Wouldn't you love to be a business owner without ever having to show
up at work? Imagine if you could sit back, watch your company grow, and
collect the dividend checks as the money rolls in! This situation might sound like a pipe dream, but it's closer to reality than you might think.
As you've probably guessed, we're talking about owning stocks.
This fabulous category of financial instruments is, without a doubt,
one of the greatest tools ever invented for building wealth. Stocks are a
part, if not the cornerstone, of nearly any investment portfolio. When
you start on your road to financial freedom, you need to have a solid
understanding of stocks and how they trade on the stock market.
Over the last few decades, the average person's interest in the stock
market has grown exponentially. What was once a toy of the rich has now
turned into the vehicle of choice for growing wealth. This demand
coupled with advances in trading technology has opened up the markets so
that nowadays nearly anybody can own stocks.
Despite their popularity, however, most people don't fully understand
stocks. Much is learned from conversations around the water cooler with
others who also don't know what they're talking about. Chances are
you've already heard people say things like, "Bob's cousin made a
killing in XYZ company, and now he's got another hot tip..." or "Watch
out with stocks--you can lose your shirt in a matter of days!" So much
of this misinformation is based on a get-rich-quick mentality, which was
especially prevalent during the amazing dotcom
market in the late '90s. People thought that stocks were the magic
answer to instant wealth with no risk. The ensuing dotcom crash proved
that this is not the case. Stocks can (and do) create massive amounts of
wealth, but they aren't without risks. The only solution to this is
education. The key to protecting yourself in the stock market is to
understand where you are putting your money.
It is for this reason that we've created this tutorial: to provide
the foundation you need to make investment decisions yourself. We'll
start by explaining what a stock is and the different types of stock,
and then we'll talk about how they are traded, what causes prices to
change, how you buy stocks and much more. If you're interested in
learning more about investing outside of just stocks, you can sign up to
our free Investing Basics newsletter.
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