I am interested in learning more about the stock markets and bonds and stuff like that.. any suggestions?

Billy Joe: I am interested in learning more about the stock markets and bonds and stuff like that.. any suggestions?
I am going to the library, is there any good books that i could check out like “learning the stock market” or “how to buy bonds”.. stuff like that i want to read a big book that will teach me a very usefull skill. I recently read an article on Yahoo! News about a kid who checked out a book at his local library and learned how to make Ipod Apps. Im very interested in learning a new specific skill by checking out a library book so if there are any books that are out there please list some. I am 18 and im going to college next year but i would still like to know how to invest in stocks or something else. I do not know much about the buisness world at all so if there are any other good books that teach you about skills please let me know, thanks for any time taken to read my question.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Grabbin’ a puke bomb
you’ll need a lot of money before you start investing. lets say a share of a company is 20 dollars. you’ll have to buy like ###’s amount of shares before you can “own” a part of the company. try etrade-ask them what to do.

Answer by anonimitie
Investing for Dummies (I’m not kidding)
The link below (Again, I’m not kidding)
The Library

You can also set-up a “test portfolio” in Quicken (Personal finance software) to see how you would do. Also, Quicken is great for tracking your finances in general.

Answer by cainvest1
There are a wide variety of books to help you understand stocks and bonds. Go to the Library and go to the shelf section where 332.63 is located. This is where you will find books that your library has on bonds and stock investing. Look at all the books in the section and see what they have.

Ask the librarian how to use the card catalog, now on-line at most libraries to find books on this subject and you likely can have most any title you want interbranched to you. There are several” Investing for Dummies” books that cover this. (By the way I hate the titles of this book series, but most do a fairly good job of providing you the basics.) Then you can read books that are more up to speed with an sub area that you want to understand.

You might also want to do read the magazines “Smart Money”, Barron’s to get some investing ideas.

Come back and ask specific questions as you run across things you don’t understand. There are lots of people on this board who can answer specifics.

Good luck! You are wise to start out early. Investing when you are young puts the power of compounding on your side.

Answer by Woof
“Investing For Dummies.” That’s the best starter’s book.

“Personal Finance For Dummies” is also a good primer on bank accounts, credit, insurance, etc.

Answer by Chief
To Start Investing
It takes a long time to learn the stock market and it would help if you read some books from your library and information online. Before you start investing in the market the first thing you need to decide is what risk level you want to take. CDs backed up by the government has about 3-4% annual return for the long term with a low risk. Bonds or Bonds Funds has about 5-7% annual return for the long term with a medium risk. Stocks or Stock Mutual Funds has about 8-10% annual return for the long term with a high risk and are more volatile than Bonds. A person could make more than 10% annual return with the right investment. Usually the more risk you take, the more return you will have, but not always. To see the Risk vs Return go to my photo: The stock market is basally made up of stocks and bonds. Investment managers pick a group of stocks to make a mutual fund or a group of bonds to make a bond fund. They even put a mixture of stocks and bonds together and call it a Growth & Income Fund.

1- MUTUAL FUNDS: Mutual funds have a group of stocks (could be around 100+) invested in different sectors, and manage by a professional. Managers have lots of schooling for investing in stocks, around 8 years. So I think managers can pick stocks better than I can. You can make a buy or sell order anytime of the day for mutual funds shares but it will not go in affect until the close of the day. There are lots of different kinds of mutual funds that does not charge any fees to buy it’s shares and they are called Noload Funds. There are also some funds called Load Funds that charge about 5% of your investment. Most funds has trading restriction and you may not be able to trade more than 4 times a year. That’s because it makes it hard for the fund to make a good return if there is to much trading in the fund, causing the fund manager to make more buys and sells and keep more cash on hand. Mutual funds are meant for long term investors.
2- STOCKS: Stocks is more volatile than funds unless you spread you money in about ten different sectors and know witch sector will do best. Stock trading restriction is only a few days, not like mutual funds. If you own stocks, you will need to keep up with all the company’s business so you don’t get stuck with a bad stock. That could take a lots of time. If a person buys just a few stocks he probably is hoping to make a bigger return but he may be taking more risk. If that’s the case, look at the leverage ETFs.
3- ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds): ETFs are like a mutual fund but trades like a stock and that is the main differences between ETFs and stocks and mutual funds. There are some ETFs that represents Index’s. An Index is like S&P or DOW. Index’s operate just like a mutual fund with a group of stocks in deferent sectors, manage by professionals. You can’t buy Index’s because they are not for sell. A company owns them. But you can buy a mutual funds or an ETF that has the same stocks as the Index they represent. There are a lots of different kinds of ETFs for someone to choose from. Some have 1x leverage, some have 2x leverage for aggressive investors, and some has 3x leverage for more aggressive investors. There are some that represent almost every kind of sector.

To buy stocks or funds, you need a broker account. You can find several good brokers that charge $ 8.00 and under per stock trade and no fee on Noload Funds. Most broker websites have good research tools. Some popular broker websites are Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, E-trade, Scottrade and others. I think you need a min. of $ 500 (some sites $ 2,500) to open a broker account and need to be at lease 18 years old. If you not 18, you might could get your Dad to open an account for you.

If you want more info, click my picture and read About Me.

Answer by ?
If you are serious about learning how the market works and how to become a competent trader of any asset class ( Stocks, Options, Forex or Futures) then take a class from these guys: www.tradingacademy.com/ I thought my college degree in economics qualified me to know how the market worked from the university – so wrong. I lost my money big time. I spent the 10Gs to take several classes and it was worth every penny and now I know what I am doing. If you just want to play around with a few dollars then read Tony Turner’s books for day traders and the ones on her reading list. I found it at Hastings. But take the classes from these guys if you are serious and want to make serious money from the market. I don’t work for them but after being a student and client of theirs they teach you to fish not just give you a fish. And the best thing about this group is that you can keep taking the class over and over until you “get-it” I am taking them for a second time to make sure it sunk in. Take class notes too.!