People, who are not in the stock market already, always wonder how to trade in the stock market and make a profit out of it. But they hesitate to jump into it in fear of losing money. Admittedly, there is a chance that one can lose money in the stock market; even most veterans lose there. Losing money is inevitable in the stock market, and there is nobody or no course or no trainer can teach you something which will help you. So, what should be one’s motivation to invest in the stock market if losing money is inevitable? That’s a great question. And the answer should be – minimizing the loss and maximizing the profit. Sure, you’d lose money in the stock market, but if you learn how to do stock trading 퀸알바, you can minimize the loss and maximize your gain.
So, if you’re all set to start, you might have few questions in your mind, like “how can I get started”, or “where can I learn”, “where do I open up a paper trading account”, “what is a paper trading account”, etc. So, I'm writing this article for anyone who is looking to get started in stock trading and has no idea where to start. So, I will go through a few steps with you and explain how to get over the learning curve.
Learn and educate yourself about the technicalities of the stock market
You probably heard that stocks are very complicated, but in reality, they are not. It's just like anything else, it looks hard at first, but once you get into it, then it becomes easier with time. But you have to put in the time and effort to get to that comfortability. Now, these are the steps you should take to become a confident and successful stock trader. The first thing you need to do is educate yourself about stocks. You have to understand the meanings of industry jargons related to stock trading like the bull market, bear market, long position, technical indicators, price action, etc. There are many great books to read and websites about the stock market you can go through. There’s a site named Investopedia which could be very helpful in your learning.
What is paper account: the difference between a real account and a paper account
Now the second step you can do is go and open up something called a “paper trading account”. A paper trading account is an account where you trade in the real markets, but with fake money. Now, the great thing about a paper trading account is you get to get a feel of the markets without investing real money where you're risking on losing money at this learning point; because you have no idea what to do, you're dabbling in the stock market, and you're learning at the same time.
One great platform for the paper trading account is thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade. I think this platform is excellent and you can check it out for yourself if you want to start paper trading. And once you are done paper trading, you can convert over to a real account as well from there. Now here’s something to keep in mind that when you are paper trading with Thinkorswim, they start you off with the USD 200000 account. Now, if you start with the USD 200000 account, then you switch over to open up a real account with $5000 or $2000, then guess what? There will be a massive difference in risk management, a vast difference of strategies and a huge difference in the stocks you're touching. So, when you open up the paper trading account, you have to make sure that you trade with the same amount of money you're going to invest in real money when you open your real account. Hence, once you open that paper account, change the amount to 2 or 3 or 5 thousand dollars or whatever you're going to start with. To make sure that you're playing with the same number in the paper account and you’re going to compare apples to apples when you start with the real account.