How I decided to get started with investing in the stock market
Over the past year, I’ve launched a successful bed and breakfast called Foighne BnB with my wife and business partner. It’s been amazing and in just a few short months we were fully booked, nearing 100 guests to full 5-star reviews across the board and earned our Superhost designation on AirBnB.
We launched Sweet Rose Bakery, entirely online, filling custom orders for clients from around the world and providing sweet treats and welcome gifts for guests of the B&B. As a side note, this website began ranking and drawing ecommerce orders within its first few weeks of launch.
It kept me busy on the marketing side for TwinsticksAndTies, but I wanted other revenue streams – something to put money to work in the ‘in-between’ stages and when the B&B slows down for the season.
I had always been leery of ‘day trading’ as I was taught that it was hyper risky and required you to be attached to your computer for hours and hours – who has time for that?
I challenged what I had been ‘told’ with what I wanted to explore and, thankfully, realized that it’s not a caffeine-fueled, stress junky big sweat sport but could easily be done in the hours I do have available.
I also became super aware that our hard-earned money was just sitting in a savings account, slowly eroding away, becoming less and less valuable as inflation and interest rates rose around the globe at breakneck speeds. And so, this journey began.
Learning how to invest and day trade in the stock market as a beginner
I knew (know) nothing. Literally starting from step one as a complete beginner in the world of stock market investing, so I want to avoid as many mistakes as I can and of course avoid losing money. I built my own custom ‘stock market investment course for beginners’ without spending any money – so far, at least.
I’m the kind of person who needs these things to show potential for making money before I justify spending money on it or them.
Here’s the plan:
- Identify good learning materials and resources
- I pored over countless books, blogs, podcasts, content creators, websites, platforms, apps and software and narrowed down the ones that best spoke to me and why (details on those in my next blog)
- I defined the first few ‘course subjects’ I wanted to get a handle on to prime my brain for things like the economy, how stock markets work and learning the lingo
- I laid out a progressive learning path and approach to stock trading without spending or risking my own real money
- Education and Learning
- Theoretical (Spreadsheet) Trading
- Platform and Broker Research
- Simulation (Paper) Trading
- Account Setup
- Live Trading
- Document, review, learn, rinse, repeat
At the time of writing this article, I completed a full week and a half of the education, learning and theoretical trading components while concluding my platform and broker research – more on that in-depth in another article.
Key early learns, stock market trading tips and resources
There are two prevalent themes that seem to come up in trading no matter where you look, or who you ask:
- Understand and practice in the market before risking your own, real money AND
- Do not risk anything you can’t afford to lose
I’ve set the following guidelines for myself:
- Do not ‘gloss’ over things I don’t understand – learn it before I put it into practice
- Take my dead time getting comfortable with my own knowledge
- Spend a LOT of time in simulation and paper trading first
- Define a ‘safe’ day trading budget and don’t inflate it
- Reinvest my day trade winnings back into the day trade account and never ‘pull more’ from my savings
- Put the rest of the majority into smart, safe and/or defensive instruments/investments
- If I don’t feel confident in my trading plan, I DON’T TRADE THAT DAY
- Expect to lose what I’m risking and get good with that idea
- Work my ass off to avoid the above point
- Books
- Investing All-in-One for Dummies – Eric Tyson et al.
- Day Trading for Dummies – Ann Logue
- A Beginner’s Guide to Short-term Trading – Toni Turner
- YouTube/Creators
- Podcasts
- News and Market Monitoring
- Bloomberg
- CNBC
- Euronext
- Market Watch
- Exchanges (NYSE, FOREX, NASDAQ etc.)
- Brokers and Platforms
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be hands-on with these broker platforms and apps, choosing my final go-to setup and defining my early trading strategies. After that, the training wheels come off.
Keep an eye on the blog and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
See you at the opening bell!
Oh, and on pretty much all investing related content (including mine) you’ll see something to the tune of:
Content on this site is intended to be used and must be used for information and entertainment purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a professional in connection with, or independently research and verify, any information that you find on this website and wish to rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.
Neither I, nor TwinsticksAndTies is a broker/dealer. I am not an investment advisor, I have no access to non-public information about publicly traded companies, and this is not a place for the giving or receiving of financial advice, advice concerning investment decisions or tax or legal advice.
No content on the site constitutes – or should be understood as constituting – a recommendation to enter in any securities transactions or to engage in any of the investment strategies presented in my site content. I do not provide personalized recommendations or views as to whether a stock or investment approach is suited to the financial needs of a specific individual.
All investors are advised to conduct their own independent research into individual stocks before making a purchase decision. In addition, investors are advised that past stock performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation.
