Need some confidence to start online trading.

livEwirE

Hi guys,

I'd like learn how to do online trading in the US stock market (NYSE&NASDAQ) and am a complete beginner. What I really want to know is where do I start? I am reading ''Trading For Dummies' and trying to get my head around all the jargon used. It's tough going but hopefully I'll be able to start understanding enough to start trading for myself some time. I am very nervous about trading(losing money) which is probably what is holding me back right now:o I have a little cash(€1k) put aside that I can afford to lose to help me get started. The problem is I don't want to jump in too early but then again, I know I can't learn everything beforehand, I've read some people saying that you will learn as you go but I'm not sure if my limited budget will last that long;)

I've so many other questions but I don't expect them to be answered in this one post;)

When starting to trade is it best to sign up with a full service broker?

Can brokers be trusted to provide you with good information on investing?

Where are the best resources to find good companies to buy stock in?

Can anyone recommend any brokers? The only site I know of so far is www.etrade.com

How did you start online trading and did you find it difficult? Was it worth sticking with?

Any advice is very MUCH appreciated
Cheer,
livEwirE

neil.p.b

Do you want to trade or invest? Two very different things.

Dvdtrader

Are you trading just stocks? How about futures? How much are you funding? How long have you been trading?

digitally-yours

My Advice

Charts Charts and Charts its all in the Charts

Will be visiting Dublin in December can do a quick meeting if anyone is up for it and want to learn

FISMA

Tough questions. If you are going to play the American side of the pond, I would listen to Bloomberg and Kramer for a few months before throwing down any real funds.

Over the last two years, being contrarian has worked well. Also, we seem to cycle between beating up on America and Europe. Right now, we're beating up on the EU.

Has anyone noticed that there isn't much mention of QE3? Soon we'll be back to beating up on the States, just in time for the election cycle.

Have you decided on what broker to use? Try and get access to level II's at the least. Understand that the "real time" data they claim is probably a minute or two old. Checking Google, you could be up to 15 minutes old. Not exactly the way you want to trade.

I would buy some GLD, the ETF for Gold. Gold is going to continue to climb until the EU and US fix their monetary problems.

Also, don't chase a stock and never invest on emotions.

MrMatisse

www.teamtraders.com

An Irish start up. Trade with fake money first they give you an imaginary 100k.

Maybe practice with that not your hard earned cash at first!

delux

The only site I know of so far is www.etrade.com

have you contacted Etrade yet? I'm pretty sure they don't allow non-US people to open brokerage accounts anymore since the financial crisis started.

livEwirE

Cheers for all the advice guys, will be postponing this all until the new year:D

Raskolnikov

If you're going to try trading with €1,000, then spreadbetting is your only option. Oh, and don't even think about using real money until you have been paper trading successfully for at least 6 months.

chionle

Hi, the training and mentoring programmes offered by TICN Ireland might help you get on a good start. Their website is www.ticn.com

Regards

neris

One thing I find a pain when trading through US brokers is the amount of time it takes to transfer funds so make sure your account is loaded up to your requirements that you have enough cash to buy if an opportunity arises

neil.p.b

As rask said don't start with real money just for a few months. Even if you've been paper trading for a few months be prepared to wipe out your first real money account. It takes a while to get used to the pressure of trading with real money. Put down trading for dummies and get some proper books! I'd recommend looking over everything on stockcharts.com


http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school

Then i'd recommend reading the following books in this order:

John J. Murphy - Technical Anaylsis of the financial markets.

Martin Pring - Price Patterns

Alexender Elder - Trading For A Living and Come Into My Trading Room. Highly recommend these two books.


Mark Douglas - Trading in the Zone

A lot of the same stuff is covered in each book so once you've read one some others will just be repetitive (stock charts and Murphys book will be very repetitive).

Reading and studying these will likely take you a few months in which time you could practice trading with dummy money after you've read a couple of them.

gb153

neil.p.b wrote: »

Alexender Elder - Trading For A Living and Come Into My Trading Room. Highly recommend these two books.

I would highly recommend this author. He is a trained psychologist and he makes very interesting comparisons between alcoholics and gamblers (i.e. traders!). Full of technical analysis and other essential requisites to ensure you are well prepared to trade such as money management, controlling your emotions and documenting all your past trades for later review.

Been meaning to read some more titles on trading so I will look into the rest of your list myself neil.p.b.

I found Mark Shipman's 2 books excellent also although they are more for long term trend following than short term trading. He swears that short term trading cannot compete with his system but that's up to you to decide. Interesting sections on why you should take command of your own financial future and not leave it to so called financial experts also.

neil.p.b

gb153 wrote: »

Been meaning to read some more titles on trading so I will look into the rest of your list myself neil.p.b.

If you've got some knowledge already Murphys book mightn't be necessary but it could be worth skimming over as it covers a lot. Same with Prings book, although it is very well written, easy to read and would be quicker to get through than Murphys.

freeze4real

when trading you must come to terms with the emotional aspects of it. Not everyone can do it the best of the best has given in to their emorions e.g keeping a asset that's loosing value on a rapid.

Smart thing is to sell, but emotions are saying it might go up.

My mate in college does trading and one thing i notice about him is he's into macroeconomics not in the sense of he could pass exams but in the sense that he could link the implications of disasters from countries to countries.

if you can do so naturally you will be able to predicts oil prices which affects most economies.


I dont know if you can learn this, all things can be learnt but its a good skill to have.

My mate was trading at the age of 9yrs that how he does it so well.

mikkimak

Forget about Brokers, until you have an idea what you are doing. Do check out www.ticn.com and have a look at what they offer. Join one of their clubs - great education and fun. Sound advice, low cost training, long term support and local advice. I notice that they never respond to any comments made on Forums, but i have used them personally and consider that any payment made for education was very well spent. There is no rush, because the market will always be there when you are ready to invest. As for books i agree with Mark Douglas - Trading in the Zone. Do not worry that it is old, watch his YouTube videos, ignore the 70s suits and concentrate on the message.

zephyro

livEwirE wrote: »

Cheers for all the advice guys, will be postponing this all until the new year:D

If you haven't started yet I'll give you my 2c for what it's worth.

livEwirE wrote: »

When starting to trade is it best to sign up with a full service broker?

Assuming you're not going to be relying on a broker to provide you with research and ideas (and why would you when you can do it yourself?), I'd say it's definitely best to go with a discount broker.

livEwirE wrote: »

Can brokers be trusted to provide you with good information on investing?

If you mean information that will consistently produce profitable trades then no. Bear in mind that a broker's vested interest is that you trade as much as possible which is most likely not in your best interest.

livEwirE wrote: »

Where are the best resources to find good companies to buy stock in?

This is completely dependent on your trading strategy, and imo the first thing you need to do is decide what your strategy is. Also once you've decided, write it down and commit to it! It's really easy in the heat of the moment to second guess things and buy and sell when you shouldn't so you should clearly define what you're going to trade and when you're going to trade it. I think it's also important to choose a strategy that's a good fit for you, otherwise you'll probably abandon it when things aren't going so well. I use a quantitative strategy so the only resource I need is a stock screener in which I specify what my criteria are and it outputs the stocks that meet them. I also have clearly defined criteria to trigger buys and sells.

livEwirE wrote: »

Can anyone recommend any brokers? The only site I know of so far is www.etrade.com

My broker is TD Ameritrade. Online trades are $9.99 and I've never had any problems with them.

livEwirE wrote: »

How did you start online trading and did you find it difficult? Was it worth sticking with?

I started when I had a little cash to spare and the dot com bubble was at its peak! The only thing I found difficult was looking back I'd no idea what I was doing and was probably just lucky I didn't lose everything I put into it. That said I think it was worth sticking with, my account is now well into six figures and I enjoy the challenge of identifying big winners before the herd cottons on!