How much money do you need to start investing?

At the moment I have around $400 dollars that I could towards investing, but I really do want to read up on it before I start does anybody have any ideas on good practise sites, or books that I should read. I would prefer a more active style of investing (day trading or forex or something)and I would like to know if there are any good canadian brokerage firms

Public Comments

1. I think you should read up on investing before actually investing. I suggest the Boglehead's guide to Investing. It is written in a style that is easy to read. There is an excitement to being an active trader. It is a challenge and you can get big wins and big losses. Unfortunately, the odds are against you. Remember there are literally thousands of professional money managers running mutual funds, pension plans, college endowments etc that have the fastest computers, access to the best, most current info, research teams that analyze corporate balance sheets, government statistics etc.They also get critical info from their brokerage firm before retail clients and better price executions and lower commissions. Do you really think that you can compete with them?? There are also brokerage firms, TV shows, magazines that make money by encouraging you to be an active trader. It makes money for them - not necessarily for you.

The dirty secret is that no one - not even the pro's know what the market or interest rates or gold etc is going to do. Look at the trouble banks, pension managers, etc had with the recent market meltdown. Even with these critical resources they lost a lot and some went out of business and others came very close. That should be a lesson learned.

Don't buy into the thrill of active trading. It really is gambling and odds are against you. Investing is not a thrill it should be a calm reasonable approach to how to allocate your money for the long term. If you read the book referenced (and others) you should come to the conclusion that the keys to successful investing is. 1. deciding how much risk you can take. 2. allocating your investment between stocks (domestic, foreign and small cap), bonds (usually short or intermediate term. 3. and cash. 4. keeping investment costs low (usually by investing in market based index funds). and 5. Rebalancing your portfolio to your target allocation every year or two.

I would recommend you save until you have $1000 and then invest in the Vanguard Star fund. When you have accumulated more money then branch out into low cost index funds that usually have a $3000 minimum investment. Get your excitement from other activities or hobbies not by active trading.

I wish you the best. Good Luck

2. I agree with J. $400 is no way near enough for an active trader - fees alone eat up a big chunk of that. Keep saving, put more aside and then buy funds of funds until you have more behind you.

3. I started manually trading and now run 4 robots, caspian, forex funnel, ivybot and fapturbo.

I run at around 40% profit ... better than bank interest rates and out of all of the AI Forex robots fapturbo is the best.

Never use a Canadian or USA broker as you will get stung for tax http://www.forex4pros.co.uk/forex-articles/90-top-tax-tip-forex-trading-from-the-usa-and-avoiding-a-w-9-taxation-form.html

I checked out the review here and purchased, you get a discount using the link so it's the best place to buy, I should know I spent months searching :-(

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