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If you spend enough time on the internet, you’ll come across many different money-making offers. And one of them will be the opportunity to trade stocks. While it is true that you can make money through investing in stocks, the people providing you with the offer can be very deceiving. More specifically, they like to exploit those who don’t know the ropes about stocks.

To help you avoid scams and only interact with legit brokers, this is what you need to know about stock trading.

There Is No Magic Button

Firstly, you should know that there is no such thing as a magic button for stock trading. No matter how professional the software appears to be, they cannot make you a millionaire at the touch of a button.

The moment you are approached with an offer like this, it is a distinct sign to keep your money even closer to home. The fact is that you will either need the knowledge of a broker, or you need to learn stock trading yourself, but there will be effort and skill involved.

You Can Lose Money

Just like you stand to make a lot of money, there is a chance that you can lose everything. Keep in mind that you are dealing with stocks, which can go up or down depending on a lot of factors.

Stockbrokers work with these markets every day, meaning they take calculated risks, and it also brings us to the next point.

There Are No Guarantees

No, you cannot be guaranteed ANYTHING when you are talking about the stock market. How investors will decide to spend their money is completely up to them, no matter how accurate or in-depth trading strategies get.

The truth is that Wall Street cannot prevent earthquakes, wars, and other political problems that eventually seep into the economic market. Everything is influential on some level, so you have to know what you are doing before investing any money into stock trading.

Start Small

If you are new to this and you don’t really have a lot of money to lose, then be cautious. Some stocks are more stable than others, meaning they can be good investments in the long-run.

But when you start small, it gives you time to understand how stock trading works, even if you operate through a broker. And before you know it, you might be a professional that can quit his or her job.

Stock trading is not easy, but it is a passion of mine. I’m a buy and hold investor, but even people that buy and hold have to reposition their portfolio from time to time. There’s so much to learn, whether you are buying and holding, swing trading, day trading or a little of everything. What is your approach as an investor?

Initially, I ramped up as an investor to take on quite the sizable portfolio. I subsequently looked into other types of investments as well, including digital currencies and global currency pairs. I also was in the process recently of setting myself up with an SEP IRA. I decided that I was going to talk about much of my investing experience on my website, too.

Since then, I have retooled in major ways moving forward, planning some big things. I have been an investor off and on for years, but it’s time to step it up to a whole new level. I’m in the process of repositioning, and then I’m going to start publishing monthly portfolio updates. I have taken notice of how others handle their portfolio updates, and that is what I want to do.

Some of my investments will be trades, while others are going to buy and holds. Any type of stock trade interests me, but it is very easy to get burned as a day trader. You might say well you can just hold the stock until it is profitable. Yet stocks don’t always go up eventually. At some point, you could have to cut your losses. And the lens you use as a day trader is different than what you use as a swing trader or buy and hold investor.

Therefore, you can get yourself into some pickles if you plan on day trading stocks. Just keep that in mind if you play to be a day trader yourself. My philosophy is I want to build. I want to keep publishing portfolio updates. Right now, I’m planning the next big update after growing as an investor, learning more and repositioning. Then I will publish monthly updates as mentioned.

No matter what type of stock trading you do, you want to make measured moves and grow your portfolio. If you are passionate about investing, the moves seem to find you, don’t they? That’s what I’m talking about, and it’s going to be fun to make money as an investor.

What is options trading? When you first learn about options, you find out that there are two types, calls and puts. Yet there are four basic ways you can play options and a myriad of options strategies. You can buy or sell calls, and you can buy or sell puts. Furthermore, when it comes to those basic options plays, you can buy or sell calls in or out of the money, and you can buy or sell puts in or out of the money.

Most people start out looking at options from the reference point of buying calls. If you start looking at options from all sides at once, you might get confused. They are a little difficult to understand at the beginning, though some of the concepts are easy enough to grasp. Don’t fool yourself though because you’re not playing around. If it were that easy to make money with options, everyone would be doing it. You have to get passionate about this investing niche if you are going to start trading options. A good starting point to learn is at an online resource called: Trading Review.

Just because you look at buying calls first doesn’t mean it’s suddenly time to buy them. It would be a great idea if you had a good understanding of the entire options market and how it relates back to buying and selling individual stocks before you actually got started. If you’re going to buy a call, you are going to want to know all about selling calls so that you understand both sides. If you are going to sell a put, you are going to want to know what it means to buy a put.

Remember that ultimately, you can buy or sell a call or put in and out of the money. That was simply said, but that’s 8 different ways to play options. Then you have the myriad of strategies mentioned. Have you heard of the Iron Condor? It is a popular options strategy that involves making four different options moves, and it is used to maximize gains on a stock that an investor thinks is going to sit stale and not move up or down much.

It’s hard to guess when a stock is going to sit stale, but at the same time, the Iron Condor move is set up to provide a little insurance. Furthermore, you’re going to definitely want to study stock charts and movement if you are going to be playing the options market. I have dipped my toes in the options market as an investor.

I sold some puts backed by collateral, and I wrote a few covered calls. Personally, I prefer to just buy and hold at this point and accumulate dividends, but all sides of the options market do provide a lucrative opportunity. You can buy a call and essentially control 100 shares of a company for a lot cheaper than it costs to actually buy those 100 shares. The options market is certainly interesting, and now it’s time for you to do some studying so that you can start investing.