Hello and welcome to our community!

[Lois]

Welcome Hudman. I see you opened an account with Tradeking. Did you have a good experience with it and is it user friendly?

[Hudman]

Thanks for the welcome everybody!

From Lois -

Welcome Hudman. I see you opened an account with Tradeking. Did you have a good experience with it and is it user friendly?

Lois, I have found TradeKing to be all I expected. Remember I have no experience with other brokers. The account set up was easy. The site is intuitive and easy to use IMO. The trades have gone well....issued a trailing stop on the Intel which executed flawlessly this am. The online chat help has been prompt and friendly.

The only change I would like to see at TradeKing is in regard to ACH funding. I took 1 week to set up the link to my bank account and then another week after the first fund transfer before I could use those funds. Too long.

[Lois]

Thanks Hudman. I have done quite a bit of research on brokers and I was pretty sure I would choose Trade King. You just finalized my decision for me. Thanks.

[Hudman]

I am happy with TradeKing to date. Their online chat support is prompt and very helpful.

[Gunnski]

Regarding the ACH. Since 911 EFT's have really tightened up. National security is checking for transfer of funds and money laundering. It may not be your broker's fault, just following the strict rules.

I mentioned Scottrade. If you have a local office, you can walk in with a money order and the funds are posted within 24 hrs. They also set up EFT from your bank. Not sure on their turn around time.

Recently, the off-shore bookies & cardroom sites have been shut down. The bill was tucked into National Port Security bill. It is forcing the BANKS to become a money cop to monitor, decline and report EFT's via Netteller, PayPay, etc., to off shore betting sites.

The banks are not very happy & the costs will be extentensive. The last I saw the have like 280 days to comply.

FYI only!

[jasonok]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the pointer to tradeking, i have been hit alot with E-trade charges compare to tradeking e-trade is expensive at 12.99 per trade i am looking into how to transfer accounts.
cheers
j.

[Gunnski]

Nice job! I think you will be happy. I sure am. They have ok tools on their web site. Seemless trades. Very easy with all the bells and whistles, ie. stops, stop loss, limit order, market order etc. Also, when I sell they seem to fill quick, which is nice if you get caught in a whipsaw situation and there are no buyers.The people are very helpful. I ask for a check and usually have it within one-two days in the mail! They do not mess around.

[shaunatrieb]

I've been recovering from back surgery and trying to fight the boredom and frustration, picked up Phil's book and read it. I would love to become a Rule #1 investor, but to be honest, even though I think I am decently intelligent, I'm still feeling intimidated, especially when I watch CNBC and listen to Jim Cramer...

Any advice on steps 1, 2 and 3 to get going?

[gocougs23]

I just finished reading Rule #1 after seeing Phil Town at the Get Motivated Seminar. His talk and book have definitely motivated me. I created my own spreadsheet and started tracking some stocks. Yearning for more information led me to this site. I just signed up for the latest paper trading competition. I'm hoping to get more comfortable with the paper trading so I can begin investing real money.

It's refreshing seeing some other new investors as well as seasoned pros who can help us while we still have our training wheels on.

[Justin]

Hello Shauna and welcome to our community! One thing you need not feel is intimidation - especially here. You are going to find that this community holds some of the most helpful and encouraging individuals each with different levels of experience. We are all learning this process and do our best to help others along the way.

Step 1 - Read absolutely everything you can get your hands on reguarding investing. You'll find volumes of information within our discussions as well. The archiving nature of our forum will enable you to jump in on any discussion old or new. But start with the basics - things like building searches for a Rule #1 Investment: http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/searching-investment/

A well refined search can yield some 20-100 potential Rule #1's. Then move on to the fundamental analysis of each of those businesses. This is where you start disqualifying the businesses that don't meet your demands - after all we are looking for the best of the best here right? You can find tons of information reguarding fundamental analysis in this section:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/fundamental-analysis/

This would be a pretty good time to check out the sweet tools our Margin of Safety Calc Developers have been working on these past few months. With or without Microsoft Excel, we have a way to speed up the task of identifying potential Rule #1 investments. Days? Weeks? How about 10 or 20 seconds? These calculators are sure to impress Don't forget to thank the Developers when you get a chance, they've really outdone themselves with their efforts. Check em out here:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/au...y-calculators/

Your searches are going to yield some interesting results. Businesses you thought were viable investments turn out to be a total crapshoot when you see the numbers. Others will seem like complete home runs and well below their margin of safety. Keep in mind that a wonderful business at an attractive price will take time to find. Our community has ran thousands upon thousands of searches yet only returned 70 or 80 potential Rule #1 investments. Best of the best remember? Well if you find a business that you think might warrant further group evaluation, its time to head over to the Homework Examples Archive. Scan that list of discussions to see if your company is listed - many of your scans will yield businesses that someone has already found so a quick search never hurts. If you don't see your company listed, please start a discussion in the Homework Examples Archive and let the collective efforts of our community dig even deeper. If there's skeletons in the closet - someones going to find it and report it. Check this section of the forum out here: http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/ho...mples-archive/

Once you've identified and FULLY dissected a viable investment that meets the criteria, you can think about taking a position. This is where the technical analysis stuff comes in to play. The emotional behavior of the traders and their silly "efficient market theory". Yet as silly as efficient market theory is, its a very real force and it does have a very real impact on the stock price. Read everything you can about Technical Analysis. It's a wild ride here but a lot of fun. You'll learn how to set up and interpret your tools. Moving Averages...MACD...Stochastic... These terms will soon become second nature to you and you'll begin to understand the fine line between the traders and the investors. You can find a ton of information on Technical Analysis and setting up your charts here:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/technical-analysis/

Pretty soon you'll begin to understand how market price interacts with intrinsic value, and why the two figures are seldom alike. Thats when you should consider taking your next step - buying something. Like everything else, we are going to take it slow here too. I'd strongly reccomend jumping in on one of the revolving paper trading competitions. This is monopoly money - you make nothing and you lose nothing. But you do gain some of the BEST knowledge and experience possible by taking this step. Just a heads up though, you're going to get burned a few times at first. We all have - this is part of the learning curve. Just figure out what went wrong, maybe even ask some questions on the forums. We'll figure it out together - and hopefully prevent someone else from making the same mistake Read this post on how the paper trading competitions are set up:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/ro...1-read-me.html

And of course jump in on one of our competitions here:
http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/ro...g-competition/

Sorry for the long post, but truth be told - I didn't even list half of the reasons you are going to love it here.