The first time I bought any shares of a company I was terrified. I had no idea what I was doing and if I was doing it right. Believe it or not, it’s not painful and it’s very easy to do.
I use Scottrade, so my steps are more geared toward their service, but its similar for most places.
Step 1:
Log into your brokerage’s web site and click buy. Scottrade’s option is on the left side. Be sure you have enough money deposited into your account. If you do not, deposit the money and proceed to step 2.
Step 2:
Enter the stock ticker symbol. (Example: GE is General Electric and PG is Proctor and Gamble)
Step 3:
Enter the number of shares you are buying. To find this number you take the amount you are investing divided by the current share amount.
$1,000 (amount invested) / $10.00 (the current share price) = 100 shares.
Be sure to leave a little extra available for the commission and price changes.
Step 4:
Market vs. Limit
The “Market” options buys the stock at the current price or close to it when you click buy.
The “Limit” option allows you to enter how much you are willing to pay for the stock.
I used to use a limit on all my buys until I figured out that I was wasting more time chasing a stock within pennies of where I wanted to buy. I now only use the “market” option. Those few penny changes doesn’t worry me as much. If I was trading millions (I wish), it would be different.
Step 5:
Click Review/Buy (wording may vary by service).
Step 6:
Celebrate! You bought stocks and are on your way to accomplishing your financial goals!
Don’t risk your money on untested strategies. You will get bitten by the Wall Street sharks. I always test my new strategies on paper for a month. Its fantasy stock trading!
Here are the rules:
1. Pick your dollar amount. Be realistic. If you aren’t trading in the millions, don’t do it on paper. $500 is a good starting point.
2. Write down your rules and stick with them.
3. Your buy amount is the closing amount of the day you buy. Write down the date and amount.
4. When you sell, it’s the closing amount on the day you sell. Write this down as well.
5. After a month check your profit/loss. How did you do?
By doing this, you can decide if the strategy has merit or is a dud! Its better to find this out before you risk money. This is good for short term trading. If you are in the process of saving money (Part 1 – How much money do you need? Investing for only $50 a month) then use this to get more familiar with the market (long term or short term). You can modify the rules a bit to try day trading, but it’s more extreme.
Got a new rule to add, a question to ask or simply want to comment please do so below. I love comments, it brings joy to blogging!
Every Christmas and birthday my kids get many presents. A few weeks later the presents are mostly forgotten or broken. Such a waste! I started brainstorming ideas that could cut down on the clutter and be a long term benefit for them. I considered savings accounts, bonds, cds and the cookie jar. Stocks was the winner!
Here are my reasons for picking stocks:
1. High dividend stocks make money for them.
2. Stocks splits give them more stocks.
3. My teen thinks its cool to have a stock portfolio (my youngest,8, doesn’t care right now).
4. I pick stocks of products that they like. In our case, they get 4 McDonald’s stock a year.
5. If you aren’t into picking stocks, go with an index fund.
Four a year? That’s not much!
True, but take the case of my 8 year old. He will have 40 shares when he turns 18, plus the dividend that gets paid. It doesn’t take long for the stocks to accumulate enough dividend to start buying more stocks. Keep reinvesting the dividend, it adds up!
Risk
I know that the market will go up and down. This is a long term investment for them. I’m not taking too much risk
What about fees?
I use Sharebuilder for my kid’s portfolio. Their service is a bit odd in that you get a $4 fee when you buy on Tuesday (and only on Tuesday), other days it’s $12. Since my kids only buy twice a year and aren’t gaming the market it works out best for them. They also allow custodian accounts which is what you will need.
Action time:
1. Decid how much to buy.
2. Sign up for a service like Sharebuilder.
3. Open a custodian account in your child’s name.
4. Deposit the money.
5. Buy!
If your kids keep the investment going, they could potentially have a million when they retire. Like I said earlier, this is a long term benefit for them!
If you are new to this site you may want to start with part 1 of this series. If you are a returning reader, Welcome Back!
By now you should have created a plan to save money for investing and have several goals in mind. Today it’s time to consider what style of trading you will need to reach your goals.
Long Term Goals (10+ years)
For big long term goals like purchasing a home, you will need a long term investing strategy. Invest in value stocks or any investment that pays a dividend.
Strategies include:
⁃ Dividend paying stocks – usually Big Cap stocks
⁃ Value Investing
⁃ ETF’s
⁃ Mutual Funds
⁃ Index Funds
It’s best to reinvest any dividends paid. Remember, you want less risk with these goals.
Intermediate Goals (5-10 years)
These are goals such as luxury vacations (Paris, Kentucky* in spring?), luxury car**, or any big ticket “want”. The item tends to have the word luxury associated with it.
Strategies include:
⁃ Value stocks
⁃ Small-Cap
⁃ Growth Stocks
Look for companies that are growing their business or good companies whose stocks are undervalued. Your goal is to create a portfolio of stocks you can cash in for a nice profit in the next 5-10 years. You’ll take on more risk for greater reward.
Short Term Goals (1 day – 5 years)
Short term trading is the riskiest, but with the high risk comes a larger reward. Your goal in short term trading is to buy and sell in a short period. You may keep a stock a day or over a year depending on your strategy.
Strategies include:
⁃ Day Trading
⁃ Swing Trading
⁃ Value Stocks
⁃ Penny Stocks
⁃ and many more…
BIG WARNING: SOME OF THESE STRATEGIES WILL LOSE MONEY. Short term trading is VERY risky!
Subscribe to the RSS or return to this site for more information on stock strategies.
* Yes, there is a Paris, Kentucky. Fun fact, the first winery in the United States was in Kentucky. Oddly, it’s not related to Paris, Ky.
** or pickup if that is your thing
If you already have the money, great job! If not, keep saving and don’t get discouraged.
Your next step is to decide on your investing goals. Having an investment goal is important. What good is investing if there isn’t a reward for doing good. After choosing a specific goal, I found that I was more interested and made better decisions based on my goals. Your goals will also determine your investment style. Short term goals for short term investing and long term goals for long term investing. Don’t worry, it’s OK to have several goals. Just don’t pick too many, unless you have the cash to cover all of them.
Here are a few examples:
Pay off car (that’s one of my goals)
Retirement
Buy luxury vehicle
Buy a home
College
Luxury items (big TV, gadgets or other nice wants)
Big vacation – Is there somewhere you would really like to visit? Like the Fried Chicken Festival in Corbin, KY (not making this up and I want to go!).
Quit job – It would be nice to be independently wealthy. This one is hard, but possible.
Warning:
I tried investing for money and it didn’t work out well for me. Just being rich is a nice goal, but harder to obtain without the details to get you there.
Action Time:
Name one or two goals with a reasonable deadline. Write them down or create a goal board with pictures of what you want to achieve. This will keep you on track and interested.
Now that you have your goals, you can decide on your strategy and style of investing.
Here is how I put this into practice:
I’m hoping to pay off my new van early. I’m shooting at short term investing. I add a little extra money every month to my initial investing and shoot for small quick profits every week (swing trading – more on that later). This also keeps me focused on what financial books and resources to use.
$50 a month seems a bit extreme and I’m going to make it even more so. You can do this even if you make minimum wage! It’s true dear investor, keep reading!
I took the dive in early 2008 and started investing. I will admit I almost drowned a few times and the Wall Street sharks took a huge bite out of me, but I kept swimming. If you don’t have a small fortune or a sickly rich relative that has you in their will (Not counting the emails about the unknown rich relative in some unknown country), you’ll need to start out small.
How much do you need? It comes down to what you can afford. Can you take 5% of your monthly income and not miss it?
Example:
Minimum wage is $7.25
If you work 40 hours, you make roughly $1,100 a month. Of course dear Uncle Sam gets a cut and there are always the living taxes (state, local, school, road, oxygen, and just being alive taxes). So for example purposes, let’s say you are lucky and make $900 a month (did I say lucky?).
5% of $900 is (drum roll please) $45. For this example, we are going to round up to $50.
Now that you have committed (or need to be) this money to investing, here is the hard part (at least for me). Don’t spend it. Put it in a saving account or hide it in a jar (I did).
Tip: How to save money without knowing you are saving? Start a free checking account or savings account. Create an automatic deposit from your checking account in to this new account on the day you get paid (most online banking can do this). Don’t touch the money and don’t track it. You are hiding this secret money from you and everyone else. It’ll be there when you really need it.
In 10 months you are ready to go. It seems to be a long time, but trust me it can go by fast. To help it along, stick any extra money you acquire in the account/jar. Every little bit helps. Don’t worry if you take the whole 10 months, there are still plenty of things left to do. Like:
* Educating yourself on the stock market (subscribe to my rss and check back often)
* Choosing your strategy (What a coincidence, that’s a future post!)
* Deciding how much time you need/want to spend (you guessed it, there is a post for that too!)
Subscribe to the RSS or check back! Comments are always welcome!
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.
A big mistake I made starting out was the idea to not sell. Several books and talking heads on TV said “Don’t sell!” My question for them was always the same, “Why not? Isn’t that how I make a profit?” Fortunately, the TV never spoke back to me.
Yes Virginia, its ok to sell your stocks.
Sell for only two reasons:
1. Take a profit
2. Limit a loss
Unless you have invested in a stock that pays a dividend, the only way to make money from your portfolio is to sell. It took me almost a year to figure that one out (duh!). If the stock is at a point where you are happy with the profit, don’t worry about the “what if”. Buy it again later and make more money. There is no reason you can’t re-buy a stock.
What about the commission?
There is no such thing as a free lunch. You have to pay a commission to both buy and sell. I’ve always made the commission part of my bought price. If the stock was $15 and I bought 100 shares, it cost me:
$1,500 + $14 ($7 buy + $7 sell) = $1,514
Divide that back to the individual stock price ($1,514/100) and I paid $15.14 (that’s my break even number, more about that later) for the stock. Now if the stock goes to $16.15 and I sell, that’s 10% profit ($100). It’s ok to laugh at my small numbers, I’m just a part-part time trader.
What about taxes?
Depending on how long you keep your stock determines how much taxes you pay. When I started out I was worried about paying the taxes. I read in the vast investing books that I collect, you were supposed to keep the stock for a year + 1 day. Bull crap! Really! If I can take a profit ($100, $1,000, $10,000), I’m taking a profit! Dear Uncle Sam is going to always get a cut, why jeopardize MY profit worrying about his cut.
Limit your loss
The stock market can go down, down ,down! And sometimes it can go down, down, down really fast. Limit your loss. Don’t let the sinking ship drown your hard earned money. Just like taking a profit, you can always re-buy later. Keep in mind there is a catch to re-buying on a loss. The IRS will not allow you to offset your gains with your losses if you re-buy a stock in a certain period of time (confusing, yes, more on it later as I figure it out!).
I don’t normally trade stocks under $10 (I have and I’ve made money). The lure of catching that next great stock that rockets from single to double (or even triple!!) digits can be so alluring. So, I finally broke down and subscribed to Investor’s Business Daily’s “Top-Rated Stocks Under $10”. I’m hoping this service will help me pick good under $10 stocks. My opinion of stock suggesting services is simple: Make me money and I’ll keep subscribing.
Here is my strategy so far:
1. Small amounts
No more than 25% of my cash in one stock. This will limit my risk.
2. Diversify
No two stocks in the same sector. Diversification is always a good option. This will hopefully keep me from being killed by any bad news for one sector.
3. High Relative Strength (RS)
4. Positive EPS
For annual and next /last quarters. I’m picky about investing in profitable companies.
5. Volume %
I want to see activity on the stock. That may be a good sign of a break out and PROFIT!
6. Simple Moving Average going up
Never invest in a sinking ship.
As I try out this new strategy, I’ll make changes as needed. My goal is to have a strong under $10 strategy that I can use to help increase my portfolio.
Like all valuable lessons, this one cost me money. I did my research and bought my stock. This was the one (aren’t they all). I set my alerts to notify me if it dropped below 5% of my buy point. I even went as far as to set an automated Sell Limit to take profits when the stock would hit (because I knew it would!).
All was well, except!
Meanwhile at my day job (I don’t trade professionally), I was in a meeting and my cell phone was going nuts (I was losing money). I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t sell, I was stuck. Once I got back to my computer, I sold the stock for (yikes!) an 8% loss instead of the 5% that I originally planned (just in case). Moral of the story, I need to set automated Stop Loss and Sell Limits to both protect and profit.
Another reason to automate is to protect from the greed voice. That little voice that whispers, “What if it goes higher?” or “It’ll go back up, really!”. It’s rarely right.
I learned my lesson and hopefully you too won’t make my mistake.
Happy Trading!
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