[Old Blue 66]

Anyone know of a company that allows you to trader stocks online with a small minimum ballance??

I want to dabble a bit and Scottrade & Etrade both require you to carry at least a $500 balance (or $1000) in thier accounts. Since Im new to this I dont want to put that money.

Thanks to Bjorn for putting the bug in my ear. I was up all night last night researching.

[PonchoV8]

Paul, put the 500 or the 1000 in. It's not like Vegas. You won't lose all your money. You might lose $100, and you might earn a hundred.
I liked Scottrade better than Etrade because they had lower fees per trade. That was several yrs ago. My first trade was in Sept 2001 the first day the market opened post 9-11-01. It was a sure thing. I bought Qlogic at 18.26 and the following day it was the highest yielding stock price jump of the day to double and go to $36.xx. The next day I bought Lowes are $20.42. I bought something else, but don't remember what. It was a great month. I was pissed that my manager suggested I not use the whole 14K that I had in the account on Qlogic.
I dabbled a little and came out well ahead on the whole--in fact I doubled my money. My only loser was IBM or Microsoft, and it was less than a couple of hundred. I quit because that was when capital gains was taking too much money from me. What did the gov do to take so much of the pie? So I bought Pontacs instead and have been happy.

[Old Blue 66]

Thanks for the response Doug. But to me it is a lot like Vegas. Ill spend too much simply because its there.

Just like my credit cards. I carry one at all times and after the divorce, I changed all of the spending limits (Discover was actually $10,000) down to $500 on purpose. Only because I know Ill do something stupid with it. Now they are all paid off.

Ive really mastered the whole "Do I really need it? NO! So dont buy it you idiot!!" thing.

Thats why I want an account that I dont have to keep much in at all. I just want to play with a couple of hundred dollars and see how I do. I'm pretty good with researching this stuff, and I feel if I loose a couple of hundred dollars its not a big deal. $500 or a $1000 and I ll kill myself thinking of what I oculd have done to my 66 with that money.

[GStage1]

Paul,
I am an investment broker for 12+ years....I would suggest you start paper trading and see how you like it or how much you dislike it. Start with an investment of $1000 and keep track on paper of your purchases and sells. After a time period, say 6 months, see how you have done. The market is very very skittish now and picking stocks with a small dollar amount means you need to be very good at research and the company needs to do well......with a small investment....you are not able to spread your risk over several stocks.

[Bronze66]

you can go over to Bloomberg.com and go to Investment Tools. Then you can create a watch list which is in the Portfolio Tracker section. This is just your pick of stocks that you can watch on a daily or what ever basis. It will keep track of the price you bought(don't really have to buy) the ups and downs of the stock in dollars and percentages with dates. So you can paper trade(not real trades) and see how your picks are. It's very handy to use.