How to Invest in the Stock Market

Are you looking to invest in the stock market but aren't sure where to start?

If you're like most stock market investors you've heard dozens of opinions on how to invest in stocks but it really boils down to just a few things.

You need to setup a brokerage account and then pick a strategy to use.

I use a broker called Scottrade http://www.scottrade.com/ and they seem to be fine for my purposes.

After you have setup a brokerage account you then need to pick an investing style.

The two main styles are:

Growth investing - where you buy stocks who's earnings are growing faster than others.

Value investing - where you buy stocks that are undervalued because they are trading at a lower price than what the company is actually worth.

Growth stocks generally are high-tech and medical companies where when I think of a value stock I think of companies like Coca-Cola or Gillette which sell more everyday type items that aren't as new or exciting.

You then need to decide which method is best for you and stick with it.

After choosing your method you need to research how to invest in that particular method. This is beyond the scope of this article and I recommend you do a search for "growth investing" or "value investing" on your favorite search engine.

Then research some companies and find which ones seem to be the best and invest some money in them, but only invest money you can afford to lose. I don't want you to invest money in stocks if you might need that money to eat next week or pay the rent., stocks can go down.

Hopefully you have found that stock market investing can be a wonderful thing to learn more about and can be quite profitable.