[claret_n_blue]

Recently I've been hoping to get into the stock market and try to make some money yet I'm unsure as to how I should go about doing this.

Firstly, I know that I need to do some research, but what am I researching? Let's say I am looking to buy shares in company X, what do I look for? Is it simply whether they've gone up or down recently, or what?

As well as this, how exactly do I go about quickly buying and selling shares? Normally when I look, I need to register with the respected company to buy them, yet this registration can take ages and can lose me money. What is the best, cheapest broker I can use to help me out?

[Happydude]

I've no clue but I'm quite sure to make any profit that's worth the hassle of sorting all this out you'd need to invest a good few grand. I thought about it a while back but even by investing £1,000 your gains will still not be huge. I think. Don't quote me on this stuff!

Sorry if this was completely useless. Good luck anyway!

[dabble]

You can spread bet if you want to get in and out of a stock quickly. There are loads of brokers around but I'd be careful with who you go with. Most of them are out to make money and you often find they do things to help you quickly lose.
You need a lot of time as well. Its not as easy as they make out on TV - You don't just sit there buying and selling making loads of £££'s. You can learn how to read a chart and look at different patterns and indicators, but it all takes time. Best thing would be to buy a few shares for a longer term investment. For example - buying Barclay's right now would probably be a good idea - since its fallen so much, the price is fairly low and if you're looking at the longer term picture, it looks a good bet.

You could also look at trading Forex. Its much more liquid than stocks and you can leverage your money so your gains are much bigger than what you actually trade with - although you're losses are equally as big - but you can put in safety nets, such as a stop loss.

You could always use a signal service, where you subscribe and an ''expert'' tell's you what to buy/sell - although i'd probably stay away from them since most of the ''experts'' are just muppets who have no clue.

Also you'd need a fairly large amount to start trading with, espcially if you want to make a monthly income. Forget all the stories you hear about people turning 100 into millions.... its all BS and you have more chance of winning at a casino!

[Bnewfield]

Get an account at eTrade or ShareBuilder (those are just two that I know of; there are many more online brokerages you can go to... Just make sure they're legit.) There's a small fee per trade, but it's not much.

Read a few books about the basics of investing... There are a lot of misconceptions about how the whole system works.

They actually have services now that will tell you, with pretty good accuracy, which stocks to pick. The best one I've used is called Daily Market Advantage. It's a daily newsletter that sends you advice on which stocks will rise or fall in price, which ones you should buy, sell, or hold, etc. It is run by a team of market experts using software to analyze the market. In my experience, it's been correct most of the time. If anyone's interested, here's a review: http://stockmarketsystems.org/wp/dai...ket-advantage/

[bellazz]

i would like to reply first part of ur question that is regarding research. look for the following items:

EPS (earning per share)
P&L statement
Net assets worth
Directors report to know about the future plans of the company


Hope it helps!

[Jackfinance17]

Hmm I have been into stock broking and you have to know many stuff before you actually have the mental strength to invest. So go and learn it on investopedia.com and then sign up a online broking account on any online brokers, I use zecco.com and I am dealing with US stocks but you can always do UK ones. I invested $600 and now I got 680 but it is hard to make money when your starting capital is low like me, also there is a lag when you buy or sell stocks so don't think you can use time delay and buy or sell them instantly, normally if you are dealing with low capital then the chance is you will ends up waiting 2-3 days before your deal's been executed, there is still many site that allows instantly buy or sell but it costs more. Overall it is a great experience, but if you are the kind of person who doesn't have the confidence to sleep at night then I suggest you to just play with virtual money.
Advice: Don't expect to make money and don't panic when you first start, it's hard trust me.

[cl_steele]

http://www.lloydstsbsharedealing.com/index.html you could try this i believe several other banks also offer a service like this