by H2wood » Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:34 pm
Investing takes a whole lot of education, experience and mindset shift. If you're really serious about it, the 1st thing you have to do is clarify your notions about finances, money, money and find out your risk aversion.
Next, you then have to learn the basics of how to read financials e.g statements of financial performance and statements of financial positions. Then, train yourself about stocks, the stockmarket.
Go to investment seminars, take courses about trading stocks, network with other experience stockmarket people, i.e people that have really made real, yearly profits from trading stocks.
Determine your risk bound or set your risk management system, i.e your stop loss, profit targets, upper limitations on your trading bank.
Decide if you want to be a basic stocktrader, a technical trader or a combo of both.
With that in mind, papertrade for at least six weeks using realtime stockmarket data, i.e trading on paper without using any real money. After you get a feel for it and are comfy, shop for stockbrokers, set up an account, and get to trading.
One hot tip: never be emotionally attached to a stock and never trade when you're emotional.