Investors can choose from thousands of stocks. New corporations list their shares on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Exchange each year. The best investors analyze several corporations before picking a few stocks.
But all of the stock analysis won’t matter if you aren’t sure how to buy stocks. You can follow these basic steps to buy stocks and add them to your investment portfolio.
You’ll need a brokerage account to buy stocks. Investors can choose from many firms like Vanguard and Fidelity when they are getting started. It’s possible to have accounts open at multiple brokerage firms.
Investors should compare features for each account. Some brokerage firms have low-cost mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs), while others match your IRA contributions. You can create multiple portfolios within the same brokerage account to group your investments. For instance, an investor can create separate portfolios for their growth and dividend income investments.
Stock analysis can get detailed. Investors look at a company’s earnings, press releases, catalysts, competitors, and other factors. You don’t have to get as detailed when you first start out. Investors will learn more about the stock market and various corporations as they accumulate knowledge, invest more money, and stay on top of the latest developments.
If you’re buying a stock for the first time, only put a small amount of money into your initial investment. It’s better to learn and make mistakes with $500 compared to making those same mistakes with $5,000.
You’ll have to remember the stock’s ticker. For instance, an investor seeking to buy Amazon stock has to input the AMZN ticker when placing an order in their brokerage account. You can find a stock’s ticker by putting “Amazon stock” into your favorite search engine. Some brokerage firms autosuggest the ticker if you provide the company’s name.
When you place an order with your brokerage account, you can choose from several types of orders. Most people initiate market orders or limit orders. Market orders allow you to buy a stock at its current market price. These transactions go through immediately as long as you have enough funds to support the transaction. Market orders may take longer to go through if a stock is less liquid, but this is rare.
Limit orders take place at your specified price target. Some investors may look at a $100 stock and believe that it is only worth $99. Instead of placing a market order and buying shares at $100 apiece, these investors may place a limit order for $99.
Under this scenario, the order will not immediately go through. But the purchase will get executed the moment the stock falls below $99/share. You can save money if the limit order goes through, but you will also miss out on the potential upside if a stock never falls below the limit you specified.
Your brokerage firm will invite you to indicate how many shares you want to buy. An individual looking to invest $200 in a stock valued at $20/share would have to purchase 10 shares. Most brokerage firms let you see the total cost of the transaction before it goes through.
Many firms have also made it easier for investors to do fractional trading. Fractional trading allows you to invest in a stock even if you do not have enough cash to buy a single share. If you want to buy a $150 stock and only have $30 to invest, you can buy 0.20 of a share. Accumulating fractional shares can help you get to a whole share and lead to more frequent investments.
Some brokerage firms also let you specify how many dollars you want to invest. After you provide the dollar amount, the firm will calculate how many shares you can buy with your allocated cash.
The final step is to place the order on your brokerage account. Most orders go through within seconds. You can refresh your screen to see the new shares waiting in your account. Investors can also visit the “Activities & Order” tab to confirm that the recent purchase went through. You can also see other transactions and the price per share that you paid.
Some brokerage firms let you place automatic orders, so you don’t have to log into your account as often. Automatic orders are usually for the brokerage firm’s mutual funds. These automatic orders ensure that you won’t forget to grow your portfolio each month.
It is a good idea to buy stocks with the intent of holding on to them for a long time. But it may make sense to sell a stock for several reasons. A corporation can announce a bad earnings report, your financial goals may change or you may want to diversify your holdings. If you need to sell a stock for any reason, follow these steps to convert your shares into cash.
Most investors can only sell shares if they already have a position in the stock. You can go to your portfolio, review your positions and see which stock you want to sell. Investors can trim their position by selling some shares or rid themselves of a stock by selling all of their shares.
You will have to click on the position and look for the “Sell” button. After clicking that button, your brokerage firm will provide an order ticket. This ticket should take up some or all of your screen.
Most investors will choose between market orders or limit orders. Market orders go through immediately while limit orders have to reach your designated price per share for the sale to go through.
You will have to indicate how many shares you want to sell, but this number can’t exceed the size of your position. If you have 10 shares in your portfolio, you can’t sell 20 shares. Investors can also sell fractional shares or opt to sell a dollar amount instead of a number of shares. If you select a dollar amount, your brokerage firm will convert that dollar value into the equivalent number of shares.
After you review the information, the final step is to place your order. If you have many lots of the same stock, it is a good idea to review your capital gains for each position. Investors can specify which lots they sell to reduce capital gains taxes and even end up with a net loss to lower their total tax bills.
It gets easier to navigate your brokerage account over time. Soon, you’ll be a pro at buying and selling stocks.
But there’s more to generating positive long-term returns than buying and selling stocks. Investors have to know what strategies work for them and take the time to analyze corporations. These are some of the key investing strategies that can guide you along the journey.
Beginners can buy and sell stocks by creating brokerage accounts and initiating orders. You should do some research on a few stocks before placing buy orders on a brokerage platform. Market orders go through right away, while limit orders only go through once the stock reaches your designated price point.
You can invest in stocks with as little as $1. Most brokerage firms allow investors to buy fractional shares of their favorite stocks and funds.
You can cash out on stocks whenever the stock market is open. The market is open from 9:30 a.m. Eastern to 4 p.m. Eastern. It’s also possible to sell shares during after hours which concludes at 8 a.m. Eastern. You can also cash out during pre-market hours which start at 8:00 a.m. Eastern and conclude at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
The post How to Buy and Sell Stocks first appeared on Newsweek Vault.
2024-04-22T18:21:21Z dg43tfdfdgfd