In today's world, you cannot beat the Wall Street guys at their own game, which is trading. They have better information. Plus even low online commissions will kill you, assuming you are trading in the few-thousand-dollar range. If you only buy a few stocks and hold them, your commission dent will be much smaller.
What I would do is start slowly - do some research, limiting yourself to only blue chip US companies (do this by market capitalization, you can go to Google Finance and sort stocks by market cap, look only at the 200 largest cap stocks to start). You do that, you likely won't get hurt too badly if you make a bad choice. If you start by screwing around with small cap stocks, you can see big drops in a short time. Pick one or two, buy at least $1,500 in each and then watch it once a week or so while you plan to hold it for at least 6 months. While you are keeping an eye on those, research more stocks. Watch CNBC to learn the lingo and about the market, but don't get wrapped up in their picks - they have to fill many hours a day and there are many guests on there who don't know sh*t or are promoting their stock/company.
Let's just say that you should expect to earn ~10% (at best) when starting off. More like ~3% of your initial investment. And that's including margin (in layman's terms, credit). Though, this is not a yearly percentage; it's more monthly to weekly (depends entirely on your frequency, and whether you compound).
So just take your initial investment, and do a quick calculation of your potential profit :).
You can take more risk with options trading, which actually gives anywhere over 50% of your initial capital, but severely lacks consistency, and has issues regarding theta (price decay per day).
Do your research, as you say. In terms of whether it's worth it, it's hard to say. You need to dedicate anywhere from months to years to make anything significant out of it.
However, if you want the super easy route, that lets you net ~30% of your initial investment in a few months time, buy and hold blue chip stocks (well reputed companies), and just check them once a day or two to see if it's gaining. If not, continue to hold them. This requires minimum research.
If you want to test the waters before delving in, try this to start off:
Open a free, fake portfolio on Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance. Pick any blue chip stock you can think of. Just some major business. Check its current stock price, and take any amount of initial capital you think you would invest.
If you want to potentially invest, say, $10,000, deposit it into the portfolio (pretend money), and buy as many shares as you can with it. Leave it as is for 30 days, not closing it at all.
Afterwards, check the profit that that position made. If it earns at least $833.33/month, you have just achieved 10% (yearly) of your initial investment, which is much more than what the banks usually give.
If it's even more than that, great! If not, then you should consider "spreading out your investments", which is not to put all your money into one company, but into several. However, this depends on how much you want to gain off of your investment, really. Just don't expect outrageous gains unless you dedicate more time and effort into research.
After you gain some experience this way, and feel comfortable with investing, go for it :)!
Yes but a person can also make a lot of money gambling. The problem some face with investing is that they feel more in control, when they may be not. The best advice I can give is study it. There are also stock simulators that allow you to purchase stock with virtual(fake) money. It is a good way to test the waters before committing yourself to an emotional roller coaster. There are plenty of ways to make money in this world and you don't have to pick one that you're uncomfortable with.
do spend some time in librarys learning
b4 u get burned.
as for "making income" from stocks - u do not.
u buy a mutual fund that is well managed and builds
"Wealth".
if u want more "income" - u work over time details.
as for "day trading scams" in
USA the FTC and SEC have both stated the only ones
who actually make money are the sellers of programs
and services.
the actual average guy doing day trading barely breaks even
to tune of 98% of them.
do your research for actual INCOME.
a 2nd job or a small self employment Creates income - not stocks.
Maybe in the 80s or 90s. Not today.
I am currently a police officer and my salary is great. But I want to be able to make more income on the side. Would investing in stocks allow me to make good money?
Off course, I plan in learning about the stock markets beforehand.
But is it worth the time and effort?
How much can one expect to make?
Thank You
