You've probably imagined many times how you're going to invest in stocks and make enough money to travel the world and last you for the rest of your life. Achieving this is not easy, but you have to start somewhere. Purchasing shares online is one of the best ways to reach this goal. And the good news is you that can do all of this completely online, from the comfort of your own home.

In this article, we will explain jargon-free, in plain English, how to invest in stocks online. It's not as easy as watching your favorite TV show, but don’t worry, it's not rocket science either.

People usually ask about how to buy and sell shares online because they either want to make money (profits) or gain some trading experience. Both are possible, and can also be fun, if you select the right stocks.

You can make a profit if your share pays dividends or its price increases. If you do this in the long run, these profits can add up and even make you a millionaire, as it happened with Mr. Gremel: the now 98-year-old investor bought 20 Walgreens shares for $1,000 in 1953, and today they are worth $2 million.

As you gain experience, you will improve your financial literacy. This is one of the best long-term investments. Have your friends ever talked about investments or the stock market, and you had no clue what any of it meant? Don't worry, once you start investing and learning more about it, this won't happen again. You'll understand better how the stock market works and how it influences the economy, as well as your everyday life.

Last but not least, as a shareholder you will be part of a company's story. Have you ever wanted to sit in the same room with Warren Buffet, and participate in a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting? If you buy some Berkshire shares, you'll have the chance, all you have to do is master the buying of the shares.

Let's take a look at the six steps for how to buy shares online!

The six-step plan to buying shares online

Buying shares online is not rocket science. Follow this simple six-step plan:

1. Find a good online broker
2. Open an investment account
3. Upload money to your account
4. Find a stock you want to buy
5. Buy the stock
6. Review your share positions regularly

Step 1: Find a good online broker

First of all, you need to find a good online broker. Brokerchooser will help you here: get a free recommendation by answering a few questions, or read further to get a general broker recommendation.

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When recommending a broker, we take into account the broker’s fees, trading platform, accessible markets to trade, and how easy it is to open an account. Safety is also very important, but since we recommend only safe brokers, you don't have to worry about this.

Step 2: Open an investment account

After finding your online broker, you need to open an investment account. This can usually be done online. The investment account is basically what you need to start buying shares online. Think of it as a bank account where in addition to holding cash, you can also shares. Opening an account usually takes a couple of days, although at some brokers you can get it done within a day.

Step 3: Upload money to your account

In order to buy shares online, you need to have money on your investment account. Usually, you can choose between a bank transfer or depositing funds via credit/debit card. At some brokers, you can fund your investment account even via Paypal, e.g. at eToro.

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Step 4: Find a stock you want to buy

After uploading some money into your account, you can start searching for the best target stocks to buy. You can get inspiration from others' ideas or you can do your own research. Most people listen to others, but if you put some time and energy into your research, the payoff is usually bigger and you can learn a lot more from it. Investment ideas can come from your broker in the form of stock reports and analyses, but you can also use other, independent research. The financial news and investment courses can also be useful in learning how to pick a winning stock.

Step 5: Buy the stock

You have the account, the cash, and the stock you want to buy. Now all you need to do is press the 'Buy' button. You log in to your online trading platform, find the stock you have selected, enter the number of shares you wish to buy, and click 'Buy,' which will initiate the purchase of shares. 

When placing an order, you can choose from different order types. A market order buys immediately at the current market price, while a limit order allows you to specify the exact price at which you want to buy the shares. Find more details on order types here.

Step 6: Review your share positions regularly

You're done, you've bought the shares, they are yours. Now it is key to monitor your investments. This basically means following your investment strategy. If you bought the shares with the goal of holding for a longer term, you might participate at the company's annual meeting and collect all the news and information about the firm.

For short-term buyers, position management could mean setting up the stop-loss price of where to cut losses, and the target price of where you want to sell the shares with a profit.

Now that you have mastered the 6 steps of buying shares, take a moment to look at the top 5 brokers we have selected for you.

Best 5 brokers for buying shares online

As we live in the internet era, trading nowadays takes place an online platforms. Trading floors have turned into well-designed tech platforms with interactive tools and charts.

If you're just starting to explore how to buy shares online, we recommend that you choose one of the following five brokers. We tested all five, and we have live accounts with all of them.

First and foremost, here is a table comparing the main characteristics of each of the brokers:

For online brokers available in your country, check out our broker finder. If fees are at the top of your agenda, you will enjoy digging into the ultimate fee comparison table.

Now, let's look into more details about the 5 best brokers where you can buy shares:

Robinhood

60

eToro

14

DEGIRO

15

Saxo Bank

6

Swissquote

11

We hope you were able to choose the best broker to fit your needs. In the following few paragraphs, we have collected a few good tips on stock trading, what to look for, and what to look out for. 

What are shares and how do they work?

When you buy a share of a company, you become s shareholder, i.e. an owner, of that company in a very small percentage.

For example, Tesla has 164 million shares outstanding. When you buy 100 Tesla shares, you will be one of the owners of Tesla. Your ownership percentage will be very tiny, 0.000061% (100/164 million), but still, you will be an owner with all the rights that come with this ownership:

• The right to receive dividends - when the company allocates dividends, you will receive a part of this. Staying with the previous Tesla example, let’s assume that in 2020 Tesla will pay $100 million in dividends, then you will receive $61 (0.000061%*100 million).
• The right of voting - if you are a shareholder, you have the right to participate at the company's annual meeting. At the annual meeting, you will have the right to vote on the topics that will fundamentally influence the future of the company. These topics can vary from the election of the board of directors to the amount of the dividends allocated.

Speaking about financial literacy: when you read about buying shares online, you may find that both the expressions stock and share are used. What is the difference between them? The word stock is the general term for company ownership. For example “I invest in American tech stocks like Apple and Facebook”. Share usually refers to the ownership stake in a company. For example “Yesterday I bought 100 Tesla shares.”

Manage the risk of buying shares

Investments always come with some risks that you should aim to manage (click here to read more about market risk and other types of risks). Below, you can find the most common ones and our advice on how to mitigate them.

Avoid the scams

Risk: Unfortunately, tons of scam “brokers” are out there on the market trying to steal your money. When you see ads for binary options trading or automated investment algorithms that generate outstanding returns, start to get very suspicious. In these cases, the best thing to do is to ignore these ads.

How to manage it: When buying shares online, go with our broker selection. We have an active account with the brokers we selected and we test them regularly.

Diversify your portfolio

Risk: If you put all of your savings in just one or two stocks, and the company you selected goes bust, you could lose all your invested money.

How to manage it: Diversify your investment portfolio. This practically means buying many different shares and not putting all your eggs in one basket. The ideal number of shares in a portfolio ranges somewhere between 20 to 30.

Avoid crappy stocks

Risk: when buying individual stocks, there is always a risk of selecting the wrong ones. Here, 'wrong' could mean anything from a company that defaults to just buying an overpriced share.

How to manage: 

Learn: This is the tricky part, since you need some knowledge and experience. The best is to start learning by reading books on investment and taking online courses. There are tons of great books out there, but you can start with the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. This is also the book on investment most recommended by Warren Buffet.

Gather information: While you are learning, start collecting as much information about your target companies as possible. Read news about them, understand their business profiles, start playing around with their income statements, gain some knowledge about their management background or even attend their annual meetings. These will help you gain a better understanding of the company and the specific industry.

Compare multiples: When it comes to pricing, use industry multiples as a proxy for your target stock. P/E is a basic multiple, but each sector has its own favorite.

Your investment account can be protected

Since you are trading with your savings, it is very important to pay attention to safety. The online brokers we selected have some of the best protection schemes, the level of which depends on the regulatory body of the broker (learn more about investor protection).

You can compare the protection amount among all reviewed brokers.

Compare protection amounts

Tip: Use national tax free accounts

In your country of residence, you may have the option to open special investment accounts that offer favorable tax conditions. For example, in the UK, this account is the ISA, the Individual Saving Account, which is exempt from income tax and capital gains tax on the investment returns.

Bottom Line

"How to purchase shares online? How can I buy shares? I want to invest in shares online! I want to buy shares!" - Were these things you were saying until now?

Just follow these six easy steps to buy shares online:

1. find a broker
2. open an account 
3. fund the account
4. find the stock 
5. buy the shares 
6. review your position

It may look tricky at first, but all you need to do is go step by step. See you at the next Coca-Cola or Berkshire annual meeting!

If you're still in doubt about which broker to choose, we compiled a brief summary to help: 

Back to How To Invest Guide

AUTHOR

Gergely Korpos

Co-founder, CPO

Gergely's aim is to bring more clarity into personal investing. He has 10 years of experience in financial markets with GE Money, KPMG and MOL. He concluded thousands of trades as a commodity trader and financial portfolio manager

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