Investing in Stocks

I have been investing in Stocks for a while now. Invested in India and now started investing in US. So let me start with how to invest i.e. mechanics of it.

Mostly adverstized stock trading platforms are Scottrade, TD, Etrade etc. I started with Scottrade as its price per trade was lower as compared to others. Its $7 per trade. However I wanted to invest in small amounts that when price per trade becomes crucial for your bottomline :) $7 yeah!!

So wuts the answer ? I found Zecco and I guess have a perfect combination now. Use Scottrade for long term and high amount investments. Scottrade is also good for research. You get free reports from S&P and Reuters. On Zecco you get 10 trades for free per month. 10 trades is good for me.

Free trade does not mean simply buy for free. Free trade also helps doing the dollar avergage. What is Dollar Average ? Well Dollar average is what gets you into disciplined investing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging So if i bought 5 stocks at $50 and market went south and my stock reached $45. So I buy 5 more to get my cost at $47.5 for 10 stocks.

This technique works simply because its impossible to predict the bottom. So best bet is to do research, fundamentals etc. and buy in small amounts.

How to choose stock? I have made some principles ..(will post in next post).