How To Invest | How To Invest Online As A Beginner

Online investing can be scary on a number of fronts from a fear of putting your identity out there on some online broker's website, to losing your nest egg in a bad stock investment to just not knowing how to pick a stock or how to research a mutual fund. The good news is that investing online isn't all that difficult for beginners. In fact I'll take it a step further and say that online brokers cater not to experienced investors, but to first time investors like yourself and they make it simple and easy to do so.

The first thing you need to do as a beginner investor is to set up some kind of trading account with an online broker. There are many to choose from, Scottrade and Schwab are some good examples, but there are dozens of great options so go and choose the right one for you.

If you aren't sure which broker is right for you a great place to start is the fees that they charge. Since brokers aren't selling you their stock they make money by charging you fees whether it is commissions for each trade or account maintenance fees and each broker has a different fee structure so take a little time to figure out which fee structure works best for you.

If you plan on making only a few trades in your account then you should probably not worry as much about the commission (charged only when you make a trade) and be more concerned with fees involving your account like minimum balance levels or maintenance fees. If on the other hand you plan to be a day trader who makes many trades (which I strongly recommend against as a beginner investor) then you would want an account with lower commissions.

Once you have your account get out there and do research. I cant recommend enough about the value of doing good research, because too many people buy and sell stocks and funds on emotion rather than doing a few hours of research to figure out which stocks are right for them. Information for good research is free and can be found on many major finance websites like Yahoo finance or your online broker's website. Use these tools wisely and you'll retire comfortably.