Have advice for a first time stock investor?

I am interested in purchasing stock for the first time. What are the baby steps I need to take?

There are 2 options for you:

1) Simply invest in an index fund, like the Wilshire 5000 index. You'll never never do exceptionally well, but you'll also never underperform the market.

2) Do tons and tons of research to determine what stocks to buy, and when to later sell them. This takes a lot of time, trial and error, and mountains of research. If this interests you, I'd recommend the following websites:

http://www.vickers-stock.com/reports/fre...

http://forbestadvice.com/FanClubs/BobBri...

http://www.top10traders.com/Top10Standin...

http://www.geocities.com/kenandkindi/


You might also want to try your hand at investing on a simulator to work out the kinks in your strategy, and so that you don't lose any real money from big mistakes made while you're learning. The following site has a free simulator:

http://simulator.investopedia.com/home.a...

In my opinion, the best thing a new investor can do is open a retirement account or start a DRIP Plan.

Both of these are long-term investments that require patience, but can greatly enhance your wealth.

DRIP's are seldom talked about because brokers make very little money when they suggest them. Yet, they have proven to be one of the best, if not the best, long-term strategy on Wall Street.

They are perfect for small investors, as well as big investors. They are safe and allow you to not care about whether the market is going up or down.

Go sit down and talk to some of the brokerage houses - Edward Jones - Charles Schwab etc. get a feel for your goals and just pick their brains for information. Ask for one of their client news letters - they usually have recommendations for stocks to buy, hold or sell. Get on your computer and follow some of their advise without investing to see how sound it is. You may just want to start a regular investment plan with one of them - or use their recommendations and invest with Ameritrade or one of those. Stock purchase is an educated guess - there are tons of books with advice - and none of them is 100% right. Even Suse Orman has gone bankrupt.

Invest in Silver. Back in 1980, gold sold for $850 and silver sold for $50. Then, one ounce of gold would buy 17 ounces of silver. Today with gold near $900, one ounce of gold will buy a whopping 55 ounces of silver. It seems to me that silver, in terms of gold, is "too cheap."

The bull run for Gold and Silver has been strong since 2002 making about 40+% annually. They should both continue to be a great investment in this type of inflationary environment brought on by the weak US dollar, growing deficit, major growth overseas, etc. We have yet to see the major parabolic phase that puts a final cap on this bull run.

Once you have a trading account, you can easily buy and sell silver with ticker symbol "SLV". The great thing about SLV is you don't need to store it physically and you can trade it immediately.