You’ve probably imagined many times how you will buy shares in a company and earn enough money to travel the world and survive for the rest of your life. Achieving this is not easy, but you have to start somewhere. Investing in online shares is one of the best ways to achieve this. The good news is that you can do it all online, from the comfort of your own home. How do you buy shares online?
Open an online brokerage account
Wondering where to buy shares? The movies love to show crazy traders screaming on the New York Stock Exchange floor, but nowadays very few stock transactions take place this way. Today, the easiest option is to buy shares online through an online broker.
Opening an online brokerage account is as easy as setting up a bank account: you fill out an application for an account, provide ID and choose how to top up your account. You can fund your account by sending a check or electronically.
How do you find a broker who is worthy?
There are two things to consider when opening an account to buy shares:
- Cost of commission: The commission is a fee charged by the broker for each purchase or sale of shares. Finding a broker who charges low or no low commissions will be most important for active traders – generally those who make 10 or more transactions per month. Commissions can add up quickly if you trade regularly.
- What support do you need: Consider the broker’s offer of educational tools, investment tips, stock market research and access to real live people by phone, email, online chat or branches. This is especially important for novice investors, because you will need competent customer service representatives who will answer your questions.
Choose the shares you want to buy
After setting up and funding your brokerage account, it’s time to start collecting the shares. A good place to start is to research companies that you already know from your experience as a consumer. Don’t let the flood of data and real-time market flows overwhelm you while researching. Keep the goal simple: you are looking for companies that you want to become a part owner.
Decide how many shares to buy
You should not feel absolute pressure to buy a certain number of shares or fill the entire portfolio with shares at the same time. Consider starting with a small – really small – buying only one action to find out what it is like to have individual actions and whether you have the courage to ride on difficult places with minimal loss of sleep.
Choose the type of warehouse order
Don’t be put off by all these numbers and senseless word combinations on your broker’s online ordering page. Investors have built successful careers by buying shares only with two types of orders: market orders and limit orders. There are of course more.
Optimize your stock portfolio
We hope that your first purchase of shares will initiate a lifelong journey to successful investment. But if things become difficult, remember that every investor undergoes strict corrections. The key to long-term business is keeping perspective and focusing on things you can control.
Remember that past performance is not a guide to the future. Just because the fund or action could have performed well in history, there is no guarantee that it will do so in the future so that you can recover less than you have invested.
If you have doubts about where you want to invest, you can get financial advice to help you choose. Remember that the value of your investment can go down as well as up and you can get back less than you invested.