My girlfriend and I want to try our hand at buying and selling stocks. Neither of us know much about it. I am guessing the easiest thing for us will be to sign up for an online trading site, like ameritrade or similar, and buy on there. Right now we just want to buy like 50-100 dollars in stock to play around with. Any suggestions for sites? Looking for easy to use, and lowest fees.
Also, saw that $50 book deal in this thread, anyone who has looked at the books avalible see a good one for beginners?
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$4/trade and $15 or so to sell again. Buy an ETF or use their education system. Each different stock you buy will cost you to sell, so an ETF is better until you know what you're doing.
garrett202020 said:My girlfriend and I want to try our hand at buying and selling stocks. Neither of us know much about it.Don't! Read first Right now we just want to buy like 50-100 dollars in stock to play around with. Commisions will eat you alive. Consider reading. Then consider mutual funds.
You will get a few shares with the amount you are wanting to invest with 1 company. Stick that in a mutual fund as someone else stated. Best method by far. If you insist on stocks then I would have to agree for the amount you are wanting to invest then sharebuilder it is.
You have to make $19 to break even with sharebuilder. At $100 that is a 19% return just to break even
Start learning at Investopedia. But with $50-100, you're going to have a problem diversifying. Even if you do diversify, you'll get all your profits eaten up by commission and taxes. I'd recommend starting with at least $1000. [But that's quite an arbitrary number depending on what you buy]
I've read an article somewhere a long time back about how your cost of transaction [roundtrip] should not be more than 5% of the stock or some number like that. Basically, you're commission cost is going to be around $12/transaction. So for a roundtrip (buy/sell), it'll cost your $24. With $100, you're stock is going to have to increase 25% before you make a profit. That is a rather difficult rise in a stock. Other things that I've read is that don't buy unless you can afford at least 100 shares. But that advice may be based on older transaction costs.
My recommendation, from when I started, is take one industry that you know something about and track the stocks in that industry. You'll get a sense of the trends and companies in that industry. Once you do that, you'll know enough to dive in. You'll definitely make mistakes in the beginning, but the amount you learn will pay dividends later on.
try with play money first. it totally doesn't make sense to invest for real with just $50-100 because the fees will eat up whatever gains you might have.
Not true. You are assuming one will buy and then sell the stock, in which case the $19 fees would apply. You are not required to SELL the stock with Sharebuilder. Using your $100 example-I buy $100 worth of stock and pay the $4 buy fee. I then receive the $50 bonus. $100 - $4=$96 + $50=$146, which is a 46% return on my $100 investment.
You have to make $19 to break even with sharebuilder. At $100 that is a 19% return just to break even
stateofmind said:Not true. You are assuming one will buy and then sell the stock, in which case the $19 fees would apply. You are not required to SELL the stock with Sharebuilder. Using your $100 example-I buy $100 worth of stock and pay the $4 buy fee. I then receive the $50 bonus. $100 - $4=$96 + $50=$146, which is a 46% return on my $100 investment.
Wow. Now, how many times will you be able to use this bonus? I think the OP was interested in investing, not picking up a bonus. There's a difference between consistent cash flow and one time bonuses.
Quick question about buy stocks. Let say I bought stock from Company A, let say 2000 shares. Now company A merged/Acquisition with company B. What happened to my stocks. Do I need to do anything???
comsci03 said:Quick question about buy stocks. Let say I bought stock from Company A, let say 2000 shares. Now company A merged/Acquisition with company B. What happened to my stocks. Do I need to do anything???You dont need to do anything. If A was acquired by B then you will likely have your A shares replaced with a proportionate number of B shares (read the terms of the acquisition to figure out exactly what happens). If A acquires B then nothing happens to your A shares. If they merge then again its the case then you need to read up to see what happens but in no case that I can think of do you have to do anything - you can always sit back and let whatever is planned happen. Even if there is a tender offer for your shares you can always choose to do nothing.
One more question, if the company is about to exit Chapter11 and issue New Stocks. What happen to their old stocks? Do they convert it to new one or we'll loose all the old stocks???
Like United airline, they goin gto exit bankruptcy and will issue new stocks. I have some of their old stocks what will happen to their old stocks. ?
comsci03 said:One more question, if the company is about to exit Chapter11 and issue New Stocks. What happen to their old stocks? Do they convert it to new one or we'll loose all the old stocks???
Like United airline, they goin gto exit bankruptcy and will issue new stocks. I have some of their old stocks what will happen to their old stocks?Its a big "it depends" because BK is something that is determined by a judge with different creditors fighting for the crumbs left over but in general stockholders lose everything when a company goes CH11 because they are last line. Check this out: Corporate Bankruptcy
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