How to does investing in stocks work?

how do you buy and sell stocks? how much do they cost (approximate). is it easy? is it time consuming? are shares and stocks the same thing? how do you make a profit?

You need a broker to buy stocks. You could use Ameritrade, Scottrade, etc. When you buy a stock you are purchasing a share or % of the company.
Companies have an IPO or initial public offering. This is used to raise money for the company. So for instance in 2004, google IPO'd at $85 a share. That money google uses to further the business. After that they do not receive any money based on the price of the stock. There are millions of shares for a company. So then you use your broker to buy shares. So if you had $850 to invest when Google IPO'd you could have bought 10 shares. So when you have shares you own a percentage of the company. If you happen to acquire more than 50% of the shares of a company then you own the company. So for instance, if Microsoft wanted to purchase Google, they could have bought up a big percentage of the shares. The more shares you have the more you can vote for different things. Example, you could vote yourself to be a board of directors. Every Monday thru Friday the stock market is open from 9:30 - 4. People buy and sell shares for whatever price the market will bear. Going back to google, they are something like $650 a share now. How you make money is if you buy a stock for a price, then sell it for a higher price. As far as time consuming, if you really want to know how your stocks are doing you have to spend alot of time. People spend tons of time, research, etc to try to figure out how stocks will do.

first you find a broker and you open an account with them (scottrade)

stock price varies in values, a good company with great earning and business are going to have better value stock than other companys that don't do well. stock price can be from anywhere a penny to 120000 dollars a share. all depends on the growth and earning of company and amount of outstanding shares available in the market.

Read "Investing For Dummies." It will give you the basics on what investing is all about.

You can buy and sell through stock broker. Search for stock broker for their cost. Profit when you buy low and sell high. For more information, you can check www.stockpickguide.com

Open a brokerage account at Zecco and I will help you for FREE. (I am a Portfolio Manager)

Shares and stocks are the same thing.