can someone help me understand the stock market? all the tricks and trades...?

I’d et a book from the library, because My Grandpa taught me. But I was sooo confused!

K the symbols you should look up, For example if you wanted to invest in Microsoft the symbol is “MSFT”

Modern life etc would not be possible without big corporations (which are you, and me putting our money together, to create big wonderful skyscrapers etc.)

Shares are basically a piece of the company, dividends are your percent of the profits. The more shares you own, the bigger your percentage. This sounds confusing, but eventually a light will go on, and you’ll know it. To practice, try watching a stock everyday in the paper. This is called “”tracking”

God Bless you

If you are 25 today and you retire at 67 with a million dollar investment portfolio, that will safely generate $60K/year.

But when you are 67, that 60K will only have the buying power of a little over $16K/year. It gets worse though,

because at 67, you will still probably have 30 more years to live and that 16K will shrink each year until it’s only

worth $8K/year at age 90.

A million dollars isn’t what it used to be… and it will be even less in the future.

So…. We must all become educated investors much more so then our parents were and start sooner. These are some

basic steps to get you started. You’ve got to jump in now.

Step 1.

First decide what kind of brokerage you want to work with. You can open a brokerage account in your bank, with a

large full service brokerage or an internet brokerage. I find when I get help, most people want to sell me things that

are better for them…. So I use http://www.scottrade.com/ because it’s cheap and easy with low frills. I like their

streaming quotes and I do my own research and make my own investments. But any low cost internet brokerage

service is fine.

Step 2. get a subscription to Financial Times, Barrons or Investors Business Daily… Do this for 6 months or a year. At first, It seems a bit mysterious, but pretty soon you start to understand the terms and things that investors are looking for and what they are afraid of

Step 3. If you have some money to invest, put it in 3 month CD’s right now. First the market is unstable and second

you have some homework in Step 3 to do before you do any investing.

Step 4. Go out to the internet and search on the following subjects. Become very familiar with the concepts.

Asset allocation

Long term investing

inflation

Roth ira vs ira

Large med small cap

Value vs growth

Indexed mutual funds

No load mutual funds

ETF

Sector funds

Bonds CD preferred stock

dividends

International funds

Market cycles

volatility

Fundamental analysis

Technical analysis

In most cases, I think it is wise to use indexed mutual funds and ETF to build the base of your portfolio.

Step 5 go to http://clearstation.etrade.com/ and sign up for a free account. Play around there by looking at graphs and

fundamentals. If you click on the graph names, you will get clear information about what the graph is based on and

how to interpret it. I think it’s also a good idea to pretend you have $10,000 and start buying and selling on paper.

Keep track of where you are each day for a month… It’s a lot easier to lose play money then real money….

WARNING: don’t rely on technical analysis alone. These graphs a good at telling you WHEN to buy and sell, but

now WHAT to buy.

Step 6. It’s always a good Idea to see a CFP (certified financial planner). Their job is to work for your benefit, not to

sell you investments. They can cover subjects like employee benefits, insurance, budgeting, living trusts, 401k, taxes

and real estate as well as investment types and investment types to keep away from.

Always strive to do your own research… you’ll find everyone sounds like an expert so take everything people tell you

with a grain of salt. It’s not easy in the beginning but soon you will be the expert.

Don’t get involved with futures, currency, options (unless you get stock options at work), commodities, annuities or

other derivative type investments at this time.

Good Luck

There many books available at the library and a lot of online resources also to help learn the ins and outs of stock market investing. Do some research with your favorite search engine and go to the link below to get some basics.