Donaldcels
05-25-2016,
This long post will make more sense to you if you're a Sharebuilder user, but hopefully you can help me out even if not.
I'll provide details below, but the super-short summary is:
"Crap, I bought too diverse a group of stocks with too little money up front, and am now drowning in trade fees -- what do I do?!"
Background
I recently decided to invest in stocks for the first time.
I opened a Sharebuilder account with the Advantage pricing program, and through promos I received a bonus $50 in my account and 20 free automatic trades for my first month.
Basically, I wanted to put some money away for mid-January.
I figured over the next few months, I'd try to put away between $700-$1000. I was afraid I'd spend the money in a standard savings account (too liquid) but didn't want to use a Certificate account or anything in case of emergency.
I thought I could learn the basics of trading stocks while putting away money, counting on most of it to be there when I "cash out" in January. I assumed there would be some risk, but I figured if I played it safe, I couldn't do _too_ bad and it'd be better than potentially blowing the money on bar tabs (which might happen if I just leave it in a plain ol' savings account).
I'll provide details below, but the super-short summary is:
"Crap, I bought too diverse a group of stocks with too little money up front, and am now drowning in trade fees -- what do I do?!"
Background
I recently decided to invest in stocks for the first time.
I opened a Sharebuilder account with the Advantage pricing program, and through promos I received a bonus $50 in my account and 20 free automatic trades for my first month.
Basically, I wanted to put some money away for mid-January.
I figured over the next few months, I'd try to put away between $700-$1000. I was afraid I'd spend the money in a standard savings account (too liquid) but didn't want to use a Certificate account or anything in case of emergency.
I thought I could learn the basics of trading stocks while putting away money, counting on most of it to be there when I "cash out" in January. I assumed there would be some risk, but I figured if I played it safe, I couldn't do _too_ bad and it'd be better than potentially blowing the money on bar tabs (which might happen if I just leave it in a plain ol' savings account).