How to choose stocks?
372074
An answer would take volumes to provide, so let me suggest some literature: \n\nI would recommend William O'Neil's "The Successful Investor" as a good starting point. Follow that up with Peter Lynch's "Beating the Street". That should provide you with two strategies that you can learn from in building your own investment strategy.\n\nOther good books include "The Motley Fool Investment Guide" by Tom and Dave Gardner or "Real Money" by James Cramer.\n\nI have read all the books above and devised a strategy that adopts a bit from each one. \n\nAnother thing you can do is invest using a fictional portfolio. Let that run for a few months to see if you are ready to take on wall street. In the meantime, let a professional look after your money (ie, mutual funds). Once you are ready, sell the fund and invest on your own.\n\nRemember, the time spend learning about investing is far less then the money lost by not being prepared.\n\nGood luck.
864104
Here's a stock software program that will screen stocks and help you find ones to buy based upon criteria you input:\nhttp://www.best-stock-trading-systems.com/swingtracker_review.html
7455
If you wish to invest in stocks, study FA (Fundamental Analysis) to determine the financial qualities of a company and TA (Technical Analysis) to determine investor sentiment about the company.  Investopedia.com has a wealth of information including a dictonary for terms and acronyms and tutorials to get started.  Do your own Due Diligence and invest only in companies you thoroughly understand.  Invest only money you can afford to lose, not rent and food money.  Never stop learning about the stock market and you may gain 10-20% monthly; or lose even more.  Good luck.  Bye the way, you can set up your stock portfolio and follow it under Yahoo Finance and even create a dummy portfolio to "paper trade" stocks without using real money until you learn the ropes.  But the best lessons will come from using real money.  Always analyze good and bad trades to learn even more.  Best of luck.
995102
I trade stocks and options for my main source of income.  Flutuations are caused by too many variables to list.   Keep in mind that stock price is based upon whatever the market will provide at that exact moment in time.    There has to be someone willing to buy and someone willing to sell all the time and this number changes constantly.  Based upon there being differences in the trading volume this can fluctuate the price and so can world events like crude oil prices or the value of the dollar.   Bottom line is you need to buy for the medium to long term into a few stocks about 10 in different sectors to spread out your risk and you can change your weighting according to which sectors you think are going to do well currently or in the future.  I'd prefer investing in stable companies which you can look at their S and P star rating if you don't have time to do this research yourself.  4-5 star stocks with a  good outlook for future growth are a really good way to start.
272434
Be very suspicious of individual recommendations. For sure the person providing the recommendation has an agenda. Here are a few guidelines to make your own picks: -\n* Make sure the company has a strong balance sheet for its size.\n* Check to see how the owners (insiders) are behaving. If they're all selling that may be a bad sign.\n* Are the shares liquid? Is there plenty of trading? If not, why not?\n* Understand their business. If you know nothing about biotechnology, it's probably not a great idea to invest in a company in that sector.\n* Check the news on the company for the last year. Make sure you're not missing a lawsuit, or something similar.\n* Ideally, the company will be profitable with strongly rising sales & profits. High margins & strong positive cash flows are very desirable.\n\nGODD LUCK!
43595
visit zacks.com or cnbc.com, but I like yahoo the best.   Create a my yahoo home page and track your list of fifty stocks.  Go to the profile and visit the company's home page.  View presentations and listen to conference calls.
637938
Learn how to pick stocks.  You need to swing trade.  You need around 10K to start.  And you can be a millonaire in 10 years.  Keep in mind, you need to learn how to pick stocks first.  You can double every 6 months if you do.\n\nAside from that, learn how to play basketball like MJ, or sing like Mick Jagger, or talk smut like Howard Stern, or have a family name like George W Bush.\n\nI say picking stocks correctly is your best bet.
480773
You can get a feel for the "game" and not own a share of any stock. Select some stocks you think might be a good buy and set up a portfolio on a spreadsheet. Follow the stocks over a period of time and see how you did. Have a reason why you picked each stock and see if it turns out to be correct.\n\nAlso pick a couple of good index mutual funds from Vanguard, Fidelity, T Rowe Price and see how they do. I'd bet in a year they will be doing better than the total of the stocks you pick yourself.
390733
So first u get a borkerage firm preferably a low cost one, depends on how much u wanna pay and what kinda of cust service , i personally like SCOTTRADE good mix of cheap and good cust servce. after u established an account u start trading. there are 3 kind of stocks: regular, OTC (over the counter) and pink sheets (please refer to the link for difference). they are all listed on exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX..etc) the most imp thing is to know what ur getting into before u buy or sell because not only will theat mean a gain or a loss but everytime you perform a transaction (buy or sell) the brokarage firm take a commission ( scottrade=7 $),,ands theere is a lot more I suggest u read as musch as u can
1156395
Think of this as the first step in performing adequate research into  stock. Use yahoo finance, look in the business section of the newspaper, go to the library and get a s and p stock guide. If you can't find it in one of those sources, chances are that it either is not a publicly traded company or it isn't worth your time.
985397
If you are using My Yahoo, you can set up up a Stock Portfolio segment right on your home screen.  You can set up separate categories for each set of stocks (purchased, watchlist, etc.)  It's very easy to use.  The stock prices are updated every time you log on or hit "refresh".  As with any stock tracking program, there is typically a 20 minute delay for stock quotes however if you have an online account with a brokerage, typically that website will enable you to get "real time quotes".  For example, I use www.optionsexpress.com. It is a great brokerage site for both stocks and options.  On that site, you can set "alerts" for either a percentage change (you set the percentage) or a dollar amount change in your stock price either up or down.  The alert is sent to an email address of your choice.  Check your online brokerage service because they most likely offer that service.  Another program that I use to track stocks is www.marketwatch.com.  It's free but you have to sign up or register for it.  They also provide the ability to set "alerts" on changes in stock prices or news about your stock.  Be sure to "opt out" of all of the free services and product emails or you'll get a lot of spam.
373503
This depends on your goals, level of risk you are willing to accept, and many other factors.  For me, I like shares of small start-up companies.  Very high risk, but very high rewards IF it pans out.
321673
First research, research, research.\n\nYahoo finance has some excellent tools as well as a glossary of financial terms and stock screeners.\nI would recommend creating a practice portfolio for a few weeks.  List the stocks you are thinking of buying and use a performance view using the current price.  Yahoo will tell you how much money you have lost or gained.  I recommend a diverse portfolio. (don't put all your eggs in one basket)\n\nTry that for about a month and then use one of the online companys like scottrade or etrade for reasonable commissions.\n\nGood luck
760706
I would suggest practicing your investing skills at http://www.top10traders.com  This is a totally FREE site. You can create your own portfolio of stocks with $100,000 in 'play' money, and then watch how your stocks compare against other traders. \n\n The site lists out which investors are doing the best and what stocks they have bought. Just click on the portfolio of the best investors and you can see the stocks they like.  \n\nGood luck !
1020508
the best stocks to buy can be determined by ones risk appetite and ones investment needs .stocks with good div's paid continously are recommended to older investors.Best way to determine good stock is to do a little research into the activites of the company the growth prospects of the company the profit margins and the competetion faced by the companies.monopolistic companies and patent holding companies are good for short term investment
252434
Do you really want to buy shares of a stock, or do you want to invest in the stock market?\n\nDo you want to spend your time researching fundamentals of a company: earnings, balance sheets, products, competition, cash flows, etc., when this really doesn't tell you a lot about the direction of the stock price? \n\nDo you really want to take the advice of a broker, who is probably terribly biased, doesn't know any more than you do about the company, and doesn't have a clue where the stock price is going, but really just wants to earn a commission by making a sale, and whom is just a good salesman?\n\nOr maybe you want to investigate Technical Analysis to determine key turning points in stocks or the market. Get ready for a long learning curve. \n\nOr, you could try stock options, like me, and lose your whole IRA. And then come back and try Day Trading, and lose it all again. Then try Index Futures, and leverage it all away again. I finally got it right, but it took about eight years.\n\nMost people spend more time deciding the color of their new car than they do on deciding on a stock, a broker, a mutual fund, or other investment. If you don't put quite a bit of time into it, don't expect to make a decent return on your "investment."\n\nCheck out someone who rates mutual funds. There are a few good ones out there, and it's their job to know what's going on, what's moving and what isn't, and a whole team of people will be watching over your investment every day.\n\nCheck out Morningstar.com
77845
go to yahoo stock screener and input 5% in div yield field. it will give you a long list. then use other fields to narrow it down to what you are looking for.