Getting into the Stock Market

Does anyone here day trade? If so how did you go about getting into it?

 

http://updown.com

This is a great tool to learn about stock markets, etc. They give you a million dollars to invest and you can see your profits and losses before you go out and do the same with your own money.

 

A friend of mine uses E-Trade for trading stocks and he loves it.

 

I started trading on updown about 3 years ago and I've somehow managed to turn the initial $1 million into around $3.8 million nowadays. Granted, I did get incredibly lucky and bought an absurd amount of SLW at $4 before it jumped to $44.

Anyways, trading on Updown.com will definitely give a basic understanding of investment and stock trading. However, I would recommend against trying to daytrade unless you are working with a large amount of money ($100K+) and are an experienced investor.

The high amount of money is needed because fees really do start to add up, even if you are using a low-fee broker. Buy and hold investing is definitely the most sensible way to secure extra money for people like you and I who are not the most experienced investors. I definitely would say that I have a fairly decent knowledge of the stock market, my particular portfolio, and what to invest in depending on what is going on internationally, domestically, and within a particular industry. I tend to invest more heavily in tech stocks as I understand the profit models of most of these companies fairly easy.

Anyways I started putting real money into the stock market about 2 months ago and I'm down about $2,500 or so on a fairly large initial investment, mainly because I bought at the wrong time (DOW was about 12800). Anyways, I'm currently hedging any potential downturn with a large amount of SPXU which is an ultrashort against the DOW. Now may not be the best time to invest if you are looking at a short term investment as there are many people who fear a potential double-dip recession. I subscribe to that bearish philosophy for now..

 

Unless you have alot of capitol to begin trading with, day trading most likely wont be your best bet; trade commission fees will get you plus you most likely wont make too high on the profit margins starting out. Honestly you could probably make more money flipping GP at a 15% profit per unit sold than you could on day trading, as most stocks that you would want to day trade have a much smaller swing than that.

 

Extremely true. The fees will really add up if you aren't trading with a lot of capital, like Nate said. And you definitely won't be making high profit margins, if at all, especially since the market is in a downward trade. Nate speaks wisely here.

 

Alright, thanks guys.

I'm most likely just going to start off slow and invest in maybe 1-3 different stocks and hold them for awhile.


-The next Warren Buffett aha :love:

 

I use E-trade. My friend helps me a lot with it so it's cool. I've made about $300 dollars so far. I am currently around $500 in the red thanks to RIM though :/ but I will wait to sell till the rise again. Have any questions PM and I can try and help.

 

Hey bro. I personally cannot day trade due to personal SEC regulations, but even if I could I wouldn't. Its best to pick a few companies that you think have good businesses and are undervalued because you can make a lot in the longterm and luck is much less of a factor.

 

He is correct. I actually am allowed to day trade, but even so, it would be imprudent to do so. A longterm strategy is the the best.

 

I'd highly recommend using Investopedia.com - it's a simple stock market simulator, and I learned quite a bit using it. Day trading isn't something you just want to dive into, you can easily lose everything.

 

Investopedia is a wealth of information. I recommend reading up on all of the basic informative articles and then perhaps joining a mock stock simulator online. The one that I used before investing was www.updown.com