Once you get familiar with the site, and find a great stock you will want to invest in that stock/trade a stock.

Funding your Brokerage Account

Once you have picked a brokerage, you can go their website and click on “open a new account” or “sign up” link.  This will walk you through applying for new account application, where they will ask you your social security #, driver license, employment status, etc.  Make sure you are using a secure server here as you will be entering all your private information.   At the end you will create your username/password.  Mostly all the brokerage firms’ websites should walk you through this process very easily.  Once this is done you will have to fund that account by linking your checking account bank to your brokerage bank and transferring money electronically or writing a check to them.  Since each firm maybe slightly different, it’s best to contact the brokerage firm if you have any questions with this process.  It will take few days before you see the money appear in your brokerage account, so allow some time for this.

If You Never Traded, Here Are The Basics on Placing A Trade

If you have had a demo account, you should be somewhat familiar with trading and the sites functionality. 

Once you fund the account:

You will see several tabs, most common are below:

Account –> Summary, Balance, Account holdings/position, Activity, etc.

Trade–> Stocks/options, order status, etc.

Research –> Charts, Screener, Ratings, etc.

Once you play with these options, they should be self-explanatory.

Four most common order types you will be placing are:

Market Order:  An order to buy or sell a security at once at current market price. This type of order guarantees that the order will be executed but does not guarantee the execution price.  A market order generally will execute between the current bid (for a sell order) or ask (for a buy order) price.  This maybe different than last traded price you see, however, it should be close to that.  If you like the stock at current price and want to own it without penny pinching this is the order you want to place.

Limit Order: An order to buy or sell a security at a specific price.  If you submit a limit order to buy a stock for $50, this trade will only get executed at $50 or lower, if the current price of the stock is $50.11, the trade will not be executed. This is ideal trade when you are not in front of your computer.  You can place limit order and forget about it, if the order gets executed your broker will most likely email you.  You can do the same with sell order, if you own a stock and the you put the order to sell at $50, you will only sell that security at $50 or more. 

Stop Loss Order:   This type of order is usually placed to avoid further loss.  It’s the price you usually want to get out at.  For example, currently you own the stock at $113, however you want to get out if the price starts to fall below $100.  You would place the order to sell at $100, when the stock reaches this price the order is executed (the actual price you sell maybe few cents above/below due to market fluctuation).  As the name implies, you are stopping further loss.

Stop Buy Order:  An order that is placed at a stop price above the current market price.  This order is placed generally when the stock is fluctuating at a certain price level but has not had a breakthrough.  However, once you know there is a breakthrough, you anticipate the stock going much higher.  For example, range the stock is fluctuating is between $40-$50, however if it starts an uptrend it may go on for a while.  Therefore, you will put a stop buy at $52, if the stock starts to cross up and above $52, your order will get executed.