How do you buy and sell stocks?

I was wondering how you do this.

I havnt really looked around, but i have always been interested. I dont like searching google cos of so many MFA sites come up.

Rob

 

You open an account with a trading company like Etrade, then you place orders to buy and sell stocks.

 

www.etrade.com and use Yahoo instead of Google

 

I use Scottrade.com personally. I found that they were the cheapest to go with, at $7 a trade and no hidden fees like etrade.com had. Etrade charges you inactivity fees for christ sake!!!

You just open an account with Scottrade (or whoever you go with), fund your account with at least $500-2,000 (sites have different minimums), and then you can execute a buy order to buy x amount of shares of stock. Theres no minimum. You can buy 1 share of a stock if you want, but it seems like a waste of $7 to do that. When your happy with the returns on your stock, or don't want to lose any more money, then you can execute a sell order and sell the shares.

It's pretty straightforward. I invested for the first time in the Spring, using Scottrade, and I'm only 22. I always thought buying and selling stocks was so difficult, but once again, thanks to the internet, it's super easy.

 

I think the best way to trade is not to use etrade, tdwaterhouse etc. The best way is to use "direct access" trades. I used to trade on tdwaterhouse but there is always a few seconds delay since it's not direct access. With direct access, you touch the "buy" or "sell" button and your trade is complete. fast!!!
Here is an online article about this. http://daytrading.about.com/od/exchangesecns/a/onlinetrading.htm
There are a few choices online to trade with. I also have a friend who sets people up so they can either trade in a trading office or sets them up at home to use direct access trading and it is also much cheaper. If you pay $7 a trade, that is $14 for the roundtrip, or more if you broke it in half ex. buy 200 shares sold 100, 10 minutes later sold the other 100..thats $21. With this guy and probably others as well, the cost is around $7 per 1,000 shares traded. This means if you did the same exact trade I just mentioned, instead of paying $21, you will pay $3! Direct access is the only way to go if you are an active trader.
I was doing that but I don't anymore...because trading is tough!

 

Start off simple. Find a low cost discount broker. I use quite a few brokerages, for various reasons. I would recommend either Scottrade or TradeKing. TradeKing will be cheaper commissions on your trades.

The basics of trading is relatively simple. Once you've funded your brokerage account with money, you place a Buy Order for ## shares of stock. You'll pay the cost of the stock + the broker's commission.

You can place a market order, which means you are at the mercy of the market filling your order whenever it receives the order, at whatever price it is currently trading at (the Ask price). Or, you can place a limit order, where you specify what price you want to buy the stock at. Market Orders will get your order filled, whereas limit orders may or may not, depends on if your price target is hit.

Once you are the owner of the stock, you can hold it for however long you want. There are various other options for you to earn additonal money from owning this stock, such as selling covered calls. Or, you can sell it later for a loss or gain. Same principle as buying, but you are looking at the Bid price instead of the Ask price. The same comission applies here as well.

That's stock investing in a nutshell.

I would avoid penny stocks (any stock under $3.00) as those tend to be a bit more volatile. I wouldn't invest in any stocks unless you have at least 1k in your trading account. Otherwise, you'll be struggling to turn a profit due to commission costs.

 

Start with ETrade or Scotttrade .. find the best deal...don't get into day trading initially. Agreed that the prices are delayed by few seconds but it matters mainy in day trading. Initially get into delivery based buying. Once you get a good hang of trading with might take 3-6 months, try getting in day trading with direct access.

 

I've sent you a PM.

 

I trade penny stocks for a living. If you have any questions please ask and I will be happy to answer them.

 

Sorry to say it but scottrade is one of the worlds worst brokers. Ameritrade, etrade, scwhab, and fidelity are also terrible brokers, especially for penny stocks. Yes the commissions might be cheaper, but if they take and extra 10-30 seconds to fill your order, you could potentially lose hundred or thousands of dollars in that amount of time depending on the size of your order.

 

Wow I just noticed this post is 6 years old, but none the less I will still be happy to answer any questions.

 

You can also do Spread Betting. It's scary as hell, but can be incredibly lucrative if you have inside industry knowledge...much like trading stocks I guess.

 

I am a technical trader. I use advanced technical analysis and chart reading to trade penny stocks successfully. I started trading stocks in 2004 and learned to be profitable in 2006. I spent hundreds of hours of my time and lost thousands of dollars before I developed a profitable method of pulling money out the the penny stock market. Trading is not easy. In fact it is one of the most difficult things to do in life. The stock market, and in particular penny stock market, is designed to take money out of the hands of the uninformed, and put it into the hands of the informed traders. If you don't know technical analysis and how to analyze charts, you will most likely have no shot at earning money in the market in the short term. Longer term you may get average market returns of 10% but this amounts to nothing if you don't start out with a lot of capital. This is why I choose to trade penny stocks. Yes lower priced stocks are much more volatile and therefore more risky, but if you know the correct patterns to look for and you manage your money correctly only risking a certain percentage of your capital on anyone trade, you will prevent yourself from losing all your money and greatly reduce your risk. If you protect your capital and have a strategy which gives you a statistic edge, you will make money consistently over the longer term. The toughest part is coming up with a trading system that actually is profitable. There's ton of peoples that sell their worthless systems online. There are also lots of people that claim to be stock trading guru's that sell their alert services. These people are for the most part con artists. I learned the hard way by trying to buy their products and trading alert subscriptions, and lost thousands of dollars. Fortunately this got me to realize that you can't make money in the market consistently by following others. It doesn't matter whether a guru like Timothy Sykes has made 3 million dollars in the market. The fact is you can never get the same price as another person in low priced stocks, so you will never do as well as a guru. Penny stocks are to illiquid and move to fast to follow others.

 

Open your account in online business platforms for buy and sell stocks. http://www.indiamart.com & http://www.hellotrade.com namely.

 

1st open account with stock broker, they will provide you with their stock market software with various features buy using this software you can buy and sell stock online during trading hours and in case if you have any problem with online tool you can call customer care of your broker and can do trading by phone.

 

Selling/buying stocks is relatively easy, but hard to be profitable if you don't have enough capital to support lost trades.

Don't focus your attention to any software or what is the best broker. Instead, focus your attention on patterns that produce profit and loses by [h=3]analysing your wins/loses trades.[/h]
To learn, you must study. And to get profitable, you must get your hands dirty and lose some money first. So, get ready to lose before you get profits.
losing is the hard part, and it really teach you how easy you can wipe out your money, and you start taking some basic lessons from experience to avoid losing. See it this way: Losing is the price of getting experience, If you can not afford to lose, this is not for you. That simple.

As a new trader, wiping out your account can be hard to digest. It's also true when making big profits. (take a week off when either thing happens) Allow your brain to digest what just happened until you get used to lose/win.

From my own experience, I stick with less than 10 stocks. And I get to know them very well. (please, don't go after penny stocks.)
To get started and gain experience, $2000 is enough to get a personal touch on the market.(no more than that).


Also, most of my trades are "Options".

~Mike

 

open an account with etrade

 

Choose etrade or scotttrade

 

is etrade for indian shares, stocks or what?

 

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