Educate yourself – read up on accounting, finance, publicly traded companies, and the stock market

Read the business section of the newspaper – better yet, subscribe to Investor’s Business Daily or the Wall Street Journal

Consider only those industries that you are familiar with – less education time means getting into the fray quicker

Think about stocks in companies or products that you like – take overall popularity factors into consideration

Research the companies you are considering – get to know the company, its industry trends, and how its stock has performed in the past few years

If possible, check out the company financial statements – you will need to learn how to analyze these in order to minimize your risk when deciding on a stock to purchase

Familiarize yourself with several online investing informational websites – this will provide you with knowledge regarding a company’s balance sheet, dividend records, growth or loss of earnings, free cash flow, number of shares outstanding and the company’s revenue growth consistencies or inconsistencies.

Decide on the amount of money that you want to risk – the first rule of thumb here is never invest more than you can afford to lose

Follow the stocks for a couple of weeks on a daily basis – this will help you decide if you want to order a specific quantity of shares or pass them up

Educate yourself on stock identification – certain criteria or information may indicate a potential price appreciation in the future

Calculate when to purchase, sell, or trade stocks – determine a method or technique for doing this so that you will know better timing on purchasing, selling, or trading stocks as well as when you should just walk away and not risk any more or your money

Consider learning how to use technical analysis – stock charts are invaluable where this is concerned, so are other tools such as candlestick charting, EMA, or MACD in order to learn and better time your entries and exits

Pay attention to the more reputable and respected stock analysts and experts – again, this is all part of your stock market investing education

Read up on all of their strategies – if a person is a published successful investor, you would be wise to read what their stock investment strategies

Think logically before you settle on the stocks you are thinking about purchasing – where are you hoping to go with your investments? If you are just starting out, you’re at the bottom and the only way is up (make sure that you always keep an eye on market trends as well)

5 steps to finding the best stock broker

In order to find the best stock broker, there are 5 steps that you should take before selecting the one you want to conduct your financial business with:

Determine what your financial goals are first – if you are only using a small percentage of your assets to invest in the stock market, you want cost control to be your primary priority. You can do this by utilizing different financial publications such as Barron’s or the Kiplinger reports and compare the different brokerages out there in the marketplace. This also enables you to find out who offers the lowest fee and commission structures.

Conversely, if you are looking to make larger investments, you should consider the broker’s capabilities and not those fees and commissions. Just remember that capabilities and pricing are not mutually exclusive when selecting a broker. This is due to the fact that those lower cost brokerages out there have received high customer satisfaction ratings on a consistent basis.

Decide between investing and trading – investing typically involves deploying your assets (funds) for a longer period of time (up to a year or more) whereas trading involves the frequent purchase and selling of stocks in the hopes of experiencing recurring profits.

Consider how much advice and help that you will require from that broker – if you are just starting to invest in the stock market, we recommend that you search for a broker that is a full-service broker. They are skilled at assisting you with advice on the different investment methods, procedures, and trends. On the other hand, if you are experienced, then you might want to consider conducting stock trades online at one of the internet’s many stock trading websites.

Give some serious thought to the types of stocks you want to purchase or trade – remember that there are some brokerages that only purchase, sell, and trade stocks of American mainstream companies and have millions of dollars of market capitalization. Additionally, you want to make sure that your broker has the capability of assisting you in the purchasing of shares of foreign entities, low-market capitalization corporations, non-liquid penny stocks, and any other types of irregular securities.

Check for SIPC registration – you want to make sure that the broker you are intending doing business with is registered with the SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation). The SIPC insures your account for up to a quarter million dollars. You may also want to consider brokers that carry additional insurance from private providers (e.g. Lloyd’s of London for example).