Quote from RichnJenK:
Im new to the stock market scene and have been trying to do my research by learning as much as I can before diving in and making a huge mistake financially. Im 25 years old, with what I consider to be a good paying job but am looking to make my money work for me and be able to take care of my future family. Im not looking to be a millionaire, although it would be nice. Im simply looking for a comfortable future for whomever I might have a life with. As heroic as that might sound, I am on here looking for help to get my feet wet. I have little college experience behind me because of missed opportunities but I consider myself to be a smart individual with a history of being mathematically capable. I like to be pointed in the right direction and take it from there. Ive spent a couple of days reading all there is on Investopedia.com. Very informative. I found this site as well and thought that talking to people that consider themselves "elite" would be a good place to start asking questions...
Any advice for starting out and where do I even begin?! Find a broker? Get software? The right software? Please Help.
Cashmoney had some good pointers.
You should really just observe markets and read.
I'm your same age and have been in the markets for a few years. Although I came up through the penny markets(I can hear the hissing here) and it's a swamp I'm lucky to have gotten out with my nuts let alone huge gains.
You just need to observe.
The biggest and best tips I can give you are:
- DON'T get entranced by the market, it's a bunch of fools being separated from their money by being entranced, don't be one of us...oops, I mean them!
- DON'T trade until you have a firm grasp and start off SLOW!
- DON'T think that you know the future. You'll read this in Mark Douglas' books which I highly recommend. Thinking you KNOW the markets future actions are what land you riding a bad position down because you KNOW you're right and are waiting for the market to catch up to you. You should have an adequate understanding that the market is your boss, you need to heed its call.
- DO paper trade...it's a great idea!
- DON'T try and cover everything at once.
- DO read the hell out of this site...I'd only recently discovered this site and I now spend most of my reading time reading old posts. The Journals are good. There is a world of knowledge on this site. And there are some sad stories about failed traders that you'd be smart to read...some of them are pretty brutal.
- DO READ READ READ. I think books are a good way of unplugging and reading something not on the computer where it's easy to be distracted. Elder's books and Douglas' books are good.
- DO observe market gainers and laggards and try and understand how they're affected by news.
Good luck...hope it works out for you.
You can private message me if you have other questions or anything. The folks on this site are helpful...watch out for the assholes though, there are a few floating around it's best to be assholes back to them!
