<p>I have a small lawn care/random jobs “company” (in quotes because we aren’t actually a registered company; it’s just me and a few of my friends making a few extra dollars) and have accumulated a sum large ebough to make me think of investing my profits. Does anybody have any good websites or books they can recommend that can help get me started? </p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Are these funds only yours or is it the funds of your “business”? You may wish to divide up the funds amongst yourselves so that you would only be using your own funds and have total control over how these funds are used to avoid quarrels down the road about how to divide profits and losses.</p>
<p>A book I borrowed for my S is, "The Everything Personal Finance in your 20s & 30s book by Debby Fowles. It looks like it covers a lot of issues that may be relevant to you, including investing.</p>
<p>How much money are you talking about – 4 digits? 5 digits? 6 digits? Strategies may vary a bit depending on how much you’re talking about. </p>
<p>Our family is just starting to move our assets over to Charles Schwab. I like that they have fairly low fees compared to the full-service brokerage, Dean Witter (which became Smith Barney Morgan Stanley), and that they have a brick & mortar office with people who will talk with us and work with us at no charge. If you have a savings and checking account with them, they also have no minimum to open accounts (tho there is a $50 or so fee to close them). They also have a website that has helpful info about various investments (haven’t spent much time there but others have found it very helpful & its free to everyone). There is a thread about finding a bank that you may also find interesting & useful.</p>
<p>One of the main issues facing you at this age is saving for college, if you are planning to attend (which I’d assume, since you are on the CC website). For this, you would probably want to be sure to invest in something pretty safe and stable, so it will be available in the shorter term, when you’ll need it. </p>
<p>Great that you’re thinking about this & good luck!</p>
<p>Seven - Kudos to you for starting the investment journey so early in life.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, investing is an experience-based competence. Much of what I’d suggest would have little meaning due to your current level of experience. (I know this because I have two children your age who run and hide anytime I attempt to talk to them about investing.)</p>
<p>But here are five things I know for sure:
(1) You can’t invest what you don’t have … so make a practice of saving something each month
(2) You will need a brokerage account with a firm that has a bricks-and-mortar office nearby
(3) You will only learn through experience … start with one stock you think the world of, and buy a few shares, then watch
(4) Keep one-quarter to one-third of investable money in cash or bonds, because you’ll want a block of money to invest when markets go down.
(5) Don’t even think of using margin until you turn forty … and perhaps not even then!</p>
<p>dollar cost if your investing $$ is small but steady into MF.
As you get more experience in age and risk, buy individual companies or eft or indexes.
Know your exit strategies both on the up or down sides.
A 1$ increase on a $10 stock on a single day, is a huge percentage increase. A bigger increase if you annualize it. And a 1$ increase on a $50 stock is a small gain but a pretty good gain if annualized.
Understand momentum.</p>
<p>There are some free internet stock games that can give you some good familiarity with investing – The Motley Fool runs one, Investopedia has another. </p>
<p>On the “real money” front you should look pretty hard to find a firm that has low transactions costs - $6-10/trade if you want to buy and sell stocks – because if you go to some of the other firms you can find commissions that are ridiculous. (Well over $200 per trade.) If you’re going to instead stick with mutual funds, I’d deal with Vanguard or Fidelity.</p>
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<p>Google the following:</p>
<p>Howard Clark
The Millionaire Next Door
A Random Walk Down Wall Street
Liar’s Poker
FIRE (Financial Independence and Retire Early)</p>
<p>Give yourself six months before you make any investments.</p>
<p>In the meantime, open a savings account with a local Credit Union, apply for a credit card (if you can) and start to establish a habit of saving 30-50% of every dollar you make.</p>
<p>To add to NewHope’s very sound advice: do not gamble with options and do not be tempted to sell a stock short.</p>
<p>Just follow me around. When I zig, you zag. You’ll be comfortably retired by age 30.</p>
<p>LOL, Curmudgeon! Post of the week!</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies everyone.</p>
<p>To clarify, I’m looking to share only my portions of the profits (4 digit number). Everybody else in my buisness isn’t exactly “on board” with my idea, but I figure that if I’m not spending my money then I might as well let it work for me. Currently I am getting minimal investment returns with my money in the state-chartered bank.</p>
<p>I’ve started playing a stock market game and will learn the in’s and out’s of trading for at least 6 months before I do the real thing. I want to make sure I don’t get caught up in a tax rule I overlooked and end up scuffling with the IRS.</p>
<p>Once again, any advice is appreciated.</p>
<p>My advice is to forget about “trading” and start reading. It would also help if your education include finance and accounting so that you have some frame of reference for what you are looking at. </p>
<p>Here is a good place to start.</p>
<p>[Shareholder</a> Letters](<a href=“http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html]Shareholder”>Shareholder Letters)</p>
<p>Warren Buffet’s letters to his stockholders over the years have been filled with folksy truisms, and if any of it sinks in, you will avoid being carried away with the stock du jour enthusiasm which often ends badly for people. Take your time going through them and you’ll have plenty of other good questions that will help put you on the right track.</p>
<p>The minimum amount required for pattern day traders is $25K in a margin account. I think that $25K is a minimum amount to get started trading individual stocks. You could start with less and play the penny stocks or just buy a position or two and hold for a long time but brokerages will either charge you maintenance fees or they will lose money on your account and they won’t do that forever.</p>
<p>I’d suggest learning accounting, finance and technical trading. Then hang out on a few stock boards and see if you can find some good traders and then try to figure out why they are successful. Unfortunately, you generally learn the most when you make mistakes and your real education comes when you’re putting your own capital at risk.</p>
<p>Mutual funds may be fine to start out with though I don’t use them unless I can trust the manager and I can only do that if I talk to the person. They generally aren’t available to the public though. I prefer individual stocks but there’s a price of entry.</p>
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<p>I don’t know if that was in reference to a day trading account or a regular investment account, but very few brokers have that high a minimum. Fidelity’s is $2500, for example, with no annual fees and $7.95 trades.</p>
<p>To the OP, when you’re ready to start paper trading, sign up for a 2-week trial at [Stocks</a>, Investing, Business and Financial News from Investor’s Business Daily](<a href=“http://www.investors.com%5DStocks”>http://www.investors.com) and use their stock check-up tool. Also read their articles on their investing strategy, which combines technical and fundamental analysis.</p>
<p>I would start reading Money Magazine. After about a year, you’ll have gone through most of the financial education issues you’ll need for the short term.</p>
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<p>If you’re only investing your share, what difference does it make what everyone else thinks?</p>
<p>Redwing,</p>
<p>By “my idea” I was refering to the fact that they weren’t willing to save their money and not my own investing decision.</p>
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<p>After shuffling through the complicated jargon of the past few posts I realize that I’ve stepped in mud that is deeper than I thought. Thanks for the tips, but it doesn’t seem like I’m really going to be ready to invest until at least my mid-adulthood. I guess this board has served the purpose of illuminating me on how dumb I was to think I was ready to undertake such a task!</p>
<p>If you do intend to do a lot of trading, there is one big advantage doing it within a retirement account - at tax time next year it’s a whole lot simpler when you don’t have to worry about cost basis and how soon after you took a loss you bought the stock again, and such. Otherwise make sure you keep good records because some of the electronic uploads from the brokerage company doesn’t go correctly into some of the common tax software. If you just pick the defaults, sometimes, it may enter a cost basis of 0 triggering big taxes.</p>
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<p>It’s my opinion that the vast majority that start out trading with under $25,000 don’t do very well.</p>