bbb2, This is what you do....... You need to learn about charts and technical analysis.....so go here for free: http://www.prophet.net try to look at the various indicators on the daily charts of some SP 500 stocks and see if you observe anything about them that would indicate to you a pattern to help you predict the next few days price movement. Pick good stocks to look at and here is another great little cheap program to help you rank them: http://www.tickerank.com Open up an account here..... http://www.buyandhold.com for $14.99/month you can trade here as much as you want for a flat fee to learn.......Since your new, just enter stocks for the minimum of $20.00. Pick as many as you want and try to figure out what sectors they are in.....try to diversify your picks....Look at your charts each evening to see how you did.....look at your indicators......fine tune your system to help you enter and exit the stocks you are watching..... Michael B. P.S Pursue your dreams and build up your account.....if you fail try, try again....if you want to daytrade and you feel ready to daytrade find a good direct access broker and go for it....right now you need to learn through your investments and try your hand at short term trading. Learn by doing and making mistakes...you are young and you will be alright. Just try to survive while you are adding your $700.00/month...don't get impatient....you can't make a living off of this until you build up your capital and discover how you want to trade....You can move on to the more highly leveraged Futures and Commodities after you learn how to trade stocks and get a little more capital.... Remember folks, he did say investing in his opening post not trading....It took a lot of courage for this young man to post here, so try to help him. I admire him for this.....remember you folks had to start somewhere too.....you discovered your passion's and figured it out....This young guy cannot possibly know if he wants to be a trader or anything permanent in life yet. I must admit when I was 18 years old I called up Merrill Lynch and opened up my first account named Sharebuilder. I am 45 years old now and remember it and glad I did it......decisions about investing, trading or speculating seem to stick with you for life. Hope this helps. and good luck
at your age and so little capital diversify with good index funds from vanguard and no load funds if you insist on buying stocks then perhaps a few baskets though a broker like foliofn might work out for you good luck
Nice post electric- ----- Recently on ET one trader told us how he lost over $200,000 in a couple of months ( I have his letter stuck to my computer as a warning). Recently I lost $1500 just on one trade that I held overnight. Since you only have $2000 that is all you can lose. So whatever you do won't have major financial consequences: looks like that is your edge.
I didn't have 2K at your age to start with, so you are already ahead. I still remembered the day I walked in a Schwab office, approached their counter and told the guy behind the counter that I want to buy some CA shares, first they ask me how many shares I wanted, I asked how much a share and upon doing a quick calculation I told them I want 20 shares and then I found out I had to open an account with them thus on that day I walked out of Schwab office, a proudly new owner of 20 CA shares. The next day after a little run up I phoned the office and sold my share, in the evening when it fallen in price I called them back and told them I wanted to buy more than 20 shares and then they told me that they don't allow "churning" if I remember it right. So be sure to know all about the rules of buying and selling before you start investing. I like etrader, they let you build as many paper porfolios as you want.
IB is fine, but you will lose all or most of that money unless you know what you're doing. Jump in gung ho and you will not have any money to trade soon. You'd be better off borrowing books from the library or buying off Amazon with that $2000.
Welcome to ET. In case you don't know, there are many losers and winners on ET. The first actual step in the business that is choosing a broker will determine you are a loser or a winner. So proceed very carefully. Aslo remember, don't belive any crap like once a loser always a loser or once a winner, always a winner. There is no such a thing called always in the trading business. You can always change later. Nonetheless, the first step is very important. Because some many already can't wait to take your cash.
QDZ..... Every once is a while you post more than your "one line fortune cookie scripts" and actually talk sense.... Michael B.