Buying/trading stock online

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I'd like to start buying and trading stock online. What are the first steps? How has it been for you? I wouldn't invest much; just a few hundred dollars just to see how it goes. It will be more like a diversion or hobby if anything else. Considering I'm pretty conservative and risk-averse in other areas of my life how do you think I should go about it?

you need at least $2000.00 to buy semi decent stock, a few hundred bucks can only buy questionable companies.

Personally, I would rather gamble only with my life, money is just too important.

If you still want to invest, then practice on stockpickr.com or some other similar website

The answer depends on how much you already know. Assuming you are just beginning, then there is a lot of free business, economic and financial information available on blogs, e.g.,
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/
http://www.investmentpostcards.com/

and various aggregator web-sites, e.g.,
http://www.businessinsider.com/
http://www.dailyfinance.com/
http://www.emerginvest.com/
http://finance.yahoo.com/
http://www.sanebull.com/
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/

As you progress, you might want to consider subscribing to some newsletters. You also might want to look into various tools for quantitative and technical analysis, e.g.,
https://www.fusioniqrank.com/
http://www.rickackerman.com/

Of course, there are a lot of books available as well. Over the years, several people have recommended Michael Covel's books to me. Unfortunately, I have never found the time to read them.

The best piece of advice anyone ever gave me was to realise that the stock market is a rigged game. If you are willing to devote the time to learning things well, you might be able to do okay, but I do not have the time. Consequently, I have never purchased an individual stock. The only money I have in stock markets are in broad based mutual funds (or mutual fund-like investments) via my employer's pension program. Although I think it is possible for some people to time the market, I do not engage active buying and selling of these funds. I occasionally alter the asset allocation of new money that goes into these funds based on macro-economic and general market conditions. (Right now, most of it is going into cash because the few things I do have time to read all suggest that many stock markets are over-valued.) I will alter the allocation of existing assets as I age. Ultimately, I am unlikely to make a lot of money this way, but I view my pension fund as an insurance policy in case I am (unfortunately) not dead before I am forced to retire.

Because you mentioned that you are "pretty conservative and risk-averse in other areas of my life", you might want to try market index-linked bonds and/ or certificates of deposit, as an alternative to buying and selling stocks. These are available from many banks.

Finally, as an alternative to playing the stock market, consider playing poker on-line. I am being serious, not sarcastic. See,
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt95179.html

www.tdameritrade.com charges about 10 dollars for each purchase and each sale, plus sundry fees throughout the year. If you want any kind of balanced portfolio then you will need to hold perhaps 10 stocks, with enough money in each that the 20 dollars purchase and sale is a fraction of your gain - for instance a 2,000 dollar holding would be unlikely to rise more than 200 dollars, or 10%, over 12 months and commission would therefore eat at least 1% of the gain.

There are some ideas on stock-picking on the Nasdaq Guru page http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/guruanalysis. ... lected=WDC and Motley Fool has some very active forums.