I have found that by creating an end goal keeps investing interesting and fun. Your goal could be a vacation, new big TV, pay off or buy a car, or some new expensive item. Having a purpose as to why you invest will help you stay focused. I have found without the end goal I start to lose interest in my portfolio. I would recommend leaving “filthy rich”* off the list, it’s too generic. Make your goal specific and give yourself a reasonable deadline. This tip works best for short term investing, for long term investing make your goal a specific number.
My goal is to pay off my family’s van with my short term stock portfolio.
* I have met a rich person and I have met a filthy person, but I have yet to meet a filthy rich person.
This is a free service offered by Yahoo!. To get the most out of the service is best to have a Yahoo! account which will include free e-mail.
This service offers:
• News
• Stock quotes (opening and closing amounts, 52-week range and day’s range, last trade amount)
• Charts
• Company fundamentals (dividend, EPS, P/E, etc.)
• Investing information (stocks, bonds, ETF’s, etc.)
• Personal finance
• Personal portfolio tracking
Stock research
This is a good resource to research new stocks. Yahoo finance gives current news about the company from respectable sources like the Wall Street Journal, Fools, and Investment Business Daily (among others). The charts have a variety of settings including daily, three-month, six-month, year-to-date and max date ranges. You can compare stocks, show events (stock splits, dividend, etc.), and use a variety of technical indicators (simple moving average, volume, etc.).
Portfolio
The service allows you to create different stock portfolios. You can create one for your holdings and one for your watch list. The portfolio page gives a nice grid layout of your stocks with a variety of information like last trade amount, percent change, volume and details about your shares (number of shares, priced paid, gain/loss, etc.). The downside of this service is that the stock price has a 20 minute delay.
This is an excellent resource to use when you’re getting started investing. I have personally used the service for several years and would recommend it to anyone just starting out.
The only way to make money investing is to start investing. If you know nothing about investing then you can begin by learning. Read a book about investing, magazine, website, or listen to an investing podcast.
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