If you have $100 to invest, you will be paying for transaction fees out of it. Say you bought your first stock. You pay about 8 dollars for that. Then to sell, another $8 dollars. Then you buy something else. $8 again. So, with this, you spent 24 dollars in just fees. That would mean you have 76 dollars to invest.
To earn 24 dollars out of 76 dollars investment, you have to have a gain of 31% and that's just to break even. Assuming average 8% increase a year - which is an average, it takes 4 years to get that far. That's a pretty long experiment just for one buy and sell.
If you really want to do it, find a reliable but inexpensive online brokers to do your trades. Fidelity investments is the largest and you can do online. I am NOT sure if they will actually let you open an account with $100. Usually, the minimums are around $2000. eTrade may be better suited.
My recommendation to you is to do this all on paper.
The stock market is past "experimenting" with. You will wind up "disappointed".
Investing triples your money in a decade.
Gambling triples your money overnight.
Methinks you want to buy the next "Apple" at $5. I am 99% sure "that won't happen".
Save your money until you have 6 months of living expenses in the bank. If your employer has "any decent" savings plan, max that out. Start an IRA by buying low expense mutual funds or major index ETF's.
Your $100 to $300. "experiments" will make you sadder but poorer.
Bloomberg is a great resource for people who are casual investors. They have a great website but the tablet and smartphone app is even better. If you are not planning an spending a ton of time researching and keeping up to date with business news then you should invest in mutual funds. If you can find a good one there should be a relatively steady growth in stock price.
Just remember the better the return the higher the risk!
Getting Started In Stocks
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/bas...
The "best way" would be to not lose any money, and that would mean using a simulator and learning something first. "Experiment" on a simulator while you learn. This is also a great resource.
http://www.investopedia.com/simulator/
The best way to learn and gain in-depth and rounded knowledge is from a book or ten, like Investing for Dummies or The Millionaire Next Door, available at your local library. Trying to learn from snippets and phrases and videos just raises more questions, but Investopedia and Wiki are great for financial definitions.
Stocks Basics: Introduction
http://www.investopedia.com/university/s...
Five Minute Investing: How To Evaluate A Trading Strategy
http://www.investopedia.com/university/f...
The Cardinal Sin Of Beginning Investing -- And How To Avoid It
http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analys...
http://www.howthemarketworks.com./
http://stockmarket.makemoneyideas.in/
http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/inve...
http://www.fool.com/School.htm
http://www.ehow.com/topic_558_investing-...
You would be best to study up on the whole process. There are books available.
I'd like to work with small quantities of stock (<$100) from the stock market as a bit of an experiment, to see how it goes and get acquainted with how things work.
What's the best way of getting started and what places/resources should I look at?
