Stock trading for beginners - Complete guide 2023

Last updated: 28.02.2023
Tim Parker
Author:
Tim Parker
Adviser
CFD & Trading
Experience
25 years

Stock trading has become one of the easiest means for the general public to invest their funds in certain assets that they believe will gain value. We will be taking a look at some of the basics to make the industry accessible to anyone.

You will need to complete some sort of stock trading learning before you can look at diving right in to get started with your investments. Trading stocks is certainly not a new concept, you would have surely come across the idea in movies or in general conversation. Let’s get started with some of the stock market basics.

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nextmarkets investors

  • Why you should trade stocks
  • How can you get started
  • What to lookout for
  • Quality of service
  • Why you should choose us
  • Diversify your investments
  • All the information you’ll need
  • Beginner stock options

Why you should trade stocks

Whenever you trade a stock, you are buying a fraction of the corporation or commodity that has put the asset on sale. This means that if you were to buy a stock in Tesla, you are buying a certain percentage of the company itself. Once you have your stocks, you are entitled to an amount of the corporation’s profits and assets relative to the amount of shares you own. Shares are a term that most of the industry use to refer to many units of ‘stock’. The important part of the transaction is that no individual can simply claim to own a percentage of the company that they have invested stocks into. You will need an intermediary entity that will allow you to interact with the relevant exchange, we call this a broker.

How can you get started

If you have decided to get involved with the online trading scene, the first consideration you will need to make is what stock exchange you are looking at trading on. There are plenty of exchanges around the world and it is important that the corporations you are interested in investing in are listed on the exchange of your choosing. If you are simply heading into the industry blind, you can register on your local exchange to get started and look at branching out at a later stage. If you would like to find out more about stocks, head to our what are stocks page.

Work with what you know

If you already have an idea of the corporations you are looking to invest in, you should conduct some research into how their stock price has been performing in order to determine the most opportune moment to buy some shares. If you are fairly new to all of this, it is important that you identify some investment opportunities for yourself by doing the necessary research. First think of any names that you have heard about, such as Tesla, Apple or Amazon and take a look at just how their stocks have been performing. 

This will give you a basic understanding of the charts and how corporation shares behave in value. It is then recommended that you begin to research some corporations that are within your industry or that you are simply interested in. With the potential to make gains, there is also the potential to lose some of your funds and you are always more likely to succeed if you stay within your area of expertise. That being said, you will also need to do research behind the various corporations within your industry before you can look at buying some shares. Their prices may just be at an all-time high and this is most likely a bad time to buy. If you would like to find out more about the transactions, head to our page where we take a look at how to buy stocks

Once you have got your potential candidates, you should then take some time to follow the news surrounding those corporations as well as their share prices behaviour. You will then be able to make an informed decision regarding the buying or selling of the stocks.

Brokers

In order to buy and sell shares, you will need to make use of a broker. Fortunately, brokers have begun to offer their services online and this has made the world of trading accessible to just about anyone. The broker will serve as the middleman for all of your trades and you would be unable to invest without their services. Each stock exchange will only accept orders from individuals or firms who are a part of the exchange. Brokers make the entire exchange open to the public by being listed and then offering to transact on any individual’s behalf.

There are plenty of brokers on the scene today and this has made the decision for customers to choose the best of the lot, to be quite a challenge. Fortunately, you won’t have to go very far to find the best offer on the market. Our team here have put together one of the most comprehensive online broker services to cater to all customers out there. With our service, you can enjoy a selection of over 8000 shares options, zero charge on order feers, no incidentals, over 1000 ETFs and access to our world-class trading coaches. All of this is also available on any platform, mobile included. To learn more about the various trading instruments, head to our what are ETFs page.

What to lookout for

Browsing through the variety of offers within the online trading industry can seem daunting to anyone interested in stock trading for beginners. We’re always looking to outline the stock market for beginners. Each broker’s page will be full of terms that you have probably never come across and you might be clueless when it comes to what you are really looking for. 

The most important consideration of the broker would be the exchanges that they offer you access to. If the company you are interested in is not listed on their service, you will need to keep browsing through the variety of offers out there. Here at nextmarkets, you will have access to over 8000 different share options. You will also need to consider what fees you will need to be paying once you are signed up for their service. Usually, brokers will charge some sort of order or commission fees and these can stack up fairly quickly. You won’t have to pay any order fees and there are also no flat-rate third party fees. Once you have gone through our guide to how to learn stock trading, keep some of these factors in mind when you are looking for a broker.

Quality of service

Once you have identified exactly what you are looking for within a broker’s service, it is time to consider the quality of the service you are signing up for. The fees and the available markets are the two most important factors that could cause customers to overlook a broker’s offer. If they are within industry standards, then you can begin to look at the overall quality of the broker’s service. There are a couple of factors to consider here but it is fundamental to understanding the stock markets for beginners.

Licensing and security

Wherever you are in the world, the first point to consider is what licensing the broker has managed to obtain. Licenses are awarded to online brokers from the relevant, local financial authority to ensure that the broker operates with respect to certain regulations that are in place. These regulations can be set by the local government or the authorities themself. This helps to protect any customers from unfair service offers and to ensure that the broker is both fair and secure. This is the first aspect our experts consider when looking at an online broker and we also thoroughly examine the security methods included with their service.

Instruments

The next part of a broker’s service to consider would be the instruments that are available. Trading instruments refer to the various markets that you can trade with the online broker. You might be looking to get involved with foreign exchange, commodities or cryptocurrencies. There are plenty of markets available today and it is important for customers to be aware of the instruments that are made available to their user accounts. You could look to diversify your investments with different instruments altogether. Before you look at investing, be sure to research each of them and maybe try demoing an account with the instrument you are interested in.

Payment methods

Having a world-class service would not mean much if customers were unable to fund their accounts with the most common payment methods on the market today. To further the competition between online brokers, each service will try and offer the largest variety of payment methods to their customers with the least amount of processing time. You can deposit your funds with a bank transfer or with a credit card. If you choose to deposit some money with your credit card, those funds will be instantly available on your account. This ensures that you don’t miss any opportunities to buy and sell the stocks that you are interested in. To find out more information surrounding stocks, head to our what is short selling page.

Website design

Another important aspect of our broker reviews include a thorough look at the broker’s website design. In this section, our team of experts browse through the entire site of the broker to determine how easy it is to use, what the website looks like and just how the entire experience feels. When you are trading, a large portion of your time will be spent between the website and the trading platform that is put on offer. It is important that the site is easy to navigate for all customers interested in the service. There are also plenty of outdated broker websites out there that are in desperate need of a revamp. Finally, the website should feel professional. The online broker will be handling your funds and a casual website does not promote much confidence in their service offer.

Customer support

Stock market investing will not always be a smooth experience. Most of the transactions will be done online and it is fairly common for a bug to still be lurking within the service. You might also have queries surrounding the broker’s service that you would like answered before you commit to signing up with them. This is where a quality customer support team comes in handy. Our experts rank the customer support relative to the amount of contact methods made available, the response time and the quality of the response. This is crucial to ensure that any of your issues with the service are resolved as quickly as possible.

Unique features and trading platform

Finally, we take a look at any unique features included within a broker’s service that could set them apart from the competition. For instance, with our service, you can take advantage of commission-free stock and expert advice from our coaching team. This sets our nextmarkets service apart from most other brokers on the scene and we even explain how it all works so you know there aren’t any hidden mechanisms. We also make use of the trading platform on offer with other brokers to see just how well it compares to our world-class app.

Why you should choose us

To make stock trading for beginners a little bit simpler, we will run through the quality of our service to illustrate just why we are considered the best on the scene. Our service is based in Germany and offers trading with over 8000 different share options. You will also be able to make use of leverage on demand when you are completing your traders. The best part is, you won’t have to pay any commissions when you are completing your trades within our service. Thanks to our lean business model and automated systems, you can complete your orders without any fees or rates being applied.

If you are new to the industry and still on the lookout for more information, you can make use of our team of professionals to help you try and achieve more success with your trades. We provide our customers with up to 300 analyses per month in real time while you are using our service. Not only will you be able to trade with a team of experts analysing your decisions, you will also be able to trade with an unprecedented amount of options. Over 8000 shares and 1000 ETFs are available within our service. This ensures that you can diversify your investments as much as you would like to.

To protect our customers from any harm, we maintain European regulation via the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). All customers funds are also held with Barclays Bank, a world-class banking service provider that has a well established reputation within the industry. With all of these factors playing into our favour, it is quite difficult to look anywhere else when it comes to an online broker service. You can also get started with us in a matter of minutes thanks to our innovative account opening page.

Best forex broker - nextmarkets

Diversify your investments

Trading of stocks has never been easier thanks to the advancements that we have made with technology. With the trading of stocks becoming so easy, anyone can now look to diversify their savings strategies in order to minimise the risk associated with their funds. You will definitely come across the phrase, “Diversify your investment portfolio”, once you have browsed through a couple of articles and reviews and you would be getting good advice. What is meant by this, is that instead of pushing all of your additional funds into one savings account, try and spread it out over a wider variety of potential investments.

By doing this, you are minimising the possibility of losing a significant portion of your finances. Your money should be quite safe within a bank’s fixed savings account but the interest will be quite minimal. A solid long term investment with a reputable corporation should provide you with more gains than the traditional banking services can. There is always the possibility of losing some of your investment when the stock does not behave as you were expecting, to minimise the effects of this, experienced stock traders look to invest in many companies as opposed to one.

All the information you’ll need

Not only do we provide the best online broker service out there, we have also put together this information service to help guide anyone looking to start trading. We understand just how difficult stock trading for beginners can be and having an information resource like ours will only make your entire career easier with an informed opinion. You will be able to find information regarding the various strategies that are used by experts in the industry, you will also be able to learn about all of the trading instruments that are made available by online brokers.

Our team here at nextmarkets have a wealth of experience within the online trading industry and aim to inform you with the latest information available. You find out all about forex and the most popular currency pairs right here. We also take a look at general trading information that will apply to most markets on the scene. A host of the most common stock options are also analysed and presented in an easy to understand format, you can read up about Google, Facebook and Netflix stocks right here. Crypto trading has also managed to gain a lot of momentum over the last decade and we have included various articles surrounding cryptocurrency options that are currently available.

You will find all the information you will need to get started with stock trading right here. So be sure to browse around our site and get a feel for what you are interested in investing in. You could always head to our stock market analysis page to see our experts take a look at the options out there.

Beginner stock options

To help you find a starting point for your online trading career, we have put together this section to identify some corporations that are commonly invested in throughout the online trading scene. This will help you identify certain markets that you are interested in while browsing over the general information found in stock market analysis. Tesla stocks have been a point of debate for online traders for quite some time now and regardless of the opinions out there, the share price still manages to perform very well. If you are interested in the automotive pioneers, conduct some research into their latest developments.

A more common investment option would be Google, everyone that owns a mobile device would have heard of the tech giants and their stock price performance speaks for itself. Google is constantly looking to innovate and revolutionise the online world, so following the news surrounding their stocks can be very interesting. We have conducted some stock trading articles for most of the big names within the stock market and they are available to any interested readers out there. Make sure to browse through the host of trading instruments articles as well to determine if there might be something more suitable to you than stock trading.

Our final thoughts

By now, you should have a thorough understanding of why it is worth your time to consider trading in stocks. It is the perfect option for anyone looking to diversify their range of investments by putting some of their finances into corporations that are listed. You will also have all the information that you will need to get started within the online trading scene. Keep this page by your side when you are considering the variety of offers on the market, but we firmly believe you won’t have to go anywhere else to find the best offer out there. If you are considering signing up with a broker, make use of our reviews to find all the crucial details surrounding their services. You might find that the world of online trading provides you with the perfect investment opportunity so be sure to browse through our entire service.

Stock trading for beginners FAQ

📖 Is there a guide to stock trading for beginners?

If you are looking to get started with a stock exchange, you will need to do some research beforehand in order to increase your chances of making some gains on your investment. A guide is the perfect way to learn the basics of the stock market while picking up some of the easier to use strategies out there. We’ve decided to put together an informative section of guides and articles to inform anyone that is looking to get involved with trading stocks. Head to our page now to find out all you will need to know to get started.

🚀 Can I invest in any stock market?

Depending on what online broker you have decided to use, you may not have access to all of the exchanges around the world. There are plenty of them and each has their own corporations that could be your next investment. You will need to do some research on the variety of exchanges around the world and the corporations that you are looking to invest in. Fortunately, our team have put together some comprehensive articles and guides to help you along your way to investing in the stock market.

🥇 What is the best stock trading platform?

Before you can look at trading some stocks, you will first need to have an online service provider that will complete the transactions on your behalf. Each of these brokers will have their own trading platform and there can be some pretty fundamental differences between the platforms on the market. The industry has become incredibly competitive and every broker is looking to perform better than the next by offering their customers the best stock trading platform. We have taken a look at all of them out there and you can find your ideal match, right here.

♟️ Are there any stock trading strategies?

You might be wondering if there are any strategies that you can apply to your stock trading techniques in order to try and increase the amount of gains your investments are making. As with any industry, there are certainly some tips and tricks that most experienced traders use. We have taken a look at just about all of the strategies in the industry and put them together in one convenient place for anyone interested. Our entire information service will bring you the latest and most informative articles to help improve your trading techniques.

🕖 What are the stock market hours?

Once you have started to trade stocks, you will definitely notice that there are ‘Open’ and ‘Close’ values. These are relative to the stock price when the specific market opened and when it closed. Depending on what stock exchange you are investing on, the opening and closing times will differ from the others around the world. A lot of strategies make use of this and it is important to keep them in mind when you are investing. Head to our page now to find out just when your stock market opens and what time of the day it will also close.

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