As a beginner in the stock market, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of news, resources, stock charts, economic indicators, and gurus promising you untold riches if you let them invest your money.
The stock market is a fascinating place to invest your money, but unfortunately, it is a place where money is lost as well as won. You will need specific skills to learn and immerse yourself in the Stock Market quickly, and you will need patience and dedication to improve your knowledge.
1. What Skills Does a Stock Market Beginner Need?
A beginner in the stock market needs:
- An Aptitude for Numbers
- A Basic Appreciation for Business
- An Understanding of Product and Services
- Willingness to Learn
An Aptitude for Numbers
You will need a basic understanding of mathematics. For example, the Earnings Per Share (EPS) is simply the company’s profit divided by the number of shares (stocks) it has issued. A high EPS is excellent, but also, more importantly, the acceleration in the growth of EPS can mean a stock price will begin to increase.
The Price Earnings Ratio (P/E) is a simple calculation, but it takes a little effort to understand it truly. Let us imagine I want to buy an Ice-cream Stand. The Owner wants to sell that stand to me for $10,000. I have estimated a yearly profit (after tax) of $2,000. This means it would take me five years to make my money back on this investment. Therefore the price I paid divided by the earnings equals 5. This is what the P/E Ratio or the “Multiple” tells us.
So, mathematics is relatively easy at the beginning; as you become more skilled, so will your maths.
A Basic Appreciation for Business
Businesses exist to make a profit. Companies make less profit per invested dollar when there is a lot of competition. Businesses make more money per dollar spent when they have fewer competitors and even more money when they have fewer competitors and higher entry barriers. A barrier to entry is, for example, what Intel the chipmaker has. They have very few competitors because the cost of developing microchips and manufacturing them is enormous. There are only a handful of people in the world in a position to set up a competition with Intel.
An Understanding of Product and Services
We all saw the Apple iPhone when it was first released. It was a significant WOW factor. Those of us who stopped for a minute to ask ourselves seriously if this product will disrupt an entire industry and be a complete game-changer, toppling Nokia and Blackberry, would have answered yes. The ability to appreciate great products and services that will be disruptive to an existing industry or even create a new industry will do very well in the stock market.
A Willingness to Learn
Let’s be clear; there is a lot to learn. If you do not invest time and effort in your education, you will not succeed.
You can pay tens of thousands of dollars on seminars, or you can try our free stock market investing training at the liberated stock trader. For the best results, you should go for our PRO Training, with a print book and lifetime access to 16 hours of video and a private member’s Facebook group for support.
How Much Time Does a Stock Market Beginner Need to Learn?
An organized approach to learning
The more organized you are in your learning approach, the more effective you will be, and the less time you will waste.
Malcolm Gladwell, the famous author, suggests becoming a master of anything you will need 10,000 hours. I do not think you will need this much time to become competent in investing your money. Think about it; in a typical month, we work 160 hours. In a year, that is 1,920 hours. So, theoretically, five years of full-time learning and activity in investing will make you a master.
Learning versus Experience for the Stock Market Beginner
You may well need 10,000 hours of combined experience and learning to become a master. But the learning part is the most intensive. Education means sitting down and actively studying in a structured way the subject matter. When I studied for my Certified Technical Analyst Qualification, I invested the best part of 200 hours. This was combined with the previous ten years of experience I also had in investing.
What Approach to Learning Should the Stock Market Beginner Take?
From my perspective, the best thing to do is to take a Stock Market Training Course first. A proper training course will teach you the core knowledge you need to make sense of the world of investing, and it will provide the training in a very structured way to maximize the value you get from your time spent. Then you can apply your knowledge to gain the experience you need by applying your learning to the real world. When looking for an excellent training course, you should read this Guide to Choosing the Right Stock Market Training Course.
2. How Much Money Does a Stock Market Beginner Need to get Started?
The bare minimum you need is $1,000, but we recommend you will need at least $2,000 to begin investing, much less than that, and the trading commissions will erode your profits.
Let’s look at it like this. Most Stock Brokers will ask you for a minimum deposit of about $1,000 to get started and open an account. So that is how much you would need as a minimum.
A low-cost trade would cost around $5 in Europe and Asia. So, if you buy $100 worth of stock, that stock would need to increase in price by 6% for you to begin to make a profit. 5% might not sound like a lot, but it is. If you were to spend all $1,000 on a single stock, then the stock would need to increase by only 0.5% to cover your cost and begin to make a profit. While it may not be advisable to put all of your money on one stock, with $1,000, that might be what you need to do. I would recommend at least $2,000 to $3,000 to start with. Start small and work your way up.
This is less of a problem if you are a US or Canadian resident; you can take advantage of zero commissions brokers such as Firstrade. Read the Firstrade Review.
You want to be a successful stock investor but don’t know where to start.
Learning stock market investing on your own can be overwhelming. There’s so much information out there, and it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s not.
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3. What is the Cheapest Way for a Beginner to Learn About Stock Investing?
If you have the time and patience, then there are five options.
Get Trained – Take a Free Stock Market Investing Course. Liberated Stock Trader has one, and there are many others out on the web.
Read Books – Buy the most excellent investing books ever written. Liberated Stock Trader updates the best stock market investing books list every year; you cannot go wrong spending time reading a book from an investing master.
Watch a Great Movie. My favorite movie on the stock market is by far the amazing “Inside Job – 2011,” a documentary about the financial crisis of 2008. See all the best movies in our Top 20 Stock Market Movies Review
Watch Videos – here are some Stock Market Video Lessons from yours truly.
Listen to some great Audio Books on Stock Market Investing. Read our Top 20 Audio Books Review
4. Is the Stock Market Risky for Beginners?
As a beginner will little experience, stock market investing has many hazards. I set up the Liberated Stock Trader to educate people on the right way to learn and become knowledgeable and to warn them of what they need to avoid. The word Liberated means you will be liberated by your knowledge and make your own decisions and see the scam artists for what they really are.
Beware the Penny Stock Newsletters
Quick riches tempt many people, but the truth is they do not exist. Many companies out there engage in the morally and legally bad practice of pump and dump schemes. A stock marketing company, let’s call them “Stock Commodity Unity Marketing” (SCUM), will receive a payment from a company that wants to boost the share price of its worthless business; let’s call this company “Titanium Resource Assets Security House” (TRASH). TRASH gives money to SCUM; SCUM buys Stock in TRASH; SCUM promotes this worthless stock of TRASH to beginner investors seeking quick profits (PUMP). As the poor beginner investors start to buy the TRASH stocks, the price begins to rise. As the price rises, both the Stock owners in SCUM & TRASH begin to sell their shares (DUMP) at a profit, and the stock price plummets. The beginner investors see the stock crash and lose most of their money.
How Penny Stocks Newsletters Work – Video
Beware the self-proclaimed guru’s
Again as you get more involved in investing, you will see there is an army of Gurus ready to recommend the next hot stocks for a monthly subscription cost, of course. While there are clearly a handful of people who continuously make profits in the market, less than 10% of all investors make profits. If you must follow any recommendations or newsletters, be sure to read independent reviews and ensure a third party thoroughly vets them.
Even independent reviews can be fake; reviews should be listed on an independent, trusted website. You really need to do your research before signing up for a newsletter or advisory service.
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Do Not Over Pay for Stock Market Training Courses
Stock Market Training can be really expensive. Local training promoters usually offer a free training course at a location near you. You arrive, and a person you have never heard of tells you how rich and successful they are and how they are doing you a favor by offering you a weekend seminar for $4,000. You will also get exclusive insight into their secret method for killing the stock market. The presenter will be full of energy, and the crowd will get excited, and a number of the people who have $4,000 to spare will sign up. You and I both know you will not learn all you need in a weekend to go and become a billionaire like Warren Buffet.
You are better off spending your education budget on a high-quality self-paced training course and then investing in personal coaching from an industry certified professional; look for the MSTA (Member of the Society of Technical Analysts) or IFTA (International Federation of Technical Analysts) qualifications. These qualifications are the core certification for proving experience in the Technical Analysis of Stock & Commodities.
You will save money and have the time to let the knowledge sink in and combine it with practical hands-on experience.
Summary & Next Steps for the Stock Market Beginner
I sincerely hope this beginner’s introduction has been of great benefit to you and that it sets you on the right path to getting started in the stock market. If you register for the Liberated Stock Trader Trading Academy FREE, you will be able to reply directly to me on any email you receive with questions you may have.
To your future as a Liberated Stock Trader.
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