This week we shall go a little bit deeper into investing. Now, some of the terms and ideas here might scare the average college student who doesn't know much about finance. I want to encourage you to try and just put aside any concepts you don’t understand, however, and focus on what’s important. That is that investing can be a way to be a part of something. If you really love the outdoors why not do some research and find a company you want to be a partner with. By doing this you invest in their future and are able to share in their success. So once again, if anything seems daunting, don’t sweat it just give yourself some patience and it will all make sense eventually.
So let’s go ahead and jump in to the Robinhood app. Last week we went over some great apps that let you invest in ETFs, or baskets of stocks. This is a great way to spread risk out, but what about investing in specific stocks? This is where Robinhood comes in. This app is revolutionizing the way that investing is done by allowing you to trade for FREE. This was unheard of just a couple years ago and it would cost upwards off $10 per trade. This means that you can get started with as little as you can find a stock priced at.
This is a fairly straightforward app. After you put money in you can buy and sell as you please. Whenever you want there is a cash-out option, and your money is insured up to $500,000. If you know which stock you want to buy you can search it and you will get its code. On the company’s profile, you can see its performance in the past, news articles, and statistics. These should all serve to give you a pretty good idea on what and what not to buy. Never be afraid to start small, with just one or two shares of stock, keep in mind that the big profits are going to be made when you buy more than one. If you are holding a stock when dividends are announced and paid (a portion of a companies profits), then you will receive a payment proportional to how many shares of stocks you have.
So now that you have a way to buy stocks, which ones should you buy? Well the best advice I can give you is to find something that you are passionate about. I’m not saying to invest only on gut feelings, but this will motivate you to keep up with the company and truly care how they do.
A great tool that I like to use to analyze the performance of stocks is Yahoo Finance. This is a great service with probably much more information than you will need. I will be covering how to effectively use this tool in my next article so keep an eye out for that! In the meantime, good-luck in your investing activities and remember, it doesn’t hurt to try and it only costs the amount of a cup of coffee!
