Is Investing only for Professionals?

By: Samantha Asher
Have you ever turned on CNBC or another financial channel? Unless you are a financial professional, if you are just an ordinary person, you probably feel completely lost. All the symbols and number rolling across the screen mean nothing to you and the reporters sound like they are speaking another language. Finance seems so complicated. Investing sounds far from easy. How can anyone besides a professional understand this stuff and be able to invest?

Ordinary people can invest and they don't have to get a degree in finance to do it. You just have to know what you are doing and do it well. If you want to invest, you first need to learn about investing. Check out the link at the end of this article for specific information how. First decide what kind of investing you want to do. You don't have to do everything. You can invest in stocks or you can invest in bonds or something else, but I recommend investing in stocks and other riskier assets if you are young and transitioning to bonds as you get closer to retirement.

Once you know what you want to invest in, learn everything you can about it. If you want to invest in stocks, read books, follow blogs, and watch informational finance television. Learn everything can possibly can about investing in stocks. Make sure you understand how they work and read up on several different peoples suggestions of how to pick stocks. Develop your own plan or follow the one you like best. Learn how to research stocks and how to keep up with them.

Next, open up a brokerage account and start investing. I suggest Sharebuilder.com, it is what I use. You can sign up through the link below. Start buying just a few stocks in different industries to start. Most professionals will tell you not to invest in more than 10 stocks, less if you are investing less. It's really just a matter of how much time you can devote to researching each company and keeping up with the latest news about it. You need to be an expert on every company you invest in.

Keep learning more as you invest by reading and by learning from your own mistakes and successes. You will begin to earn money and understand more and more. Investing is not just for professionals. Even an ordinary non-savvy person can make money in the stock market or with other investments.

If you are a beginner investor, and you want to know more about investing, go to LearnAboutInvesting.info for more information.