With the whole hype around the Palm Pre — which I was totally on board for, and a major advocate of.. until they refused to tell us a launch date, along with partnering with Sprint and Bell in Canada (the DEVIL!!), their stock prices were at an all time low of around $1 a while back, and has shot up to $11 or so in the stock market, just fueled by rumours that the Palm Pre is going to drop June 7th.
Of course, this is all suspiciously in time with a “leaked” memo from Apple that says they’re going to drop their newest iPhone around the same time.
Sneaky sneaky.
But my real focus has been on how to capitalize on the stock market in general. I am generally not a fan of buying individual stocks, doing fancy things like short selling, buying futures, etc… because I’m a lazy investor.
That’s right, I buy index funds and mutual funds and I hold them (hey, I have 40 years to go!)
I buy stuff I don’t have to agonize over about its price dropping or wonder if it’s false hope that it’s rising, and I just funneled my money into those funds when I had a matching corporate plan (which I kind of miss, I am not gonna lie).
But I have been thinking about dabbling a bit in the stock market, and am not going to invest my life savings in it but I want to see if I have any knack whatsoever for it — can’t knock it until you try it right?
Enter TradeMonster, a trading platform that offers a trading simulator (hah!) called a Paper Trader that can let me pick what I want and see how I fare, without actually ponying up any cash.
Of course, if I do really well…. it would suck to not have anything to show for it. But at least it’ll be a fun game for a while.
The site reminds me a lot of those low cost trading platforms like Questrade, but this one offers information on your stocks being traded as well as educating you in the process. The pricing structure begins at $7.50 per trade for 100 stocks, and I have to look more into the pricing structure, but I’ve heard $20 is usually the minimum other brokerages charge.
- Fabulously Broke’s Retirement + Investing Primer – Pt. 1: Terminology Basics
- Reader Request: 10% Savings/Retirement & Where to put it (RRSP)
- Fabulously Broke’s Retirement + Investment Primer – Pt. 4: What to look for in a mutual fund
- Fabulously Broke’s Retirement + Investment Primer – Pt. 3: Find your inner investing Evel Knievel
- Fabulously Broke’s Retirement + Investment Primer – Pt. 5: The simple joy of the index fund
