Lowest amount of money to get into stock trading ?

[deftron]

Is 2g too little ?


Trade costs is about $7



3 or 4 split diversification initially

 

[imported_goku]

1 Share is all you need to 'trade stocks', technically anyways...

 

[deftron]

Yeah, I know. .. not asking the lowest allowed

Lowest amount reccomended

 

[Mardeth]

1k$ IMO

 

[Midlander]

With that amount of money, buy a no-load mutual fund. You shouldn't own individual stocks until you have enough cash to diversify into at least 10 stocks.

 

[imported_Mike]

I put $500 in when I was 16, IMO something is better than nothing when it comes to investing.

 

[deftron]

Mutuals only return like 5% on the year, right ?

 

[Midlander]

Originally posted by: deftron
Mutuals only return like 5% on the year, right ?

I hope you're joking....

 

[deftron]

Originally posted by: Midlander

Originally posted by: deftron
Mutuals only return like 5% on the year, right ?

I hope you're joking....

Serious ... maybe like 9-10% on a really good one.


I always heard they were safe but conservative in the financial risk/gain

 

[Trikat]

Originally posted by: deftron

Originally posted by: Midlander

Originally posted by: deftron
Mutuals only return like 5% on the year, right ?

I hope you're joking....

Serious ... maybe like 9-10% on a really good one.


I always heard they were safe but conservative in the financial risk/gain

It is safer than investing in stocks directly for the average person.
Mutual funds do still go down though, so just keep a note that playing stocks is pretty risky. I guess if you have a lot of money mutual funds might be a more attractive place to invest than in your bank account.

 

[Midlander]

Originally posted by: deftron

Originally posted by: Midlander

Originally posted by: deftron
Mutuals only return like 5% on the year, right ?

I hope you're joking....

Serious ... maybe like 9-10% on a really good one.


I always heard they were safe but conservative in the financial risk/gain

The best performing stocks will always outperform the best performing mutual fund, simply because the mutual fund owns many stocks. On the other hand, the worst performing stock will also lose more than the worst performing mutual fund for the same reason.

The average mutual fund will return approximately the average gain or loss for the market, minus a percentage for management fees.

In a good year, I have had mutual funds return more than 50%.

 

[UncleWai]

I think you should compare your expected return in your stock investment with the alternative no risk investment such as ING's 4%.
If you think your return on the stock can be greater than the 4% plus commission fee, then go for it?

 

[b0mbrman]

Originally posted by: deftron
Is 2g too little ?


Trade costs is about $7



3 or 4 split diversification initially

Just doing it for the fun of it? $2k is plenty...

If you're doing it as a real investment w/risk taken into account, you should avoid individual stock-picking unless you've got several thousand...and even then, you might still be better off with mutual funds

 

[b0mbrman]

Originally posted by: Midlander
The best performing stocks will always outperform the best performing mutual fund, simply because the mutual fund owns many stocks. On the other hand, the worst performing stock will also lose more than the worst performing mutual fund for the same reason.

The average mutual fund will return approximately the average gain or loss for the market, minus a percentage for management fees.

In a good year, I have had mutual funds return more than 50%.

Yeah, but the bigness softens some of the risk...

Originally posted by: deftron
Serious ... maybe like 9-10% on a really good one.

I always heard they were safe but conservative in the financial risk/gain

There are as many different types of mutual funds as there are types of stocks: Value, growth, small cap, large cap, international, bond...It all depends on how much risk you're willing to take