So i have some cash kicking around and i think im going to invest it into the market… im not looking for overnight big bucks, this is something i can sit on for a while…more or less something to pass the time… my initial invest ment isnt going to be huge probably a little over 300 bucks… just getting my feet wet… here are my questions
When you trade online, who do you use? etrade? etc etc
Who has the cheapest fees?
Any advice you would give somebody just stepping into it?
thanks
If its inly 300, I would put it into a mutal fund myself. Somehting a little aggressive. FOr a litle amount I don’t see a good stock out there worth buying.
Hate to say it man, but keep saving or put that money somewhere else. That $300 will be cut in half just from fees, etc.
Most mutual funds require a minimum of $1000 or more. Get and E-trade account or something.
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steel braided lines it is… trackdays… and gloves it is… lol…
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In the past 2 years I’ve been doing that it’s easily paid for itself.
What about a similar situation, only I have a few grand around. Roth IRA + aggressive mutual fund?
When I was like 12 I was reading about the newly refounded Excelsior-Henderson motorcycle company in motorcycle mags. It seemed pretty cool, and I found their stock symbol and it was a penny stock. I figured what the hell, it’d be cool to be in on that and my aunt was a stoke broker so I bought 200 dollars worth. 3 trading days later the company filed chapter 11. :eyebrow:
I learned my lesson. Now I keep all my money between the mattress and the box spring…
…just kidding…
…I have no money. 
unless you know what you are doing in the stock market, dont try screwing around with individual stocks. mutual fund or 401k, or put it in a high yield savings or cd.
thats the best way to go, if oyu don’t have a 401k, max out the roth Ira, and invest in a nice mutual fund
1st pay all debts(means bad credits leave the good credits like mortgage).
2nd build up an emergency fund , i think it used to be 3 month of your current salary but if you got family then 6month.preferably ibonds or laddered cds. or online savings. i bonds saves you in taxes. any interest you receive from savings or cds are taxable unless/depends on your tax bracket.
3rd if you company offers 401k then max it out. it’s a win win situation unless they offer limited/shitty options/high fees.
4th put it in a ira. but only do so if you don’t need the money until you retire or you didn’t buy your first house yet. otherwise penalties are big.
5th no fifth option since if you only have 300 dollars means you must do the 4 options before. 300 buying stocks would be like gain 30 dollars then throw 50 to dealer. unless you hit the jackpot as google when they opened the stock but then you would not even be able to buy 1 stock…minimum was i think 15000…
check bankrate.com or bobblicker.com
check prosper.com
another way of gaining higher interest in your fund. but be careful.
what the site does is link borrowers to lenders(you). direct lending.
you don’t have to lend all the amount they intend to borrow it can be as low as 10 dollars and they will specify the interest rate that they want to pay.
it’s not secured but there are ways to fuck their credit report and paid collection agency if things goes wrong…
just an idea.
i was gonna say just toss it in a CD and let it save up i think hsbc is offering 5.25% on CDS soo let it sit for a year and have some decent cash.
^thats still going to only make you $15 in a year, $50 over 3 years. sure its more responsible than spending it, but you need a lot of money to make money using only money.
still better then finding out the company went bankrupt
a knowledgeable trader would have a stop sell in place on any individual stock owned, and/or mitigated risk by owning a diversified portfolio. unless you have the money, time, and knowledge to buy into hundreds of stocks on your own to adequately diversify, then you get a mutual fund, which does the same thing for a smaller investor.
to mitigate risk while trading in individual stocks, one needs to have in place stop sells at the correct level, and adjust them accordingly as the stock moves. in addition you need to be aware of the fundamentals of each company, combined with a good technical knowledge of reading stock charts and the trends that can be contained within them. you can also make synthetic options for a desired amount of upside potential and downside risk, buy going long and short in various stocks and risk-free money. trading on individual stocks carries the most risk, but is also one of the only ways to get very large returns. mutual funds are generally safe, but youre never going to get rich off of nothing with them.
at the end of the day, if you are an educated investor there is minimal chance that you will ‘lose everything’, unless you like to take large risks. the majority of mutual funds are adequately diversified so that your downside risk is minimal. its the joe schmoes of the world with no financial education who buy a stock because they think its a cool company, or because their uncle gave them a tip, who stand to lose everything in the market.
my apologies for my disjointed and incomplete summary, im coming off a weeks vacation and didnt really want to think about work yet. not to mention afternoon beers on nye are always in order.
:word: i was thinking the same thing but didnt want to take the effort to type it out.
but if you have a particular stock/stocks in mind, try tdameritrade. $9.99 per trade, no maintenance fees for low balances.