Jane Barratt ⋅ New York, NY GoldBean ⋅ 20 years experience

Hi Kennith
I started my company GoldBean with the goal of getting more people started investing (the first step is often the hardest!)
See hellogoldbean.com and if you're interested - email me at jane@hellogoldbean.com and I'll give you a code to join for free (an offer open to all veterans!)
Cheers
Jane

Lauren Gilmartin ⋅ New York, NY The Mission Continues ⋅ 4 years experience

Hi Kennith,

Thank you for your service in the Navy. You can use AdvisorNet's "Community" tab to search for Advisors on this site by industry and location. By selecting "Finance" and including your postal code, you will be brought to a list of people you can message directly to ask questions about investing. I encourage you to reach out to as many relevant Advisors as you find.

If you have any questions about how to utilize AdvisorNet, please do not hesitate to send me a direct message. Good luck!

Best,
Lauren
ACP AdvisorNet Staff

Kyle Cragg ⋅ Mc Lean, VA KPMG ⋅ 3 years experience

Kennith,

I would be very careful about trying to jump right into investing in stocks and other equities. Investing in various investment vehicles requires a fairly large outlay of capital to get started, an assumption of large amounts of risk and is not a way to make a quick buck. While some people do make money quickly buying and selling stocks (like in day trading), this is extremely risky. Investing is something that can't be quickly "taught" and there isn't just one way to go about it. You'll need to identify your appetite for risk, how much capital you have ready to invest, how you plan to diversify and mitigate risk, etc.

To answer your original question, there are tons of resources out there to start to learn about how everything works. I'm a big fan of the book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" and "Security Analysis". Also, google "Khan Academy". I love his instructional videos and explanations of different financial concepts.

Neil Serafin ⋅ Easthampton, MA Telecommunications ⋅ 40 years experience

Been speculating...not investing since 1969...go open an account on line...for an example TD Ameritrade..read up on the website..3 things to do: Every day is a new day in the stock market-there are no lessons, Buy what you know-auto, sneakers, foodstuffs for example, use market stops to cut your loss. As soon as the UPS delivery guy or a someone else who does not buy securities says the market is going up.Sell! The market is over bought and will plunge.

John Green ⋅ Cary, NC Information Technology ⋅ 40 years experience

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price-earningsratio.asp

Google is a great asset.

Kennith Thurman ⋅ Tampa, FL U.S. Navy, Petty Officer First Class ⋅ 11 years served

I don't understand p/e..I need to learn the investment game

John Green ⋅ Cary, NC Information Technology ⋅ 40 years experience

I'm not local to Tampa, but would offer to help you remotely.

Stocks are at a high right now, so do be careful. I would save your money and wait for a dip, then invest.

Here are some pointers :

Open an account at a good brokerage, like Fidelity , USAA , or Schwab. Trades are low cost, usually around $7.

Do not buy penny stocks.

Do buy stocks with dividends, like Walmart, Amazon, AT&T, and Delta Airlines.

Pay attention to the "P/E" ratio. For Delta, a P/E of 8 is plenty high. For AT&T, a P/E of 17 is high. High P/Es are indications to "hold" a stock. Very, very high P/Es indicate "sell".

Make sure you configure your account to "reinvest dividends".