I know it might not be the best time to buy shares in companies, but is there somewhere online I can get into buying and selling them?
You'll need to open a brokerage account, most banks offer this as well as independent companies that specialize in it. I don't know what brokerage accounts are available in England, but just try doing a google search, or go to your bank and ask them if they offer it.
Better to avoid share markets now . Give it time to stabilize. You may want to invest in forex becuase of the following reasons. * Start-up costs are low when compared with day trading stocks or futures. * Forex is the world’s largest market. No one can corner the market. * With a trading volume of around $1.9 trillion dollars a day, no single entity can control the market for an extended period of time. * You can make money when the market is going up or down. * Forex markets trade 24hours a day. There is no waiting for the opening bell. * Technical analysis works very well and the market trends well. * The forex market is the most liquid in the world. Traders can almost always open or close a position at a fair price. * You can gain experience without risking your own money by using a free demo account. * When trading stocks, there are over 40,000 stocks to choose from. In forex, you can choose a few currency pairs and focus on them. Hope the above helps. Thanks
I use the MarketMaker trading platform from CMC which means i can can go long or short on stocks/indexies/fx they have 2 platforms the cfd contract for differance and spread betting the latter one is the main one i use as you dont have to pay tax on it !!!
You can try etrade.com but before doing that make sure you are knowledgeable in shares and how the stock market functions as well as the trends, it can be quite dangerous especially the volatile situation nowadays. Try reading fool.com and other stock market web sites where you can get the info.
The ETrade platform is good but you have to have some knowledge as it is a direct market access system which means you trade direct into the market and can have its uses when you can trade the 10 minute window from 7.50-8.00 before the actual market opens.
Wisdomtool is correct...to add to what he has stated i will advice that if you are new to online stock trading that you use the etrade demo account to help you get used to the terms and navigation. Good Luck
Invest only the money which you do not need because you never know what would happen with the market and whenever there are winners, there would be losers. It all depends on how much you can hold on and afford to lose. The good thing about trading stock and shares is that there is no time being when you must sell your shares and as long as you do not sell and the prices fall, it is only paper loss. When the market picks up, assuming the company survive the downturn, you should see prices going back up (at least in theory). This actually may not be the bad time to actually buy into stocks for the long term, prices have actually fallen quite a lot during the last couple of months and may have reach close to rock bottom. It may fall further or it may hover around the current prices for some time. In a year or two if we get out of the economic downturn, prices may go up.