A trading account at a brokerage firm allows you to buy and sell a full range of securities available on the open market, but choose your broker carefully.
Instructions
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Things You’ll Need:
• Financial Calculator
• Brokerage Accounts
• Paper And Pencils
• Personal Financial Software
Gathering Information
Step1
Call several major brokerage firms in your area and ask for the broker-of-the-day, duty broker or new accounts broker. Be ready to take careful notes of each conversation.
Step2
Ask each broker about the firm’s minimum deposit for opening a trading-only or cash account and what account features are offered (for example, the ability to trade on margin).
Step3
Inquire about account fees, broker compensation and whether the firm provides any online services. Ask for brochures.
Step4
Thoroughly discuss what costs, such as commissions, are negotiable. This is important!
Choosing the Brokerage
Step1
Review the information you have gathered and rank the top three brokerage firms.
Step2
Call the brokers, top-ranked firm first, and make appointments to visit their offices during market hours.
Step3
Tour each office and note the availability of research materials, a customer computer terminal and a cashier station for processing deposits and checks.
Step4
Choose the firm that you feel offers the most resources and services that you will use for the best cost.
Opening the Account
Step1
Take home the documents requiring your signature for opening an account and carefully read all the terms and conditions to which you will be agreeing.
Step2
Open your account only after having all your questions answered and making sure you understand critical information regarding your account’s cost, features and limitations.
Step3
Get copies of all signed documents relating to your account
Tips & Warnings
• Deposits in the money market funds of brokerage accounts get better returns than bank saving accounts, but they are not FDIC-insured.
• Traditional brokers are compensated for assets under management and trading activity. If you maintain an account with a low balance and few trades, don’t expect much attention from your broker.
• Check your brokerage statements carefully and correct errors immediately to avoid possible tax-reporting problems later.
• Don’t depend entirely on brokerage record keeping. Have a system for filing all brokerage statements, confirmations and related documents

eHow Article: How to Open a Trading Account at a Brokerage Firm.
eHow Personal Finance Editor

Trading stocks online can seem overwhelming as there are many sites out there which offer their services. Cheap online stock trading does not identify a reputable company. In fact it may produce just the opposite. Continue reading below to find the best methods for trading stocks online.
Instructions:
Step1: Trading stocks online comes with the same risks as any other stock trading company. The benefit is that you can trade real time from the privacy of your own home. Remember that this is a risky business and there is no guarantee of return on your investment. Consider the risk and the amount of the investment before proceeding further.
Step2: Research. The first step to finding cheap online stock trading is to know the market. If you are not already versed in knowledge of this field, you can find all the information you need online, just be careful to only pull information from reputable site so as to avoid false information. Also try to avoid sites belonging to online stock brokers until you have a good idea what you are getting into. This will keep you from being swayed to their company based on false promises.
Step3: Once you have a good idea of the market, begin to check into various companies that trade stocks online. See what types of investor tools they offer. What types of resources and advice do they have available and what are the qualifications of the person providing the information? These are the types of things that must be considered otherwise you may inadvertently trust your money to the advice of someone who does not know what they are doing which could have devastating repercussions.
Step4: Once you have researched online stock trading sites, it can be beneficial to seek information outside of the site. Search for reviews from google or yahoo by adding in keywords like scam and review to the name of the company. If there are a number of people claiming that the company has a bad reputation, you may want to consider trading stocks through a different company. There are many reputable companies out there to trade through.
Step5: Once you have made a decision on an online stock trading company read through as much of their material as possible. Make sure to familiarize yourself with all of their tools so that if you need to make a change to your portfolio you will not have to wait for help from the company. Everything you need should be able to be done at a moment’s notice and online.

eHow Article: How to Find Cheap Online Stock Trading, by Anthony Delgado

Trade the trend for the trend is your friend is a popular slogan in the stock market trading. For an investor to profit in his or her stock trading efforts, such one must make a deliberate effort to learn and understand the trend trading strategy.

The index for evaluating trends in the stock market is the year low and year high of a stock. This index implies the highest price and the lowest price in which a share was sold or bought in the last 52 weeks .The up and down movement of share prices in the stock market follows a regular cycle. If the stock price goes up, it will definitely go down. Conversely, if it goes down, it will go up. All stocks listed in the stock exchange must as a matter of constancy experience their up and down moment, whether they like it or not. It is the character of the market. It therefore beholds that having an understanding of this strategy can create an astronomical profit for any investor.

It is important that an investor considers the price before he enters the stock market. Buying into a stock within the year high figure indicates that one is buying at a high price. Thus, negating the “Buy low”, Sell High” principle. On the other hand, it’s advisable that a potential investor buys into a stock when the price is “within” the year low in order to take good profit from such transaction.

To do this, create a table of stock(s) of interest against price(s) every week, and months over a couple of years. Detail study of the table will reveal a trend. That is, year high and year low that will follow a regular pattern. It is pertinent that after determining the best price to enter the market via the stock trend analysis, that we compliment it with an analysis of the present health of the firm for positive confirmation. Key index to look out for are PE ratio, Earning per share (EPS), Profit after tax, Quarterly Reports, etc. This information can be accessed readily via yahoo finance. Once done, the next step is to hit the google search box and look up all recent articles about the company in the press, recent contracted signed or revoked, takeovers, mergers, litigations, change in managements composition, insiders’ information; and any other report that can impact positively on the fortunes of any organization.

Trading the trend is a sure-fire strategy that can create obscene profit into your account. Once you get acquainted with this stock market trading tip, earning becomes easy and exciting.