Hands-On Guide to Stock Trading and Investing in the US

Throughout the course, you'll be completing milestones and filling out an investment plan. You can use the Investment Plan Worksheet to get the job done.

Your first milestone is to get started: open an account! If you already have an account, you're ahead of the game!

Non-retirement vs Retirement
How does a retirement account benefit me?

More on Retirement Accounts

• 401k vs IRA
• Roth IRA vs Traditional IRA

Here's my honest take on brokers out there today (as of 2017). I have no affiliation.

This is the first step to planning your portfolio. You can log your milestones with the Investment Plan Worksheet.

Are Your Risky?

In this video we describe a hypothetical coin toss. Would you play it? Enter in your answer in our Risk Survey as well to see how your answer compares to other people's answers.

Matching Risk to Percentage of Stocks and Bonds
How does risk and reward work in portfolio management? See our Stocks and Bonds Tool to help you decide what's best for you.

For this milestone, you become a part owner in a company! Buy a stock, ETF, or other fund that suits you. Congratulations! You're a real investor!

WTF is an ETF?
ETFs are funds that trade like stocks that can help you with your investing. Find ETFs that you can use in your portfolio with the attached ETF List.

How Much Money Goes Into Each Stock?
In this video, we give you 2 rules of thumb to follow when making this decision. There's a balance between diversifying and keeping costs down.

Step-By-Step on How to Buy a Stock with Your Broker
What is a limit order, market order? How do I know when I've bought the stock?

You've learned about diversification. Put your knowledge to the test. Choose 5 or more stocks you think make a diverse portfolio. What are those stocks? Don't forget to put them into your investment plan.

How Does Diversification Affect Risk and Reward
We've all heard about diversification: don't put all our eggs in one basket. How does this relate to investing?

How to Diversify My Stocks
See the Diversification Tool to help you visualize which sectors your stocks are in. See a list of Sector ETFs to fill the missing sectors in your portfolio.

The goal of this section is to develop methods for picking stocks. Don't forget to update your Investment Plan at the end of the section.

Facts of Fundamental Analysis
This video gives a brief introduction to fundamental analysis and shows some simple things we can do to avoid terrible companies. Take a look at the Financials Tool and P/B Ratio Tool mentioned in the video. See the Earnings Report Calendar to search for upcoming earnings reports by company.

This is a recap of what to look for on financial statements mentioned in the previous video.

Quick View of Technical Analysis
Learn about chart analysis. See if you can choose the stock that will go up.

How to Buy Stocks "Cheap"
How to tell if a stock is oversold or overbought. In this video, we introduce indicators that show whether a stock is relatively cheap. Keep in mind, this does not necessarily mean the stock will go up!

How Does Your Retirement Look?
What does compound interest tell us about retirement? Two things: take risks (if you can) and start now. See our Retirement Simulator to see what your money could look like.

Measuring Performance
How is your portfolio doing? Compare it to the benchmark index to find out if you are actually doing better or worse than the market.

Let your account move for at least a few months. It's time to evaluate yourself. How did your account perform in relation to the market? What did your learn about investing or yourself? What advice would you give to your friends and family about investing?