New and Need Advice

I'm thinking about investing but after reading on here for a few hours,
it doesn't look promising for me.
>24 yrs old
>17.25 an hour ($517 a week, take home)
>Don't trust crypto (lack of knowledge)
I know nothing about investments, guys, help me out.

Cryoto currency is not investing dumb dumb. Its speculation just like gold and silver the only value it has is what idiot will buy it from the other idiot at a higher price

Glad I haven't bought any then.
The only investments I know is from when I used to sell weed.

Investing (funds, etc.):
Low risk, long term, no active management, boring

Trading (stocks, futures, crypto):
High risk, short term, actively managed, exciting

Given you lack the time (you already have a regular job), the money (no pile of capital), and knowledge of how financial instruments move, you should probably stick to investing. It sucks because it's slow and boring, but does pick up over time.

Well I actually have quite a bit of time.
I work with my dad, and most of what I do is oversight.
I'm willing to save, expend time, and learn how financial instruments move, I just don't know where to start.

But ETH you fucking pussy. Youre too late for th moon mission but you might be able to get in for the Mars mission.

Are you talking about trading as opposed to investing?
Investing doesn't require any time at all. You put your money in (repeatedly), and it grows over decades. It's not really defined by what you put it in, although most people investing would stick to low risk products.

Both, really.
I'm trained as an engineer, and have little financial experience beyond paying bills and calculating interest.

I want to be diverse.
I want to save for the future,
but I wouldn't mind seeing how well I do trading.

Just don't know anything about it

Everyone should invest, that's just common sense for retirement, and you can find loads of information about it anywhere online. The basic calculation is risk vs reward: the more high paying an investment, the more risk involved.

But trading is a completely different animal.
Those who do it successfully do nothing else, and they have access to advantages those who lack money, the time, or do it on the side; do not.

What can be misleading is that the market can be used to gamble, even if one has no knowledge of it. This results in outliers, those who profited from the markets with none of the skills, capital, or advantages mentioned. Confusing them with actual traders is a mistake, however.

More on my situation
>Dad is fairly successful and worth multi-millions
>I have a very lenient schedule most days that I can multitask fairly well
>My bills only cost me 500 out of the 2k I make a month

How would I learn about trading and find out if I'm any good at it or not.
I've seen a lot of scam type sites online and would prefer to avoid those.

The only way I know is to actually do it. You could paper trade for a while, but opinions are mixed on how valuable an experience that actually is.

As far as actual trading goes, you'll probably fuck it up and miss opportunities if you try and do other things at the same time. Or your other things will go to shit.
And unless you have a decent pile of capital to work with, you won't have access to the advantages that would literally increase your chances.
The point is, you'd be handicapping the fuck put of yourself by both keeping another job, and/or using a sub-optimal amount of starting capital. Based on that kind of experience, you'll never know if you would have been any good at it.

where can I get a reliable and very in depth
look at trading?
I'm willing to put back a few thousand for it,
but I don't want to read anything that may mislead me.

>a reliable and very in depth look at trading?
What does this mean?

Are you thinking you can find something online that will teach you how to trade? It doesn't really work that way.
People love to sell the strategies they (claim) made them rich, but even if they did work at one point, it's no guarantee they do now. If it was as simple as buying a strategy online, millions would be doing it.

Everything you read will mislead you to some extent, you can find contradictory shit written about every scheme, I mean strategy, out there.

I'm talking about something that will explain the mechanics of trading.
I'm not looking for schemes. I can figure it out on my own, but I need to know the rules of the game.

>the mechanics of trading
How basic are you talking?
Give me some examples.

I wouldn't say basic, but basic is a part of it.

Everything has to have it's architecture,
it's how humans build things in one form or another.

By mechanics, I mean:
>How are stocks traded and what is the formula of value with fees added in
>Are there any grouping (stocks together) methods and what advantages and disadvantages do they hold?
>What is the minimum buy in price for small time day trading, and what profit margin can be expected?

I guess I'm looking for an overall explanation of the architecture and the functions that it abides to.

There are relatively safe forms of investing. I used to just ditch all my savings into a savings account. When I opened up my bank messages box, a message stated that interest had dropped to about 0.9%. As property tax is about 1,2% here, I was basically losing money.

So, started looking for a safe way to earn a bit of money. Turns out my bank has certificates that earn an interest of 6.5%. There are two risks: you buy the certificates at the stock market for a too high price and you will lose your profit when selling them. The second is the risk that the bank goes bankrupt.

As the certificates are trading stable and the bank is AAA, there is a low risk. So I put a small amount of money into these certificates. If it pays off, maybe I'll put in more.

Serious question here. Only dabbled into Bitcoin to buy products. Is Etherium a new Cryptocurrency or a platform?

Should I get on the ETH bandwagon now? I'm a poor fucker, but I can spare a few hundred to invest.

>How are stocks traded and what is the formula of value with fees added in
Buyers and sellers inform their brokers how many shares they want, based either on price or timeliness. Upon completion, brokerages add a commission, which varies from brokerage to brokerage, as well as being dependent on ones capital amount (more = less commission). You would also owe interest, if your position was leveraged or short. Profits are made by selling at a higher price than purchased, or buying at a lower price when short. So your value is gross profit - fees & commission.

Are there any grouping (stocks together) methods and what advantages and disadvantages do they hold?
Some people group things by sector, to more easily compare them to similar companies, or dividend paying stocks together in order to create an income stream, but these aren't really trading strategies.

What is the minimum buy in price for small time day trading?
There is no minimum. You could use an app to gamble in the market for nothing. Is that what you mean?

I'm guessing there isn't a way to eliminate the broker from the equation, since they seem to be the most expensive part.

I'm interesting in combining dividend paying stocks together.
It may not be a trading strategy, but income is the end goal of both games.

For small time day trading, I was more asking if there was a feasible way to trade with small amounts of cash.
Like buying and selling stocks with only $1000 to start and making a profit, without going full retard with penny stocks.

>a way to eliminate the broker from the equation
The people putting you in touch with your potential buyers/sellers?

>they seem to be the most expensive part
You mean the only part?
Or are you counting losses? Because those hit you far more than commissions, fees, or anything else a broker would throw at you.

>a feasible way to trade with small amounts of cash
It would depend on your definition of 'feasible'.
Let's say you buy 20 shares of $50 stock with your $1000, using a free gambling app. The stock then rises to $50.50, and you sell all 20 twenty shares. The app doesn't charge you, and you made $10.
Is this feasible?

HURR investing or trading

>HURR HURR HURR HURR HURR HURR

gtfo

>The people putting you in touch with your potential buyers/sellers?
Right. I'm not understand their role in this unless they purchase the stock and sell it to you with commission taxed on. If that were the case, why not buy from the seller directly in a stock market place, unless there is an absolute need for the middle man.

Losses are losses. Bad choices in stocks, or business enterprise, or a greedy girlfriend. It's all the same, so I wouldn't consider that as an expense, more of a liability in trading.

>Let's say you buy 20 shares of $50 stock with your $1000, using a free gambling app. The stock then rises to $50.50, and you sell all 20 twenty shares. The app doesn't charge you, and you made $10.
Is this feasible?

This sort of confuses me. If there is a free gambling app, then what is the purpose of a broker? It seems this app would take over the brokers position since it doesn't charge you and the broker does.

>buy from the seller directly in a stock market place
The stock market place wouldn't charge you?
Or are you referring to a physical location everyone would meet at?

If there is a free gambling app, then what is the purpose of a broker?
Lol.
Well, in the example we used, I would have bought 4 times as much stock (80 shares) using leverage from my broker. I would have made $40 to your $10, well worth the $3 commission I payed the broker. And that's just one advantage.

It's a good thing I didn't jump in head first,
I'm already confused on what the stock market
actually is and how you purchase from it if there
isn't a need for the broker.

And I didn't know there was a loan you could get from your broker.

>if there isn't a need for the broker.
It sort of depends. If you are investing for the long term (and have no need for trading, per se), you could use an app.
Or if you're just out to gamble.

But traders would never give up intraday leverage, margin/shorting ability, or access to after hours in order to duck commission. That's horrible money management, on par with driving on a flat to avoid patching a tire.

>loan you could get from your broker
Useful for both leveraging (which costs nothing, properly used) and shorting.
They make it available to you at discount rates, so that you're more likely to utilize it. Of course, people make plenty of mistakes, and they're certainly capitalizing on that.

Since you can buy a stock with or without an investor, how do you keep track of the stock and how are they identified as yours?

It makes sense that a brokerage firm would give you tools at a cost that would allow you to take advantage of certain market trends.
How much is a typical minimum for working with a broker?

OP are you American?
I would say start trading yourself with Robinhood (a phone app for trading stocks that doesnt charge commission fees). Give yourself a crash course on swing trading by reading all the material you can manage to stomach online, watch youtube courses or whatever. participate in the robinhood general threads on this board.

In my first month of trading I made 15%
I'm on my second month and this month I've made 40%.

Start small. Add money to it as you learn how things work.

>how do you keep track of the stock
The brokerage keeps track, usually there's a website (or platform) you would access the info from.

>How much is a typical minimum for working with a broker?
Again, it depends, as there are levels (somewhat based on how many tools you need).
The basic costs don't tend to be fees, more a certain amount of money the brokerage wants deposited with them.
It might be just a few hundred dollars (deposit) for a standard account (no shorting, after hours, leverage).
More like tens of thousands for a margin account with all of the above.

That's badass. I'll keep a lookout for it. Thanks.
So basically, I need something like optionshouse at a minimum if I want to keep track of my stocks and start getting into it more heavily.

Are brokerages a type of banking institution?

>I need something like optionshouse at a minimum
It could be anyone. Whoever holds your stocks will have the records. Whether that's Fidelity, Vanguard, ETrade, or some app, it doesn't matter for those purposes.

>How much is a typical minimum for working with a broker?
They handle and loan out money, so they have some sort of certification/license. I'm sure it differs in some ways from a standard bank, though.

Okay. Thanks!
I think this is enough to get me started.

shit. reply was to this one
>Are brokerages a type of banking institution?

Good luck.