Trading Enthusiast

1. 13 Responses to “Does anyone have some good advice for trading stocks online?”

2. By Gianpaolo a on Dec 2, 2008 | Reply

   you have an abundance of options when it comes to choosing a broker, tdameritrade, etrade, scottrade etc. they are all acceptable. You can’t rely on websites to pick stocks for you, the best thing to do is educate yourself as much as possible and make your own picks. Watch CNBC and read various financial websites. If you must simply take picks from a site, try Gorrilla trades (but you must pay). Good luck

3. By Don on Dec 5, 2008 | Reply

   If you are a gambler then proceed with trying to pick stocks. If on the other hand you are trying to build a next egg then research and put your money in a good mutual fund.

4. By Common Sense on Dec 5, 2008 | Reply

   So far the answers you’ve received are totally wrong. Watching CNBC can give you a “feel” but it’s the worst place to take specific investing advice from. This would be true of any other TV, radio or newspaper, magazine or newsletter.

   Scottrade is a great broker but it’s not good for a newbie. I have no idea about Amertitade. I can tell you that Schwab and Fidelity are more geared to the new or less involved trader that needs some help along the way.

   I’ve tried Gorilla Trades. They’re fair at best. A good service is going to have 40% - 65% good picks. The real way to profit is with the correct Money Management (risk to reward ratio)….. combined with a proper “asset allocation”.

   If there was a great service “out there” don’t you think everyone would be using it?

   READ… LEARN.. READ… LEARN…..

   If done correctly stock investing is not gambling. Mutual funds would (however) be a good way to start & and a great way to learn.

   Work hard. Don’t take “tips”. Keep “fees” low. Always use good money management…. you’ll do fine!

5. By Ernie on Dec 7, 2008 | Reply

   Honestly, this is something you’ll want to investigate thoroughly. Check out some of the major investment firms such as Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, or some of the online brokers eTrade and Ameritrade to get an idea of what’s out there. Most firms have minimum initial investments for certain products. Fidelity requires $2500 for initial Mutual fund investment, $1000 for cds. Vanguard starts at $3000 with the exception of Vanguard Star Fund (which is a fund of other Vanguard funds) which starts at $1000. You might also benefit by checking out Morningstar.com and/or Valueline. Morningstar offers a no-frills membership to their site, which is fairly helpful in analyzing investment choices. I also like Smartmoney.com.

   I also highly recommend checking out a few other resources. First, ask around family and friends. See if they’ll tell you what worked or maybe didn’t work for them and why. Also, purchase or borrow an investment text. Most college-level personal finance texts should be adequat for learning basic terminology, ideology, and methodology of sundry investment products. I also have used Investing for Dummies, thought its analysis seems a bit trite at times.

   Whatever you do, try to resist the urge to baby sit your investments, especially if they are long term (college, retirement, etc.) Once you find an investment, invest, then cut the chord. There are several investment profiles from Conservative to Aggressive Growth. Invest to your comfort level.

6. By SWH on Dec 8, 2008 | Reply

   I can tell that you are a value investor. You want to ask 3 questions for the price of 1… well, here you go.

   What site is best for trading?
   Every one has different needs. If you’re new and don’t keep much money in your brokerage account, then Scottrade is probably good for you. They’re real time charts are pretty good, but no CD’s are available, the cash account only pays about 0.5%, and they charge pretty heavily for mutual funds. If you want to leave money sitting in a MM that pays 5% while you’re out of the market, like a choice of no load, no fee mutual funds, has an excellent site for research, want to buy competitive CDs on line, all in one place, then you might like fidelity. It’s what makes you happy. If you don’t like the sevice, then you can always change.

   How do I pick stocks?
   An answer would take volumes to provide, so let me suggest some literature:

   I would recommend William O’Neil’s “The Successful Investor” as a good starting point. Follow that up with Peter Lynch’s “Beating the Street”. That should provide you with two strategies that you can learn from in building your own investment strategy.

   Other good books include “The Motley Fool Investment Guide” by Tom and Dave Gardner or “Real Money” by James Cramer.

   I have read all these books and many others and devised a strategy that adopts a bit from each one.

   Another thing you can do is invest using a fictional portfolio. Let that run for a few months to see if you are ready to start trading with real money. In the meantime, invest in mutual funds. Once you are ready, sell the fund and invest on your own.

   Remember, the time spend learning about investing is far less then the money lost by not being prepared.

   Where can I find good fundamental and technical analysis?
   You’re on your own for this. There’s a multitude of excellent sites out there, where you can get fundamental ratios. Try Zack’s, Yahoo Finance, MSN finance, and a multitude of others are out there for free. As far as technical analysis, you need to research and find what works for you. As far as charting goes, Bigcharts is a good free site. Personally, I like Telecharts, which has a fee, but well worth the 50-75cents per day for the sorting capability, fast way to cycle thru many charts, and the ability to write your own personal critera.

   Are there any sites out there that seem to pick consistent winners?
   No. And anybody that says they can is a liar.
   ///

7. By Frank Castle on Dec 9, 2008 | Reply

   1) Yes.
   2) Zecco.
   3) You don’t (That’s my job)
   4) I don’t know.
   5) Yes.

8. By Glen P on Dec 11, 2008 | Reply

   Based upon my own experience, I can save you from the mistakes I made when I started trading stocks a little over a year ago.

   1) My #1 mistake was trying to “learn the ropes” of stock trading using real money. It is not necessary! I urge you to set up a dummy portfolio at Yahoo, Google, MSN, or other sites first. You can “trade” stocks and follow your results using pretend money before putting real money at risk.

   2) My #2 mistake was jumping in and out of individual stocks too fast. It’s too easy to check the market every morning and sell whatever is going down, buy whatever is going up. It seems like a slam-dunk strategy, but it does not work! Stocks can and do reverse direction in a minute. By the end of the day, you can end up wishing you had not bought what you bought, and had not sold what you sold.

   3) Research. Research. Research! My TV stays on CNBC or Bloomberg 90%+ of the time. I have learned that a stock the experts call a “buy” one day can be a “sell” the next day. Research is easy on the internet. Whatever web browser you use has a “finance” tab with a stock quotes key.

   4) Read #1 again. Set up your portfolio and start trading with pretend money first! It’s easy to do, and your lessons will be just as real even though your losses will not be real money.

9. By jebediabartlett on Dec 11, 2008 | Reply

   Lots of good points in the answers …and I’ll throw in a few more.
   Number one..you’re not looking for a ” site” to trade, you’re looking for a ” broker”…Fidelity: great full-service, learning tools, strategies, research, etc. E-trade: easy to open, has everything you need ( but a little harder to use/find than Fido )
   Second, how to pick stocks? Wow…if you get good enough at your own ” analysis” you will set your own buy/ sell signals, but that takes real, real study and ” DILIGENCE”… in most cases you will be working more off ” information” ( you can almost call it tips) BUT your information is going to come from your own reading and listening… moneycentral/msn prints news items every minute of the day from about six or eight different financial publications ( just click on the ” more news” link and see hour by hour rundowns) you’ll have something in mind and just view any stories that may be related. The same site has their own analysts on funds and stocks…also a thing called ” Strategy Lab”..six different investors trade and talk about the way and why they buy…
   Fundamental analysis is all in the ” financials” you will see when you request a quote on yahoo, msn, or any other site.
   Some ” charting” and tech analysis is found at:http://www.stockconsultant.com
   ( you can use it for about eight different charts per day ( free) if you click on ” consult”, enter one symbol..(and make it a favorite) then just enter diff symbols when looking at something in particular)
   Your reading and listening will find you people that you come to “trust” or at least respect their opinions. The ” Fast Money” guys at 8:00 PM EST on CNBC have some good conversations…you’ll learn who to listen to…and they talk to quite a few other people in the markets.
   Just one more thing: TAKE IT SLOW…don’t try to slam-dunk something right away…find something you know or have read good things about..look at ” the sector”..the competition..buy a little of this and that ..watch it work..
   Oooops! one more thing…http://top10traders.com/
   A nice place to “practice” that you can learn from experience and observation…
   Good luck.

10. By ll on Dec 14, 2008 | Reply

    software analysis many variables of the stocks from Dow Jones and NASDAQ 100. Millions of calculations are made in real time to determine how each stock is being valued on the stock market.

    StockSalad.com then presents a simple recommendations list of the analyzed stocks, ranked according the extend of the overvalue or undervalue on the market. Depending on the technical indicators in combination with fundamental data, StockSalad.com also generates “buy” and ’sell” recommendations, targets and support levels.

11. By David C on Dec 15, 2008 | Reply

    Lots of great answers here. Here’s mine.
    A friend was a successful day trader (9yrs) so I was fascinated by some of his trading wins.
    I got a free portfolio paper trading account from yahoo to practice with, (I saved myself millions of real $ in losses whilst practicing, DO this first, you have to master your own fear and greed to avoid losing all you have)

    I then went on free training courses to learn more, (http://www.teachmetotrade.com and
    they hold 1-day courses all around the country in hotels; it’s a good taster. I bought a 3-day course for $2000 for a couple, get someone to go with you & split cost. I went on a 3 day course with Wizetrade only $150. The courses explain in more details all the different types of investing and how it works, video presentations etc. Now at the end of the course they push more training that costs tens of thousands of dollars, don’t bother with those, you have a basic understanding now so read books and web sites for free. The wizetrade is a stock picking program but why you are there is not for that, it’s to learn about the stock market, how the program works, spotting trends, buy points, sell points etc.

    After more practice and defeating my fear & greed I opened an etrade brokerage account using Etrade Pro for level 2 quotes as they had the lowest opening balance requirement $1000.00 and they had PK and bb live level 2 included. (Don’t buy PK or BB stocks until you are experienced as most of them are scam shell companies that trade on fake news.

    I then tested out many Internet investing sites with their free trial special offers and then re-subscribed with multiple email addresses until I was happy to subscribe. I also went to Borders and Barnes and Noble for hours every week, reading all of the investment sections for free (had to buy coffee though), here are some useful links, (live news feed raidar)
    Use Yahoo most actives feature to see the leaders and losers, you should subscribe to this service for live streaming quotes for around $100 a year.
    Watch CNBC and especially Jim Cramers Mad Money (he’s the best)
    Read Jim Cramer’s books and Michel Parness, Rule the Freakin markets/ Trend trading. to win.

    This will be good grounding in the terminology and the many, various investing strategies. You will have to choose some strategies and concentrate on those until you get them right. I chose news day trading, shorting, piggybacking or shorting movers, swing trades, gaps and earnings. There are dozens of others, it depends on you, your style. Strategy, your capital and time you have available.

    Good Luck

12. By xiongyali s on Dec 16, 2008 | Reply

    Hi, i recommand you a good and basic tutorial for investing. it covers all Issues related to your Investing and everything around it.

    wish it will help you.

    Good Luck , Best Wishes!

13. By slavaret2 on Dec 18, 2008 | Reply

    - all you need to know is listed on the front page. It’s free to join and you can go back 3-6 months and verify picks’ returns.

14. By trader on Dec 20, 2008 | Reply

    I use TD-Ameritrade. I found they were less expensive than E-Trade. I use technical analysis to buy and sell stocks. There are several good books out there like “Technical Analysis of the Financial markets” by John Murphy or “How to make money in stocks” by William O’Neil. I can tell you that you should paper trade prior to using your hard earned money first. It is easier to loose money than to gain it. This is because if you use a non-proven back tested buy-sell system, your losses can exceed your gains. I am getting gain/loss ratio > 4:1 averaging 30% per year. Check out yahoo group ComputerProgramPicks. Best of luck to you. Luck is using your skill, being patient and seizing the opportunity and being ready to sell when you are wrong.

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