5 HOT TIPS TO START STOCK TRADING

Financial stock market has remained one of the avenue where people all over the world make and multiply their wealth.
It has enough room to absorb as many with different objectives whether day-trading
for profits or for long-term investment into the stock market.

I was motivated to write this article due to received questions from people on how to start or get into the online
stock market as they claim the whole picture is still blurring to them. This brought about the aim to this article which
is to reveal the hot tips one need to be aware of and stick to for an easier
start in the business of online stock trading.

1. What do you know about stock trading? This is the first question you need to ask
yourself. You should look before you leap. Do not put your money into a
business you do not understand but put your time and energy first at learning
how it works. Take advantage of good stock trading books written to guide the beginners
and learn the stock market road before running into it.

2. A business plan: stock trading is a good business and like other businesses, it
must be started with a good business plan. Your plan must cover what you set to
achieve and how you want to achieve it. It will define whether you are a
short-term, medium-term or long-term trader. Your plan will also include how
you intend to manage your risk. In achieving your trading goal, you must have
trading strategies that will guide you on entering and exiting your trades. You
can read more on designing your trading plan through this book, “Secret
Practical Guide for Stock Beginners”, it has more in-debt analysis and
illustrations on setting up your trading plan.

3 . Practice before you invest your real money. Stock market is a risky market but you can
reduce the risk of loosing your hard earned money by first gaining the trading
experience through opening one or more of the stock simulator account. A stock market simulator is a program or
application that attempts to reproduce or duplicate some or all features of a
live stock market on a computer so that
a player may practice trading stocks without financial risk. Play the game with virtual money by owning a
virtual portfolio, test your strategies and gain more confident before
approaching the market.

4. At this stage, you are confident enough to open your real account seeing that you
have grown your virtual portfolio with your trading strategies. There are numerous
stock brokers online and you need to choose the type of broker that matches
your interest.

5. Keep a trading diary close to your table. This is very important even when you are
practicing with a virtual portfolio as it will help you to review your trades
from time to time for more improvement in your trading skill. It will also help
you to detect trade errors if they are made by your brokers for and be corrected immediately.

HOW TO CHOOSE A GOOD STOCK BROKER

Investing in the stock market is no child's play. I n most cases the use of a good stock broker and even a financial specialist is an element one can not ignore if you want to make success in this market.

List of some stock brokers online are TD Ameritrade, Scottrade, E-trade,Fidelity, Tradeking, Just2trade, Sogotrade, Nobletrading, Trademonster, Cobra trading, Sharebuilder and so on.

To invest through any stock broker, you need to consider the following points.

DISCOUNT OR FULL SERVICE BROKER:

There are two types of Stock Brokers: discount brokers and a full service brokers. Full service brokers as the name implies are brokers that renders more full financial services to their clients. They gives financial advice, strategies, stock recommendations to guide their client to achieve his/her major goal/objective in the stock market. But this type of brokers due to their detailed services they charge more commissions. A discount brokers usually charges lesser commission and performs only the primary function of carrying out your buy and sell orders. They don't care about your investment portfolio or objective. So, the type of broker you choose depends on what you want.

COMMISSION,FEES AND ACCOUNT MINIMUM:

The two biggest fees when dealing with an online brokerage are the fee per trade and maintenance fees. The fee per trade (is also called commission) is what you pay to execute a stock trade. Maintenance fees are additional fees that are charged monthly, quarterly or yearly. To start global stock trading, brokers requires different account minimum, some are as low as $250 initial deposit while there are others collecting as high as $2,000 initial deposit. A broker's website will list the fees, commissions and start-up capital, so make sure you check that out.

REPUTATION AND CUSTOMER SERVICES OF THE BROKER:

It is very necessary that you evaluate the reputation of any broker you intend dealing with. Check if they are registered with any regulatory body. Ask questions through friends and in forums about the broker. You can also test their customer service by contacting them to see how fast or slow they attends to their customers requests.