BUYING STOCKS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2010
It’s a brand new year now and that means you can find 2010 market predictions from all the “experts” and opinions everywhere about what this year will bring. For new investors wanting to learn how to buy stocks online, it means they will have to sift through all the advice that is so freely offered on television and radio to find stocks that they really feel comfortable investing in.
Before the Internet, it was harder for everyday investors to buy and sell individual stocks and many people opted to buy into funds that were managed by professionals. Most people have real jobs and little time to study the market and make informed decisions about what stocks they should have in their portfolio. It was easier to just pick a fund and leave all the hard work up to the fund manager. The thinking might have been that you should be able to make more with a good fund manager: after all, that was his sole job to make the fund go up.
Now the Internet is here and every person in the world can easily do their own stock picking and trading with ease for a very minimal price. It has brought people into the market that might not have been interested in it years before when you had to do everything through a broker.
2009 was a great year for stocks and it came after two really bad years in 2008 and 2007. Many people made great money in 2009 or at least made back some of what they lost the two years before that. But has the terrible bear market of 2008 been totally forgotten or is it still in the back of people’s mind that it could happen again?
If you are looking into buying stocks for the first time in 2010, you should make sure you understand the risk involved. You might only know that the market was great last year and want to be getting in now to get a piece of any further upswing that might take place this year. However, I am sure that very few investors have really forgotten just how bad it can get and how much money can be lost when the market goes down as in 2008.
Many investors are still gun shy and with the economy still being very poor, there is absolutely no way of knowing what may happen this year. When bad news comes out, investors sell and sell fast, especially with 2008 still clear in their minds. If the economy continues to stagnate and jobs continue to be lost, investors may panic and overreact to any bad news and start another big selloff.
The market climbed steadily in 2009 and stalled here around 10,500 where it has been for some time. It seems it is waiting either for good news or bad news to determine where it goes next. With Obama in control and the government out of control with spending, there might be a lot more bad news this year than good news. So, if you are looking for the best stocks to buy right now here in 2010, be careful and don’t invest what you can’t lose. There are no guarantees in this stock market!
