When investing, first thing I would say to get started, would be to make sure you align your personality with your investment strategy.  For example, if you’ve got a short attention span – you might not be good at long-term swing trades.  If you plan to be a long-haul investor then just follow your strategy with or without your banker, and don’t bother watching the market every day.  If you want to be a day-trader, then remember, investing is not gambling.  You can’t hop in and out of the market like a profit chasing junkie.  The market enjoys eating up inexperienced investors every single day.

To do it yourself, there’s plenty of software tools out there to allow you to practice your investment strategy first.  Not until you start making money paper trading, preferably multiple times, should you ever consider moving into a live account.

The 3 most popular indices for an investor to follow are the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite.  The S&P monitors the top 500 companies in the US, the Dow covers the top 30 largest and most influential blue chip companies in the US and the Nasdaq covers all the stock traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange, (usually followed to see how technology stocks are doing).  Another index to check out would be the Wilshire 5000.  This is a total market index and includes all publicly traded companies in the US.  Now if you’re looking for Mid- or Small-Cap stock picks, you will want to check out the S&P Mid-Cap 400, the Russell Midcap or the Russell 2000.  For bonds you want to check out the  10 year T-note Futures and also the 20 year Treasury bond futures.

Christine’s Tip:

You want to make sure your strategies are viable so practice them first.  Of course, it won’t help you with the emotional aspects of trading, so always remember your capital is everything.  This goes for your banker too.  Make sure you understand their strategy, rationale, and investment goals with your money, before you hire them to work with you.   Take it slow.  Get some books on investing and you’ll get it.