stocks?????????????????????

Dylan: stocks?????????????????????
i want to buy some stocks but i dont know what ones to buy, can any body help me

Answers and Views:

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. 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. There are lots of different kinds of mutual funds and they have different risk level. There are 100s of 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. 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. 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 several different areas and know witch area will do best. There are 10 stock sectors and over 100 sub-sectors to choose from. 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 that represents a large group of stocks. That could be another choice.
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. There are some that represent almost every kind of sub-sector. And there are some that have 1x leverage, some have 2x leverage for aggressive investors, and some has 3x leverage for more aggressive investors. The 3x is like having three times the amount of your money in the market. You will make more in up market but lose more in a down market.

To buy stocks or funds, you need a broker account. You can open an account online and it is free. 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.