The Demo Site

Following on from the previous post, once you have decided that you are ready to start trading, there are a few things that you need:

Obviously, a computer connected to the internet is one of them. How about a trading account I hear you ask? That's easily sorted out as well.

I recommend you try the following online brokers and you can decide which one looks the best and is the most cost effective for the amount of trading you will do:
1. E*TRADE – www.etrade.co.uk
2. Selftrade – www.selftrade.co.uk
3. Barclays Stockbrokers – www.stockbrokers.barclays.co.uk

These are probably amongst the best online brokers around and do not charge that much to setup and account and start trading.

Ok, now what else do we need? Oh yes, share prices. Many real-time share price monitoring websites are available, some are for free, and some require a monthly subscription fee.

Once again, test some out and see what one suit you best. Most of the subscription based monitoring websites are real-time, so you can see the share price changes as they happen.

A lot of the free share price monitoring websites has a delay in their feed. So if you are doing a lot of trading in a volatile section of the market, I would recommend you getting a real-time monitor so that you do not execute a share purchase at the wrong price.

So, to give a quick recap of what you need to do before you can start trading in shares: You need internet access, you need a brokerage account and you need to know what the share prices are before you can start trading.
Ok, that all sounds very easy. But what shares do you buy next? My suggestion is to look at well-known brands that you know, research their historic share prices and keep a watch on their prices.
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