If you have recently been hit by the stock market investing bug, but are not sure where to begin with then you have come to the right place. Most beginners assume that stock market investing is a money making machine and fall prey to the millions of ideas floating around that claim to make you millionaires overnight. Instead all you end up doing is making those guys selling you these ideas millionaires.
I have always heard people say that there is no free money and that you have to work for it. Especially in the stock market you have to have money to make some. What I mean by that is that you cannot expect your $200 dollars to grow to $100,000 in a few months. However no amount is small enough to start with. There are various ways to convert that small amount to something big.
So rule#1 is you that need to have fairly decent amount of money that you can put in your investment account over a period of time. No, your one time $200 dollars is not going to make you millionaire by the time you retire, however if you can put in $200 dollars frequently into your account then there is better chance of getting there.
Next you need to open a trading account with an online brokerage firm. There are a lots of them available today that charge you from $4 to $12 dollar commission per trade. Choose the one that suits you best. Some of the costly one also come with some additional feature like trading software and analysis tools.