Originally Posted by campimp

I was a professional stock trader for 10 years, and then switched to managing some options based portfolios...

the answers to your question are not easy, because there is no easy way to enter into the markets. As someone already mentioned, you should expect to lose money more often than not while getting your feet wet, unless you have access to a group of close friends that you can bounce ideas off of on a regular basis. If you have friends or family that invest try to discuss setting up a club of some sort that you can discuss ideas, strategies, etc. with.

when people ask me now about getting into the market, i often suggest reading as much as possible on any of the news sites. seekingalpha is good resource. here are a couple others i use on a pretty regular basis:

247wallst
nytimes business section
cnbc
forbes
yahoo finance (not as good as it used to be, but still some useful stuff in there)

also the more you start to read the more you will uncover sites you like that discuss topics you are interested in

basically you have to read as much as absolutely possible about anything and everything stock market / financial topics

for actual investing, if you really are ready to jump into buying some actual securities, i would suggest looking into ETFs to start with. something like SPY that tracks the S&P or DIA that tracks the Dow Jones. You accomplish two things here... first you are easily and cheaply diversified, and secondly you can start to track the stocks inside the ETFs and try to learn why they are doing what they are doing.


as for trading, there are a lot of places out there to trade. I like OptionsXpress. not exactly sure what their commissions are because i have a negotiated rate, but i think about $9 on stocks, with great support and some handy resources for both stocks and options.


good luck, and always remember....... buy high, and sell higher ;)