Your Money: Five basic steps to learn stock trading

The stock market is attracting speculative capital and novice investors continue to bet money on the securities without having any idea why prices are higher or lower. So, if you want to invest in markets, learn trading with these five steps:

Open a trading account
The first step is to look for a reputable and reliable online stockbroker. If you get one, open your stock brokerage account. However, even if you have an account, you should keep a professional account separate. Once you have an account, familiarise yourself with its interface. If it has free trading tools, take advantage of them, and also conduct your research on exclusive offers. There are some brokers that provide their clients with virtual trading.

Take a crash course on markets
You can find relevant information on how to trade from stock market books, financial articles, and website tutorials. That’s part of the wealth information you can get and most of it is inexpensive. Besides, you don’t have to focus on a single aspect of trading. Instead, it’s best you learn everything including the concepts and ideas that you feel are relevant.
When you decide to trade, you will launch a journey you have to take seriously. Get broad information and don’t assume you know enough. You can also find helpful books with all the information you need, such as Trading for a Living and Stocks Market Wizards.

Learn to analyse
The next step is to study technical analysis basics. You can learn with price charts and there are thousands of them. Fundamental analysis provides you a profit part because it tracks revenue streams and growth curves. Don’t forget to read the company’s spreadsheets as these can give you a trading edge. Technical analysis and charts will bring to you the magical realm of predicting prices. Prices are expected to go up or down only, but in reality, prices do more things such as whipsawing violently and chopping sideways for weeks.

Practise trading
When you have garnered knowledge, step in to trade and get your feet wet and don’t give up on your trading stake. Virtual trading or paper trading will offer you a perfect solution. Learn to make lots of trade with different holding times and strategies. Later, analyse your results to look for obvious flaws. Don’t hurry to trade with money, there will come a right time when you can switch to that.

Other ways to learn trading
While experience is the best teacher, do not lose an opportunity for further education. You can learn either in person or online. There are classes for all levels from novice to pro. There are also specialised seminars conducted by professionals and you can attend this to learn about specific investment strategies.

Source: Tax Guru