Indie Guide to Trading

Hello Folks,
I actually started all this so that at some point I could keep track of my wins and losses on my investments. Maybe before I will share my choices on stocks with you, I will make clear everyone gets what I mean and has more or less the same knowledge about trading.
I always thought that Trading should be Indie Career No. 1, because you can make money without really doing anything, and do you don't need very much to start - most people however don't get this, and are therefore scared by trading and miss out on a lot of money. I will make sure you are not one of them :)

What are stocks?
A stock is a tiny part of a company. If you buy a stock (also called share) you are a shareholder, meaning you own part of the company. Pretty cool, huh?

Where do I buy stocks?
To buy a stock you usually use a stock exchange market. Some bad movies (also some good ones) always show guys in a giant room screaming numbers to buy stocks. This isn't quite true anymore. Almost anything stock related is done through computers. So you would rather buy a stock online, silently than shouting out random numbers (your roomies may find that somehow annoying).

What do I need to buy stocks?
I will show you how to buy stocks online later on, because that's the cheapest way. So you need everything you already needed to read this blog, plus some money to invest and a bit of knowledge on the whole trading stuff.

Do really think it's a good time to buy stocks, after the financial crisis and all?
Well, yes I do. I did, and it brought in good money. But that's another story.
The thing about trading is that you can never really tell if it's a good time or not. And that's the fun part. If by calling it a bad time you mean that stock prices are steadily falling, well than it's great time! Why that? If you truly believe you know that prices are going to fall, you are able to buy products (other financial products than stocks) that make you profit from losses. Sounds pretty bad ass, and it is. It is always a good time to invest - a good trader makes the greatest profit when the rest of the world is falling apart.

Isn't the whole thing damn risky?
Yes, it is. It's riskier than your bank account, or a goverment bond your dad bought you.
But it's also a much better way to make money fast.
For example: I think the average bond might you about 3 or 4% interest on your money. In a year. Meaning that in one year your money will be worth 4% than it's worth today (at this point we assume you can forget about inflation).
4% ? You can make 4% with stocks in a day. Or you can make even more.
Some of my friends think that buying a stock is somehow like playing a slot machine in a casino. You invest money and you either win big or lose all. But it's really not that big a deal. You can limit losses, and after all only stocks usually don't lose all of their value in one day. Or after all.
We will come to this later.

So, hope I could give you a kind of introduction to the whole trading thing. I will go into more detail later on - keep checking ;)