To Tony and Anyone Else Who Wants to Play the Stock Market with Me

I had a couple comments from Tony (he didn't leave a link back to his blog or I would share it with you all) informing me he wanted to try his hand in trying to earn some money in the stock market.

My first post basically explained where I signed up and what I got out of the deal. I would like to throw in the fact that if you sign up with ShareBuilder, you will get a bonus $25 to invest in the next 6-8 weeks if you use the link in either of my posts.

I guess I will go through a little more detail as to how I went about making my first investment and how I got a free month of the Advantage No Fee program. After you sign up with ShareBuilder, they will basically ask you a few questions. These questions will determine what type of trader you are and they will basically pick a few ETFs that seem to suite your needs. You can either take their advice, or go and do your own research. If you choose to make your own decisions, make sure you do the research, I will say it one more time, DO RESEARCH!

Anyways, you now need to fund your account, this can be done in many ways, but the direct deposit method (via your checking account) is the fastest and best option. After choosing how you will buy the stocks, you will need to setup your automatic investment plan (weekly, biweekly, monthly) and on what Tuesday you want to invest (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th). After that, the system will do everything else for you. Keep in mind though, for each ETF you purchase (you can also do full shares of stock) you will be charged $4. ShareBuilder is strange in the sense that if you want to buy $100 worth of AGG for example, you will have to actually buy $104. Keep this in mind when your investing! These prices can go down if you pay either $12/month or $20/month to get a premium account.

Every month, the system will automatically make your investments as you choose. You can change this at anytime during the month to invest in new investments or put all your money for a month in one ETF or stock. You can buy new investments on any Tuesday for $4 per transaction.

Now how do you get the $20/month premium account for free? I basically called and started asking questions and said I was just starting off and wasn't really sure what I was doing. The woman I talked to (their customer support is awesome, quick to answer the phone and super friendly) basically told me she would give me the upgrade so I could play around and build my portfolio during the first month. I could buy/sell up to 20 times for free so I could get the hang of it.

I can't guaranty they will give it to you, but when you sign up you can get the $12/month program for free for the first month which is good for up to 6 free trades. Just something to think about if they won't upgrade you.

I hoped that help clarify some. I'll try to add some images later. I don't have Photoshop on this computer and Paint just won't cut it, sorry I'm a bit of a perfectionist!