
Once you’ve been registered with your broker you can then fund your account in order to be able to start trading. There are different paths through which you can send money to your brokerage account. The fastest routes are via electronic transfer and wire fund transfer. Electronic transfer is free of charge, it’s just like a bank to bank transfer which you do on your own. However, a wire fund transfer will cost you a fee, some banks will charge you a fee of $ 25, but this fee varies depending on the bank. If you aren’t in a hurry, you can mail in your check or money order which won’t cost you any more than your mailing fee.
What should you do next to make sure you’ll be making profits?
If you don’t know anything about stocks trading the best thing to do is to sit down in front of your computer and start researching. Not conducting any research is one factor that’s causing so many traders to lose their hard earned money. You don’t want to be part of this group of people, for this reason you’ve got to conduct your research before you buy any stock.
It’s not difficult at all, if you know what to look for. But if you don’t know anything about the market I’d suggest that you start by doing paper trading instead. Once you feel that you’re ready for the real thing you can move on and start using real money. There are many websites out there providing free paper trading platforms, they’re very helpful if you’re looking to learn the tricks. Wall Street Survivor is the one I used to utilize, it’s very easy to navigate through. You can take a look at it to see if you like it, if not you can always find many others through Google search.
If you do so, you should be able to perform better than many stock traders out there who are trading on luck. You may need a little luck sometimes, but your education is the secret to become successful trading stocks. You may have heard of several individuals who become millionaires from the stock market. If you take your time to read their stories you’ll see how much time they’ve spent into their education before they were able to attain such a goal.
Educate yourself, don’t rush to trade just because you want to. The more you know about the market the better it is for you. One day you too will be so successful from stock trading.
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