New to all this: where to start?

[cooma7]

Hi all,
I am extremely new to the stock market and want to get into it.

I was looking at signing up at etrade, is this a good site to sign up with, I dont want to start big, you know just put $100 each on a few compainies while im learning, is there a minimum amount to trade? i just want penny stocks,. like i said just learning, but just want to be setup for when i decide to go for it.

any tips? i just found this forum today, and will read up more later?


oh also, is there a website where you can do "virtual trading" you know like a game with play money on the asx?
cheers

Ryan

 

[canny]

Ryan,
With your brokerage fees, it would be stupid to put $100 on a few companies. They would have to go up 100% to cover your fees almost.
Unless you can put a minimum of $2000 on a company, I personally wouldn't bother. $5 to $10K is a more 'decent' size trade, so that a 10% rise at least gives you a fair weeks wage!
It all depends what you want to do, but if you only have a small amount, stick to one safe stock with a regularly rising chart.

 

[cooma7]

oh ok.

I just saw some websites that say $20.00 per trade, so if I put $100 on a company thats shares were at say $1.00 and they went to $2.00 i would make $80? but yea it would have to double which wouldnt be easy ya.

 

[Smurf1976]

If I recall correctly the minimum holding is $500 per share under ASX rules which precludes making small trades.

In practice, $100 wouldn't be profitable anyway. Been there with the penny stocks. Sounds good in theory but doesn't work so well in practice. As a minimum I suggest no less than $1000 per share, preferably more.

My trades are typically 10k unless I have insufficient cash available at the time which is not that common. I used to trade small amounts and ended up with so many different shares that I had to have regular mail opening sessions of an hour or two each week just to open all the mail I received!!! And I never did make any real money despite an incredible number of hours put in.

A smaller number of larger trades has been far more successful in my case.

Assuming that you have never traded anything and you are interested in smaller amounts, have you ever considered currency trading? Not trying to put you off shares or anything like that, but do be aware that there is an alternative which might be a better option - I don't know enough about your circumstances to comment any further.

I assume that you have a day job and therefore will not be spending too much time on trading? I also assume that you have considered the possibility of LOSING money since that is the first thing most new traders do. Takes a while to make profits.

Don't be put off, but please do think a lot before handing over your $. As for brokers, I use Etrade and have no complaints.

 

[The Barbarian Investor]

Maybe begin saving and putting 10% of your wage into an acount to be used when you eventually begin investing..

In the meantime spent time on the forum, interact with other members and paper trade.. 'pretend' you purchased a certain amount of shares (include brokerage in 'and' out) over various time frames and see how you would've gone...