You should not invest if you have any debts (except maybe a mortgage), and you have a cash reserve to handle an emergency (if you lose your job, it might be at a time when stocks are down).
The money you start investing should only be money that you don't plan to spend for 5-10 years.
A lot of mutual funds have a minimum initial investment ($2,500 is typical)
And if you try to invest small in stocks, the brokerage fees will eat up your gains. If you buy $5,000 in stock, that $9.99 fee is tolerable, but if you buy $25 in stock, it still costs a $9.99 fee.
First, a little education. Start with one hour a day at Yahoo Finance. Read the articles. Follow the links. Read the ads. In 30 days, with a little effort, you will know more than 90% of the investors out there
Discover sites such as Zacks, Motley Fool, Wall Street Journal, theStreet, Forbes, CNBC, Assetbuilder.com, among many, many others.
Finally read about Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of our time. Study his method and emulate Buffett. In a nutshell, buy (high) quality and hold for decades. (KO, AXP, WFC, JNJ, PG)
For most people: options, frequent trading, selling short, penny stocks, speculative stocks, tips from your barber - DO NOT WORK!
Another thing- any stock picker (e.g. Cramer, Payne, Zacks, among many others) that throws out dozens of stocks to buy, on a weekly basis, is naturally going to have some (maybe, a lot of) winners, in a bull (or up) market. They will tout those winners, and ignore their losers. If you buy their loser pick, you are the bigger loser.
A monkey with enough darts will have as many winners as those guys.
Your capital is limited You can only buy a few stocks. So pick wisely. In the beginning look at low cost ETF's, such as SPY, DIA, VGT among many others.
Good Luck!
(only invest money you won't need for 5+ years- slow and steady wins the investment race)
Another financial website that focus on fundamental - understanding the stock you wanna buy. Try www.marketvis.io
Financial statement and management discussion straight from company 10-q and 10-k. I say management discussion is particularly important to read before buying any stock. Really useful information in there. For example,
AAPL - http://www.marketvis.io/stock/aapl
WMT - http://www.marketvis.io/stock/wmt
Good luck! Remember to always start small until you gain more confidence in investing!
First you should learn Basics.
Know a little bit about stocks.
Familiarize yourself with bonds.
Understand the commodities market.
Buy what you know an invest you time before your money.
I have many questions but where to start is on the top. What companies should I use to invest my money? How much should I start with? Should I go with an online stock investing website like Fidelity or Scottrade? What type of mutual fund should I begin with? How much, on average, should I invest in these? Honestly, any thing to get me started. Once I know where to start then I can run with it.
