10 Great Ways to Learn Stock Trading as A New Investor

1. Open an account with a top online stock broker and use their free tools. If you open an account with TD Ameritrade, Etrade, Scottrade, of Sharebuilder to name just a few you will have access to some amazing free research tools. Some of the brokers listed will let you open an account with as little as $500 and have no maintenance fees for inactivity. Don’t go with some no name broker because you won’t get nearly as much access to free material. Personally I spent months just looking over TD Ameritrade’s research tools when I first started studying and it provided myself with fantastic knowledge for a fantastic price, free. And, when you are ready to make your first online stock trade down the road, you will already have yourself setup, done deal.
2. Read books on stock market education. This is a no brainer, books provide a wealth of information for anyone and everyone, and they are typically inexpensive. A great start is to explore anything written by William O’Neil who is one of my favorite authors because his reads are simple and they provide a great look into making the most of technical and fundamental analysis. He is the founder of the CANSLIM style of trading and also Investors Business Daily. (Click Here to find books by William O’Neil)
3. Join a online stock community. Communities are a great place to meet other traders, ask questions, and just read through detailed conversations that provide a wide variety of investor experiences and insight. I co-founded a stock forum which I recommend checking out, and some other great sites include Covestor.com, EliteTrader. com, and Motley Fool CAPS.
4. Go to Seminars. This can become a more pricey way to gain knowledge, but seminars can provide an excellent means of gaining valuable insight into the market. Most seminars will focus on one specific aspect of the market, and off the top of my head I know there are seminars available on everything from CANSLIM, to day trading, to simply investing online in general. Some seminars are provided free and just try to sell you on their products and services, even these can be a beneficial experience, just watch out for the sales pitch at the end.
5. Find a stock mentor. A mentor can be a family member, a friend, a past or current teacher, anyone really that has an already established knowledge base and is willing to answer questions, provide help with tough situations, and just keep you motivated to learn more. I used to teach stock lessons for free to people of all ages worldwide, and it amazed me how fast I quickly ran out of time to teach everyone. I think before I closed the free mentorship program I had a waiting list of over 30 people. Those I did work with though made leaps and bounds with extending their early knowledge bases. You can never underestimate the power of a good mentor.
6. Read Yahoo Finance. Yahoo finance is the best in my opinion for not only stock quotes and news, but for great well thought out articles on the stock market (which are pulled from a variety of sources). One of my best friend’s dad has made hundreds of thousands of dollars trading stocks JUST off of utilizing Yahoo Finance for his research. When you are getting started, go to the homepage and read through one major headline a day and I guarantee within a month you will have a vast greater understanding of the general stock market.
7. Read Investors Business Daily. Investors Business Daily (IBD) is a paper focused on the CANSLIM style of trading and covers not only the broad markets but also mutual funds and hundreds of individual stocks. I personally read the eIBD (online version) just about every day and find it extremely useful. If you are just starting out as a new investor reading this paper will expose you to tons of information and offer a unique insight into the stock market, Find out more at investors.com.
8. Watch CNBC during the day. When the stock market is open CNBC is the #1 source for financial news. Even turning on CNBC for 15 minutes a day when you are just starting out will expand your knowledge base significantly. Don’t let the lingo or the style of news bother you, just simply watch and allow the commentators, interviews, and comments to soak into your mind. It will all make sense down the road.
9. Watch Mad Money and Fast Money. For a bit of a change up from the reading and browsing online, Mad Money hosted by Jim Cramer and Fast Money are great shows to give you a daily dose of stock market goodness. They both are on multiple times every weekday during the evenings, and can be viewed on CNBC. Both have their different approaches to the markets, and I personally like Mad Money better as Jim Cramer’s persona is quite intriguing.
10. Subscribe to Stock Trading To Go and read it daily. This is by far the best way (in my opinion atleast ) to learn stock trading as a new investor. Check out the stock education archives and you will see what I mean.