Learn Stock Market Trading & Investing [27 Step Guide]

Learn Stock Market Trading Interactive 27 Step Plan is the Best Way to Fast Forward Your Education & Confidence. Strategies, eBooks, Videos & More

What is your plan to learn stock trading? Scroll down we seriously have the best interactive guide on the web.

Learn Stock Market Trading Plan

The Learn Stock Market Trading Plan is a fun interactive guide from beginning to end, from starting to acquire the knowledge you need via training courses, books, movies, to the end, executing your trading plan and building your wealth over time.

Watch the Video below or jump to the Learn Stock Market Trading Interactive Guide 

How to Become a Stock Trader and Investor Video Guide

This video will guide you through the entire process to Learn Stock Market Trading

Learn Stock Trading Interactive Guide

Move your mouse over the learning elements to interact and jump to relevant articles of interest.

Learn Stock Trading Plan – Click, Touch or Hover over any image for further information and insights.

How to Learn Stock Trading

1.  Get Educated

The first step on the path to becoming a competent stock trader is education.

There are many training courses available both free and premium training packages ranging from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars.

Your training will need to encompass both Fundamental Analysis and Technical Analysis, read our guide to choosing a good technical analysis course.  Not only that, but you will need to build experience at stock screening and selection, portfolio and money management and the psychology of trading.

2.  Learn How to Trade Stocks For Beginners [Free]

Everyone wants something for FREE.  So here it is.

Liberated Stock Trader has a large Free Training Course – “The Trading Academy” with 100’s of lessons and videos.

It includes our structured 18 module “Course 101 – Understanding the Stock Market” – with an online test at the end.

Stock Market Educational eBooks.

We provide two great eBooks in Adobe PDF format click below to download them.

• eBook – Inside the Traders Mind eBook – Inside the Traders Mind
• eBook – 10 Powerful Stock Charting Insights eBook – 10 Powerful Stock Charting Insights

3.  Fast Track Your Learning – Get a Professional Level Stock Trading Course

Alternatives to Free Courses include courses either in person in a seminar setting or online training.

Often premium courses will include video lessons and email support.  Going for a premium course will typically help you learn faster and have much higher quality content, so you can save time and effort by getting the best first.
Liberated Stock Trader offers the “PRO Stock Trader Training” to enable you to gain the knowledge and confidence you need, it includes:

• Print Edition Book & eBook
• 16 Hours of Online Video Lessons
• Private Members Group for Q&A

4.  Get Personal Stock Trading Coaching

Need someone to talk to, go see a psychiatrist. Just Joking.

Personal Investing Coaching is a good option to help cement your existing experience and education and test out strategies and plans.  The best thing is that the training experience is usually customized to you and your needs.  For example:

• Analyze the stocks you like
• Learn advanced concepts aligned to your trading style
• Market direction evaluation and practice
• Bounce your trading ideas off an expert
• Apply advanced stock screening to find great stocks
• Formulate your own Trading Plan

5.  Read a Great Book (or twenty)

With 1000’s of books to read, where do you start?

Check out our Top 20 Best Stock Market Investing Books Review.  It also includes the top 14 books that PRO Market Technical Analysts study to qualify for IFTA (International Federation of Technical Analysts) or CMT (Chartered Market Technician) Industry recognized certifications.  We have it covered from all-time best sellers to academic studies.  Alternatively, jump to our PRO Technical Analysis Top 14 Books

6.  Watch a Great Financial Market Movie

If you sit in front of a computer all day and read books in bed, what do you do in your downtime during the evening? Why not watch a financial thriller, stock market movie or a true story.

Sit back with your feet up and convince your partner to watch a film, perhaps the “Wolf of Wall Street”, “Boiler Room” or my favorite, “Inside Job”.   Read our Top 20 Best Stock Market & Financial Movies Review to find a great film to watch, guaranteed not to bore you…or maybe not.

7.  Listen to a Great Audio Book or Podcast

Bored of reading?   Have too much energy to sit down and watch a stock trading movie.  Why not listen to a great book while commuting or gardening or out walking the dog.

Our Top 20 Best Stock Market & Finance Audio Books Review has some cracking listens, such as the highly rated “Flash Boys” by Michael Lewis or “The Quants” by Scott Patterson.  Fill your day with learning whilst not being chained to your desk.

Listen to a Stock Market Podcast – The Liberated Stock Trader provides useful lessons via our Learn Stock Market Trading Podcast Series – simply search for Liberated Stock Trader on your smartphone.

8.  Choose your Stock Trading Analysis Platform

As with many things in the connected world you will have access to cost-free offerings for Stock Chart Analysis.  There are some very respectable free offerings, but if you want real power and extended functionality then the premium offerings are the right choice.

9.  Free Stock Analysis Charting Tools

They may not have all the bells and whistles compared to their “Pay For” competitors, but they are good for starters and will not put a dent in your wallet (or purse).
Read our review of the 10 Best Free Stock Charting Services on the Web. Spend some time playing with them and getting a picture of what you need before selecting a premium package.

10.  Choose your Premium Stock Market Analysis Software

You are now progressing your knowledge and experience in the market and realize that there are key features you need for your stock trading analysis, such as Back-testing, powerful charts, specific indicators, real-time data and streaming news… but which packages are the best for you?

We sorted through the many high quality (and low quality) Stock Analysis Software vendors to bring you our in-depth review of the Top 10 Stock Market Analysis Software Programs. It’s the best review on the Web (but I would say that wouldn’t I)

If you are not so interested in powerful stock chart analysis and are more driven towards stock screening (filtering companies by fundamentals like P E Ratio, Earnings per Share or Debt to Equity) then check out our Stock Screener Review

11. Prepare your Strategy

• How will you approach the stock market?
• What will you invest in?
• When will you invest & why?

You need to form a consolidated stock trading strategy blueprint.

There certainly is a lot to consider when building out your investing strategy.  There are core questions such as should you use a day trading strategy versus a buy and hold strategy.  Is Value investing like Warren Buffet for you or is the more time and nerve intensive swing trading more your style.

What is certain is that you will need to be able to spot and avoid stock market crashes and be able to establish your trading rules based on your stock trading style.  Also, advanced traders will want to ensure their system is back tested, meaning it has worked in the past.  Finally, if you are trading the earnings announcements or your stocks are susceptible to news based price swings you may want to choose a real-time high-quality news provider.

12.  Avoid Stock Market Crashes

Ensure you have a strategy to avoid the next stock market crash.

A stock market crash is an unfortunate and historically inevitable part of trading, as are tsunamis to the natural world.  Just like tsunamis, stock market crashes devastate those involved.

Prepare yourself for the next market crash by understanding the triggers and warnings that can be seen through technical analysis.

“How to avoid the next stock market crash” is the latest publication from Liberated Stock Trader, this book will help you protect your investments.

Published Feature in Stocks & Commodities Magazine

13.  Establish your Trade Rules

What chart indicators will you use? Under what conditions will you buy a stock? When will you sell a stock? Why did you buy the stock and are those reasons still true?

So many questions and here are some answers.

These are all known as the trade rules.  If you establish your criteria for buying, holding and selling a stock, before you buy it, then it can help to take the emotion out of a trade.  Read 10 Steps to a professional stock market system.  Emotions are your worst enemy, you must treat your investment decisions with a dose of logic not a slice of gut feel.  This is when back-testing comes to the rescue.

14.  Perform a Stock Trading System Back-Test

You may understand your reasons for a particular trade, but over the long term does your hypothesis make money?

An untested hypothesis is not worth the paper (or screen) it is written on.

This is what is called back-testing. An example of back-testing is the Stock Market Crash Detector.  This system is focused on trying to predict a stock market crash.  There are numerous elements.  Stock price fluctuations & price versus specific indicators.  While system back-testing is time-consuming it helps you understand which of the many indicators, such as Relative Strength Index (RSI), Balance of Power (BOP), Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), actually work in a real-world environment in the past.

While past performance is no indicators of future performance, you can see statistically over thousands of trades what has worked and has not worked.  If you want back-testing – read our Top 10 Stock Market Software Review and look at the section Systems & Back-Testing Score to find a suitable product.

15.  Select Good Stock Market News Sources

“Roll Up, Roll Up, Read All About It”

If you want to stay in touch with Macro or Micro Economic Events you will need a good source of news.  Trading the news is a strategy some people adopt.   There are many good sources of news for you to look at including Reuters, Bloomberg & Investors Business Daily. However, if you want real-time streaming news and innovative market insight take a look at our review winning Benzinga PRO News Service

If you trade the news, you will want news delivered in real-time and that might cost.

16.  Choose an Investment Vehicle

Why does Wall Street call them vehicles?  Well perhaps they want it to sound complex, or perhaps it is a reference to the transportation of your money to another destination.  But when you think about it, Vehicle is a good analogy.  Stock Investments can be seen as a car, some stocks are Lamborghini’s (fast and exciting yet inefficient) while others are a Toyota Prius (practical, not pretty but efficient and safe).

Binary Options & Contracts for Difference are like riding a fast motorbike – a great rush, requiring huge amounts of concentration and ultimately risky.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s) and index funds are like buses, they are cheap, reliable and ultimately get you to where you want to go without any effort on your part.  The ETF bus is a good place to be, you never have to worry about beating the market, you are always performing at the market, with the minimum of effort and minimum of Tax implications.

The book Unshakable by Tony Robbins lays out this argument beautifully as does “The Little Book of Common Sense Investing” by John C. Bogle.

Stock Options are fairly complex calculations based on time and price, perhaps could be called a Segway… although I may be taking the analogy too far now.

17. Trading Stocks vs Exchange Traded Funds?

If you pick the right stocks your returns can be excellent. But picking the best at the right time can be extremely challenging.

What about Index Tracking Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s)?  What are they, how are do they compare?

Read the Pro’s and Con’s of Stocks versus ETF’s here and learn more about mutual funds

Dividends are also a key benefit of investing in company stock, find out more about dividend investing in our Dividend Investing Secrets.

Dividends are a great way to secure a solid fixed income revenue stream, our in-depth analysis of the Dividend Kings and Dividend Aristocrats will give you tremendous insight into where to place your investments.

18.  Trading Stock Options

Options were designed as risk protection but they can be used for profiting greatly.  Providing you focus intensely on strategy and execution. There are 2 books in our Top 20 Stock Market Investing Books Review focused on leaning Stock Options, “Getting Started In Options” by Michael C. Thomsett & “The Bible of Options Strategies” by Guy Cohen.  Both I consider compulsory reading before you enter the fray.

In addition to these books read our Top 10 tips for options success.

19. Trading in Binary Options and Contracts for Difference (CFD’s)?

Both Binary Options and Contracts for difference are strictly for advanced investors and involve elevated levels of risk.  If you want to take your money for a ride on the Ducati Panigale Superbike, then this dangerous and risky path is for you.

Be careful here and don’t blow up your future investment pot apportion only a small percentage of your investment pot to Forex and CFD trading.

Both CFD’s and Binary options are not permitted for US investors.

20.  How to Choose a Brokerage

Do you live in the past, or in the future?

The past, where access to the stock market was limited to a Stock Broker, who would call you on the phone and convince you that the latest hot stock was worth investing in and you would believe him. (see the film Boiler Room in this Movie list)

The future is the world we live now, whereby you can research thousands of stocks, instantly see news and earnings and see the past performance of a company then execute your trades online for a minimal cost.

21.  Choose a Great Online Discount Stock Broker

As a Liberated Stock Trader, you realize that you need to be in control of your own decisions.  Choosing a broker means selecting those that minimize cost and enable good market access with great customer service and a reasonably low minimum account balance.

Read our Best Online Stock Brokers Review which also highlights the best stock brokers for online stock trading for beginners.  The review winner was Firstrade a first class USA broker that recently moved to $0 commission fees, yes that means there are zero commissions on trades for market participants.

Our Firstrade and Interactive Brokers reviews also highlight that they are also excellent for active traders, meaning those that trade often and hold stocks only for the short term.

Also if you want to trade Foreign Exchange read our Best U.S.A. Forex Brokers Review.

Our favorite 6 brokers are evaluated in detail in our In-Depth Broker Analysis, and in you are interested in trading penny stocks, check out our Best Penny Stocks Brokers Review

If you live outside the U.S.A. but want to trade in the low-cost U.S. markets, read our Guide to U.S. Investing for non-residents.

22.  Choosing an Advisory Broker

Make no mistake, advisory brokers make money when you execute a trade.  This means they will always be recommending that you sell a particular stock and buy another one.  They make most of their money on the trade costs and not on the profit because the transaction cost is guaranteed and the future profit of a particular investment is not.

Your best interests are irrelevant to them. Make your own decisions and minimize your costs with a discount broker.  There are no recommendations for further reading here.

23.  Execute your Trading Plan

Investing is a business, not a hobby.

Continual improvement and adaptation is the key to success.  All of these factors are covered in our Liberated Stock Trader PRO Training

24.  Review Market Trends and Direction

The direction of the market will overall dictate the direction of your individual investment.

That is a “FACT”.

Although, some companies are so large, like Facebook, Intel, Apple & Microsoft that their direction might influence the direction of the market, at least for a short period of time.

When there is a market collapse, all stocks fall, even the good ones.

When there is a rampant bull market even the worst stocks rise.

So, what is the lesson?

You can use DOW Theory to assess market direction using the major indices. here is also another example of Dow Theory. Dow Theory is discussed in depth in the PRO training.  You can even use Ichimoku Clouds to try to predict market direction.

You can also stay up-to-date with our level-headed market analysis at our Stock Market Today page

25.  Analyze and Improve Your System’s Performance

So you have a system and it works.  It is good practice to always check, back-test and continually try to improve it.  But make sure that a change to your system is an improvement and does not increase risk and reduce reward.

26.  Building Wealth & Compounding

So now you have done the hard work, you have learned, you have your preferred analysis software, you have built your rules and you are executing them.

How do you become a stock market millionaire?

What percent return can you expect?

How long will it take?

All these questions and more are answered in our Guide to becoming a Stock Market Millionaire.  This is covered in more depth in the PRO Training

27.  Enjoy Life

Who am I to tell you how to enjoy life – no one that’s who.

How you enjoy life is all down to you.  Money is not everything, wealth is a matter of perspective.

You are rich if you have a family that loves you, a dog that loves you, a partner you have a connection with, or even if you have contentment in your heart.

I wish for you to be healthy, wealthy and wise.

Big Bonus – Learn Stock Trading Plan – Free Lessons

The wealth of investing lessons at Liberated Stock Trader are available to you now.  The lessons below form the foundation of the Trading Academy Free Training Course.  You can also register for our Trading Academy FREE & get Course 101 – Introduction to the Stock Market and take an end of course test.

Trading Academy FREE – Stock Market Investing Course Tutorials Syllabus

1st Grade – Introduction to Trading

The place to start your learning stock trading experience.

• Learn Stock Trading 5 mistakes to avoid.  The things you really need to avoid from the start.
• Top 10 Stock Tips – Quick tips to get you up and running quickly
• Stock Market Guide – The Traders Checklist 1 – everyone needs a checklist to get started – so here it is, complete with video.
• Stock Market Guide – The Traders Checklist Video 2 – part two of our trader’s checklist series
• PRO Chapter – FREE GIFT – Premium Stock Market Training – Chapter 1 – a free excerpt from our Pro Training.
• Hot Stocks Newsletters – Scam or Trustworthy? A vital lesson to help you avoid scammers and pump and dump schemes
• The single way to make money in the Stock Market. An interesting look at the big question
• Technical Analysis Course – What is it?– How do you choose good stock market training
• Who should you trust with your investments? – Is there anyone out there that you can trust with your investing decisions?
• Of Bears & Bulls. Learn Stock Trading introductory lesson on basic terminology.

2nd Grade – The Big Picture

• What is a Stock Market Index + Can you Buy the Total Stock Market?
• Do the global stock markets move in sync?  An Introduction to Dow Theory
• Economics Rap Keynes versus Hayek Video – Entertainment & Education in one great video
• PRO Chapter 2 – Why do Booms and Busts Occur? a free excerpt from our Pro Training
• Stock Market Guide – The Big Picture – How to view the whole story
• Dow Theory & Elliott Wave Theory – Useful tools in your arsenal
• Interpret How Global Events Can Affect Your Investments – there is news and there is big news, know the difference.

3rd Grade – Fundamentals Made Easy

• Stock Price – Bid-Ask – Spread – Liquidity – How to read and understand stock price information
• A Simple Introduction to Fundamentals. What is Fundamental Analysis and why are they important
• Learn Stock Market Trading Video – 2 Part Video Guide to Fundamentals – Learn about Earnings per Share (EPS) & the Price Earnings Ratio (P/E Ratio) and much more
• PRO Chapter 4 – Is the Company in great shape – P/E Ratio – Exploring the all-important Price Earnings Ratio

4th Grade – Stock Screening

• Stock Screener Review – Finding Stocks Using Stock Screening. The Webs Most Detailed & Best Stock Screener Review

5th Grade – Chart Reading Made Easy

• 1. Chart Reading Made Easy. Bar Charts & Candlesticks – Learn Stock Trading – Kick start your ability to read a stock chart.
• 2. Trend-lines read them or weep! Learn Stock Trading – Learn to understand the meaning of trend-lines
• 3. Using Trend Lines to make buy and sell decisions – Application of trend-lines
• PRO Chapter 7 – Free Gift  – How to draw trend lines – a free excerpt from our Pro Training
• Chapter 6 – Introduction to Japanese Candlesticks – a free excerpt from our Pro Training
• Chapter 6 – Japanese Candlesticks – Bullish Reversal Patterns a free excerpt from our Pro Training
• Head and Shoulders Pattern – Learn Stock Trading – Considered by some to be the most predictive of patterns

Complete the Trading Academy Free and take the Course 101 Test + Download 3 eBooks by registering as a student – without paying a single cent.

6th Grade – Stock Chart Indicators are your Friends

• Market Breadth – The Advance Decline Line – What is the AD Line and how can it be useful?
• Chapter 8 – ROC Rate of Change Indicator  – a free excerpt from our Pro Training
• Using the Ichimoku Cloud to forecast the market direction. The exotic Ichimoku is becoming more mainstream, find out what it is.
• Using Fibonacci Retracement on the S&P 500 – Fibonacci a renaissance scientist an mathematician has relevance in today’s stock market.
• 1. Moving Averages – A Powerful yet simple Indicator. Learn Stock Trading Indicators
• 2. Volume – Volume Indicator. Learn Stock trading
• 3. MACD – Moving Average Convergence / Divergence Indicator.
• 4. Stochastic Indicator – Loved by some, the stochastic indicator is a core learning
• 5. Relative Strength Index, how strong is your trend? How strong is your stock compared to itself?
• Elliot Wave Theory In-Depth Analysis

7th Grade – Investment Strategy for Beginners

• 10 Steps to build a great stock market trading system – Let’s talk about the basics of building a trading system.
• Chapter 11 – How to trade the News! a free excerpt from our Pro Training
• 1. Is buying Stocks as simple as buying a car? Find out the difference.
• 2. What Type of investor are you?  How do you want to trade, how much time can you put in?
• 3. What are your Goals?  Billionaire or happily wealthy?
• 4. How to make a Million Dollars in the Stock Market, the real key to becoming wealthy from investing.

8th Grade – Stock Market Trading Psychology

• Inside the Traders Mind – a free excerpt from our Pro Training
• 9th Grade – Making the Trade – Tips on making your first trade
• Knowing when not to buy. An important lesson on not chasing the trade
• Patience is the companion of wisdom! – Need we say more
• Assessing Market Direction is critical before buying a Stock!  Understanding market direction
• How many Stocks should I own?  How much money do you have?
• Tracking your Trades. Learn Stock Trading by doing.

10th Grade – The Best Tools

• Stock Info – Get Great Information on Stocks Online – Good resources to use when trading
• Subscribe to our Podcast – Liberated Stock Trader PRO Training Podcast
• The single way to make money in the Stock Market.
• US Stock Market Today Commentary – Bookmark this page in your browser.
• Tools Review – The Top 10 Best Stock Charting Tools on the Web
• tc2000 Telechart 2007 Review, Stock Charting, and Screening.
• Tracking your Trades. Learn Stock Trading
• Stock Screener Review – Finding Stocks Using Stock Screening.

Now it’s over to you.  Did you like this article, do you have feedback, what do you think?  Scroll down and leave a comment to let me know.