How To Get Started Investing In Stock Market ( Even If You Are A Complete Beginner)

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Investing in the stock market is a great way to grow your wealth passively. The earlier you start, the more you can capitalize on the power of compounding. So, how do you get started investing in the stock market as a beginner?

Learn The Basics

What is the first thing you should do to get started in investing in the stock market?

No, it is NOT opening a brokerage account.

What you should do first is to first learn the basic knowledge about investing and stock market.

What is the stock market?
How do you read the stock market?
What are the instruments that are being traded on the stock market?
What makes stock price go up and down?
Understand the important terms and concepts such as dividends, market cap, bull/bear market, market indices, PE ratio, portfolio, diversification, compounding and etc

Here are some good books to read:

“The Intelligent Investor” By Benjamin Graham
“The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America”“Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond”
“The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns “
“One Up On Wall Street: How to Use What You Already Know to Make Money in the Market”

What Type Of Investor Are You?

There are two types of investors, active investor and passive investor.

Here’s how to find out what type of investor you are.

Ask yourself these two questions:

How much time are you willing to spend on stock investing
How much interest do you have in stock market investing

If you don’t want to spend a lot of time analyzing and picking stocks and have little interest in doing it, then you are a passive investor.

Your best option is to invest in the stock market passively through ETFs or mutual funds.

If you have a strong interest in stock market investing and want to adopt a more hands-on approach, then you are an active investor.

The best way to become a good and profitable active investor is to find people who have achieved what you want and follow what they do.

For example, everyone knows Warren Buffet is one of the greatest investors.

His investment strategy is value investing.

And it has been already proven to work.

Follow his proven strategy, then you too will make money from investing.

How To Pick Stocks

I am a strong believer in value investing.

So, we will be talking about how to pick stocks based on value investing strategy.

The essence of value investing is to buy good businesses when they are undervalued.

Simple as that.

Now, the question becomes, how do you identify good businesses and how do you tell it’s undervalued?

What defines a good business?

A good business is a business if

it generates consistent profits over the years
it has a positive cash flow year after year
it has an endurable competitive advantage over
its competitors it generates a high return on capital employed with little debt it is scaleable

One trick is to think like a business owner.

Do you think it will give you a better return if you re-invest the profits back in this business?

If yes, then it’s worth putting your money in this business.

Because you won’t get a higher return on your money elsewhere.

Next, how to tell it is undervalued?

There are a few common valuation models:

Model #1: Asset-Based Valuation

There are two ways to approach it:

The first way to get the valuation of a business is to find out what its total assets and total liabilities.

Once you have that, you simply take total asset value minus total liabilities to get the valuation.

The second way to arrive at a valuation is to calculate all the cash received after liquidating the company.

Model #2: Discounted Cash Flow Analysis

The idea behind discounted cash flow analysis is that the value of a company is the net present value of ALL FUTURE CASH FLOW of that company.

Multiples method

How it works is that you value a company based on market valuation multiples.

For example, you are going to use P/E multiple to value the company.

First, you look at what P/E multiple is used for a comparable company in the same industry.

Next, you apply the same P/E multiple to the company’s earnings to arrive at a valuation.

Personally, I use Stock Rover (the best tool for fundamental analysis) to do all my investment research and screen the market for value stocks.

Common Sense Investing

Even if you don’t know any valuation method, you can use common sense when you are looking for undervalued good businesses.

I still remember my ex fund manager boss told me a story about a man who managed to put all his 3 children through medical school in the United States with his investment profits.

He does not have any sophisticated valuation models.

He does not have any finance background.

He does not even actively trade the market.

What he did was simply combining common sense with value investing principles.

During 2008 market crash, people were all panic selling.

But, he knew some fundamentally sound companies were oversold.

Value investors always look for irrational behavior in the stock market because it creates a good buying opportunity for them.

So, he bought a lot of their shares at very cheap price.

Next, he just patiently wait for the stock market to rebound.

If you look back at the history, the stock market has always rebounded and went on to make new higher even after great depression.

Your Very First Investment

Now, you are ready to make your very first investment.

Then, it’s time to open an investment account.

When you are opening a new investment account, do your research and find a brokerage firm or investing app that suits your needs.

Here are a few things to consider:

Good 24/7 customer support
User-friendly trading platform
Low fees & commission
Reliable research resources

Once you have stock your trading account ready, you can buy and sell stocks through your broker’s trading platform.

Investing Apps To Get You Started

Stash

The Stash app is more than just an investing app.

It also offers banking accounts with no hidden fees and allows you to set up retirement accounts with them.

So, what is so good about Stash investment app?

On its platform, it carefully selects every stock, every ETF and every bond that is being featured there on the app, so you can have confidence in investing your money.

This is especially good for people who are just starting out as beginner investors.

Here are some of the investment asset classes they have available on its platform:

Stocks (only the BEST companies with strong earnings)
ETFs ( only low-risk, low-cost and tax-efficient stock ETFs, market index ETFs and bond ETFs)
Bonds (usually low-risk investment-grade bonds)

So, you can have easy access to good investment opportunities at your fingertips.

What is more is that Stash allows you to break whole investments down into smaller, more affordable pieces called fractional shares, so you can buy stocks and ETFs with as little as $5.

Again, this is great because it allows you to build a well-diversified portfolio even with a small investment sum.

If you want to invest your money on a regular basis, Stash allows you to set an automatic money transfer from your checking account to investment account.

Who should use Stash investment app?

If you are just a beginner investor with a small amount to invest and prefer a more hands-on approach to your investments, then Stash is perfect for you.

Is Stash a free investment app?

No. It offers three types of monthly plans to use its services.

Its basic plan starts with $1 per month which is really very affordable.

Right now, it’s offering a FREE $5 sign-up bonus to new users which means you get to use its service for free for five months.

Claim your $5 Free Bonus with Stash Now

M1 Finance (FREE)

M1 Finance is an investing app that allows you to invest your money and grow your wealth the way you want, for free.

With M1 Finance, it gives you the freedom to either build a custom portfolio of the stocks and funds you want or choose from more than 80 expert portfolios.

If you are just starting out and don’t have a lot of money to invest, it also allows you to buy fractional shares.

The best part about M1 Finance is that it helps you automatically rebalance your portfolio, so you never have to worry about placing manual trades again.

So far, there are over 100,000 people who are using M1 Finance to help them manage a total combined asset of more than $1 billion.

While there are other robot advisors such as WealthFront and Betterment out there, they all charge an annual advisory fee of 0.25%.

For M1 Finance, it’s completely free.

Are there other hidden fees?

No, there are no other fees that you need to pay:

No additional trading fees ( i.e. no additional transaction fees to buy and sell securities)
There are no additional fees for depositing or withdrawing from your account
They rebalance your portfolio automatically at no additional cost to you

Its investing app is also easy to use with an excellent rating of 4.6 of 5 stars based on thousands of customers.

You can download it both from Apple app store or Google play.

Is your money safe with M1 Finance ?

All the securities in M1 Finance Invest accounts are insured up to $500,000 by the SIPC.

Also, the money in your M1 Finance Spend checking accounts may be insured up to $250,000 by FDIC insurance.

Lastly, it’s a technology-first company that utilizes the latest in information security.

Start investing with M1 Finance for FREE Now.

Once you have stock your trading account ready, you can buy and sell stocks through your broker’s trading platform.

Before you make any investment decision, you should already have a well-thought plan as well as a sound strategy.

Your strategy tells you what stocks to buy or sell at what price.

Your plan tells you what to do in all possible scenarios, so that you won’t let your emotions take over and make the wrong decision.

For example, if the market goes against you, you should have already planned for it.

Based on your plan, you should know when you can add more positions to average down your cost and when you should just cut your loss.

Risk Management

Any type of investment is inherently risky.

It’s true that investing in the stock market can give you high returns, but it also comes with its own risk.

But, here’s the good news.

Risk can be managed.

Smart investors don’t shy away from risk.

They manage their own risk.

Here’s how you can do the same.

Diversification

You don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Diversifying your investments in uncorrelated sectors can reduce your risk.

The theory behind it is that if one goes down, the others would likely go up.

For example, having a good mix of defensive stocks and cyclical stocks is one way to limit your risk.

Set A Stop-Loss

Another way to limit your risk is to have a stop-loss.

For each investment, you can have a pre-determined stop-loss.

It can be a percentage stop-loss.

For example, a maximum 20% loss in share price.

You can also have a maximum loss limit in dollar amount.

For example, a maximum $500 dollar loss in your stock investment.

When your loss reaches a pre-set limit, you will cut your loss.

Position Sizing

What is position sizing?

It tells you how much money you can use to buy one particular stock.

For example, you have $100,000 to invest in the stock market.

You allocate $10,000 to buy Amazon shares.

That’s 10% of your total capital.

If you think that a particular stock has a lot of upside potential but is very risky, you can allocate a small percentage of your total capital to buy this stock.

This way, you can limit your downside if things don’t go your way.

At the same time, you can still enjoy some of the potential upside if it actually materializes.

These risk management strategies will ONLY work if you adhere to it.

If you don’t stick to it, it is no different from not having a risk management strategy in place at all.

Recommended Resources To Help You Make Money In Stock Market

So, to make money from the stock market, you first need to know what good stocks you can invest in.

But, no one can possibly scan the entire stock market for good investment opportunities because you simply don’t have the time. (by the way, there are close to 4,000 stocks listed on US stock exchanges alone)

Also, there are always other people who have more knowledge and experience in a particular industry than you, so you would probably miss some great stock ideas that are hard to discover on your own.

First of all, let’s take a look at their track record as of 12th March 2024.

Below is the performance comparison between Motley Fool Stock Advisor and S&P 500 between 2002 and 12th March 2024.

As of 12th March 2024, average Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations have returned over 510% since inception while the S&P 500 has returned 132%.

In short, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor has outperformed the market 3 to 1.

But, what about its individual stock picks?

Below is a table that shows you the performance of individual stock picks over the years.

As of 6th September 2023, Motley Fool Stock Advisor has had 173 stock recommendations with 100%+ returns.

[Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Individual investment results may vary. All investing involves risk of loss.]

For these exact reasons, I’ve been using “Motley Fool Stock Advisor” for years.

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