Investing early is one of the easiest ways you can grow your wealth. There is a saying that the best day to start investing is yesterday. As you can see, we can’t tell the future, and investing is one of those things that relies on time. This is why we explore options that align with our risk tolerance and do things that have a greater impact on our finances. Things like paying off debt, taking advantage of an employer 401(k) match, or saving money for a rainy day. Once you’re financially secure, you can start taking more risk, and with more risk comes more reward. Investing in the stock market is a good starting point, and in today’s day and age, it’s easier than ever to start investing.

Starting Point

Finding a good and reliable brokerage would be a good starting point. Getting acquainted with the stock market is easier than ever, and brokerages make it interactive and easy with mobile apps. Find one that aligns with your goals and one that you feel comfortable using. After all, they will be handling all your assets, and you want to be able to use one you trust. Opening a brokerage account is as easy as opening a bank account. You can do a quick search for the top 10 brokerages out there see what your goals are and start saving!

Researching

After opening your brokerage account, you may want to start looking for companies that are publicly traded on the stock market. You also need to remember your goals. Are you a long-term investor, or are you a short-term trader? Sometimes if you can’t decide you can start off by investing in ETFs. I wrote a chapter on that if you want to read it here. ETFs in short are funds which hold many stocks and are actively or passively managed by other people. This makes investing a whole lot easier because it makes your only job in this investing journey to supply the money.

Funding and Purchasing

Once you open and fund your account, you can put in orders for shares in companies or ETFs. You can put what’s called a market order. A market order is buying one share (or partial) at the next best available price. This would typically be the price you see on the screen. Remember the stock market is only open Monday through Friday 9am-4pm Eastern time. If you place a market order when the market is closed, the order will be processed in the next business day. This could also affect the price, because of this market orders are not allowed to be placed when the market is closed. You would place what is called a limit order. A limit order allows you to set a certain price to buy a share at. It’s like bidding on the price of a share. If the share price is lower than your bid, you will purchase a share at the lowest available price.

Consistency

Now that you’re funding your account and picked your companies and ETFs, you have to keep a consistent schedule to keep funding your account. The only way to keep growing your money is to fund your account. This can be any schedule you chose. You can fund your account once a week, once a month, or once every two months. Whatever works for you. This is your portfolio after all so you make the rules.

Market Trends

The market is not completely connected to the economy. It’s good to remember that the stock market might be a little disconnected from reality sometimes. Make sure you’re keeping up with the trends. Especially if you’re invested in individual stocks. The market runs more on speculation than actual events going on. Some of the events going on might spark an interest in a company which triggers a price hike. It could be something simple like an announcement of a new technology that might be “in the works”. The technology in the works might not even release in the future, but that doesn’t stop investors from getting their foot in the door first.

Final Thoughts

Investing doesn’t need to be as hard as it’s made to seem. We’re really all lost when it comes to investing. What works for one person, won’t work for the other. That’s why it’s sometimes best to just put money in and learn. Also to keep in mind that you may lose a majority of it. This is why I always say to explore other avenues of becoming financially successful before going all in to investing. Once you’re a little more comfortable, ups and downs of hundreds of dollars won’t even phase you even a little bit.

Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next Sunday,
– Pablo