hey everyone this is Stefan James from
project life mastery and today I'm going
to show you how to buy and invest in
stocks in fact I got my computer right
here in front of me and in a moment I'm
gonna grab you put you over my shoulder
and actually show you an investment a
trade that I'm gonna make right here
today inside my brokerage account now
one thing I'm going to mention is that
I'm not a financial advisor I have to
have a disclaimer for you for that
whatever I buy whatever I trade or
whatever I do even say is based on my
opinion in my experience and it doesn't
make it right
it doesn't make it wrong at the end of
the day you have to do your own research
your own due diligence you shouldn't
just buy something because someone says
that you should you shouldn't just
invest and do what other people are
doing you have to do your own research
and your own due diligence and know that
you're responsible at the end of the day
for your investment decisions and your
money and you have to make sure you do
some research and know a little bit
about what you're doing but this is
going to be a very introductory video on
how to buy a stock and that's why I
actually want to show you inside my
brokerage account but make sure you do
your research and make sure that you're
mentally and emotionally prepared and
understand the risks involved in
investing very very important now one
thing I'm gonna mention is that I love
investing in stocks because I can
diversify across many different sectors
industries and companies even I can
invest in bonds and even real estate it
provides a lot of diversification for me
which helps mitigate my risk I don't
have to have all my eggs in one basket
and then also I can liquidate my stocks
pretty easily I can just log into a
brokerage account or even there's apps
on my phone and I can buy and sell I can
sell get out of a position if I want to
versus other asset classes like real
estate very difficult you can't just
sell it tomorrow
there's a process for that so I like it
for that reason but also how passive a
lot of investing can be I want to
mention I'm not a day trader or a swing
trader this is not my full-time job I'm
a long-term investor I like to buy great
companies and then hold them over the
long term a lot of people they like to
day trade and they do that full-time
they like to pick stocks that that's not
really me I'm gonna sure a little bit
about my strategy here today
but there's other videos where I go more
in-depth into that and I'll link those
for you but it's important to understand
that when you have a long term horizon
you know for me I'm not trying to get
rich quick I'm not trying to make any
money in the short term that's an
important distinction because stocks can
be pretty volatile in the short term
there'll be ups and they'll be downs and
that can kind of you know be a little
bit distressing for a lot of people if
they're checking their investments every
day and one day it goes up by two
percent and it goes down by three
percent and you know it's gonna dry zip
drive you crazy doing it that way but
with that said there are there's that
there's a place for day trading and
swing trading and things of that nature
so for me I want you to know my strategy
is primarily I make my money through my
businesses most of you know I run and
operate many online businesses I love
business because I'm really in control
about how much money I want to make the
more I put in the more I get out of it
and with my own businesses I can really
make a lot of money a lot easier and
faster than anything else but I take the
money from my businesses and then I
invest it now with that said the number
one goal that I have when it comes to
investing is to not lose money not lose
money and so I'm more of a conservative
investor I'm not taking you know I'm not
really buying anything that's too
high-risk or anything most of the
companies are big big companies
multi-billion dollar large cap companies
I'm not investing in penny stocks or
anything that's you know too volatile
I'm investing in companies that have
been around for decades and then I
believe through my long-term outlook
they'll be around for the next three
years five years 10 20 30 even 40 years
from now because for me my investment
portfolio is something I'm building up
for my retirement and I want to make
sure I have that long-term horizon that
when you have that long-term horizon
then when things drop which they will at
you know some point in your investing
career you only lose money when you sell
so one thing is drop if you hold and
it's a bit it's a great company that
could withstand those turbulent times
then your investments typically will
recover and rebound and go up and when
you have a long term outlook for the
economy in the world and the progress
we've always made through history and
will likely continue to make then things
typically go up over the long
so I like to follow people like Warren
Buffett one of the greatest investors of
all time he's a value and growth stock
investor and he has a very long-term
mindset and horizon and that's the
mindset that I have and that kind of
keeps me grounded in a lot of ways too
because when it comes to investing
there's a lot of temptations there's a
lot of opportunity ones that you could
see the dollar signs flashing and often
you can kind of get in trouble a little
bit there when you kind of sway away
from certain fundamentals and that's one
thing that you might have to be a little
bit cautious of but every not everybody
is made to invest I'd say you have to
know yourself and emotionally and
mentally and having patience there's an
inner game to this that you have to make
sure your mindset is rock-solid when it
comes to investing so with that being
said when it comes to getting started to
buy and invest in stocks the first thing
you're gonna need is a brokerage account
okay a brokerage account a brokerage
account is kind of like an online bank
accounts you can transfer money from
your bank account to this online
brokerage account and then you can buy
and sell stocks through that and these
brokerage accounts typically take a
commission also known as a fee on every
trade that you make so if you buy and
sell they'll take a fee from that
although there are some brokerage
accounts that have zero zero sorry zero
fees zero commissions and I'll link to
some of those below for you now for the
most part most of the brokerage accounts
kind of do the same things there's not
that many differences between them I
mean some of them have different fees
some of them can be 0 some $1.00 trade
some might be $5 a trade so that might
be something you might want to factor in
you know otherwise the interface and and
the website and their apps and
functionality those are important
they're customer support it's important
as well how easy or hard it is to
transfer funds into it there's a number
of factors like that you might want to
keep in mind it's kind of like a bank
for the most for all the banks serve the
same purpose but you might choose a
different bank based on you know their
customer supports or certain options
other additional features they might
have available for you now the best bet
for choosing a brokerage account usually
is going to be based on where you live
I'm not sure where in the world that you
live if you live in Canada there are
certain banks
broke into accounts available for you
there if you live in the United States a
variety of banks and brokerage accounts
available for you within that country if
you're in Europe or anywhere you're
gonna have to do some research to see
what options are available for you for
me I use a brokerage account called
Interactive Brokers and it honestly
wouldn't be the really the one that I'd
recommend for you because their website
drives me crazy sometimes you don't
learn these things until you actually
start using them for a while but they
have a very clunky website that's very
very slow and frustrating at times and I
actually prefer to invest through apps
more and they do have an app which is
pretty good but keep that in mind just
because I use a certain brokerage
account doesn't mean that you should
doesn't mean that I'd recommend it to
you but there are a few I'll link to
below in the description for you some
available for those of you in the United
States others that are more
international okay there's some options
for you even if you know you want to
invest in the US market but you don't
live in the US there are certain ones
that you can still get up set up within
the US and you have to apply for it and
go through a bit of a process for that
okay I primarily invest in the US and
Canada I don't live in the US or Canada
right now I actually live in Panama but
through my brokerage account it gives
you the ability to be able to do so
okay now I'll link below for you to some
of those and also mention there's some
good ones right now too that will
actually give you one or two free stocks
just for setting up account or
depositing a hundred dollars into it so
there are you know certain promotions
that are happening between some online
brokerage accounts or brokerage apps and
I'll link those below for you in the
description and you could pick one and
play around with it and gain some
experience with it and one more thing
before I go into this again I'm just
trying to give you the foundation and
fundamentals of this before we dive in
is often one thing that you can do when
you're first getting started is
something called paper trading and so
you're basically buying and selling
stocks and getting experience by
training without with without using your
real money okay and this is something I
did when I first started because I was a
little bit nervous to invest my
hard-earned money and I didn't have a
lot of money when I first started I just
had a regular job and took me a while to
save up some money
and somewhat I did just to kind of gain
some experience and learn a little bit
is I started paper trading and I would
just you know have this pretend money
that brokerage accounts have for you you
can kind of buy buy stocks and sell them
and see over the days what happens with
them and just kind of get more familiar
with it and get a little bit more
comfortable I guess you could say before
you actually start investing your real
money so that's something that I've also
recommend for most people that are just
getting started with that being said how
would I grab you now put you over my
shoulder I'm gonna log into my accounts
and I'm gonna show you what interface
looks like when it comes to investing
and how to actually make your first
stock purchase or investment ok so right
now I'm logged inside my brokerage
account and one thing I'm going to
mention is that every brokerage account
is going to have a different interface
look feel design whether you're on the
website or on their app but for the most
part the core information is gonna be
the same they're all going to show you
the stock name and exchange and symbol
and price and chart and certain market
data which we'll go through a little bit
here with you and oftentimes you can
customize your dashboard and and how it
looks for you so if you want to add more
more metrics more data that you you want
to use to evaluate a certain company and
you know determine whether you want to
buy or sell it you can add columns and
different things like that to it now I'm
not going to go into how to evaluate a
company and do that level of research
and the depth to that I want to more go
over the basics here with you so right
now you can see at the very top this is
the name of the stock which is the
Vanguard S&P 500 ETF so this is an ETF
like I said an exchange-traded fund this
tracks the index of the S&P 500 so if I
buy or sell this you know this that the
current price is how they've been going
up and down is based on the performance
of this stock which is the performance
of the S&P 500 index here is the stock
symbol vo oh so every stock every equity
has a stock symbol or a ticker and this
is often what you're going to use to do
your research to look up a stock so
oftentimes when it says symbol lookup or
you're on a website or you know in your
brokerage account you want to look up a
certain stock you'd put in that star
a symbol in order to identify and
defined it ARCA right here is the
exchange so every every company every
stock is in a part of a certain exchange
this is the New York Stock Exchange
there's also Nasdaq those are within the
United States Canada has the Toronto
Stock Exchange TSX and this is the
current price two hundred twelve dollars
and 84 cents now this is so showing
delayed and it's important to know that
sometimes they'll show you data that's
real-time other times it could be a
little bit delayed that's kind of one
thing I don't like about this brokerage
account sometimes there are a little bit
of delays and it's a little bit buggy
sometimes too but this is showing me
right here in the red it will be either
red or green based on the current day's
performance so right now today at the
time of this this this stock has dropped
by twenty dollars and thirty cents off
of you know what it was tricked what it
opened with at the start of the day and
the stock exchanges they open at 9:30
a.m. est Eastern Standard Time and they
close at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
and there's even after-hours trading
which you can actually buy before
markets open and even after 2:00 we
won't go into that I mostly buy and
trade when the markets are open so
overall negative eight point seven three
percent as a pretty significant drop now
at the time of this video the markets
been crashing due to the coronavirus
concerns and fears and the panic that's
going on there and so for me I've been
buying quite a bit lately there's a lot
of liquidity happening right now which
means that a lot of people are selling
stocks right now there's a lot of volume
which oftentimes means is can be a good
buying opportunity if you have that long
term horizon so for me right now this is
a good opportunity because I'm looking
to buy this index and hold it over the
long term and I'm optimistic that it is
going to recover I mean if I just look
at the last five years you know you can
see usually this is you know a lot of
good brokerage accounts they give you
more data and sometimes I do my research
on Yahoo Finance which is another
website I'll link to that I like to use
for more my research
more use this to trade and I usually
like to trade for apps through apps by
the way it's just a little bit easier
and faster but I can look at a chart and
it's gonna see the performance the past
history of it and this has only shown me
the last five years but you can see the
last 11 years or so we've actually had a
bull market which is when stocks are on
that you know are going up and right now
we've entered into a bear market so the
high of what this was just a few weeks
ago was three hundred nine dollars and
27 cents as of right now it's dropped
down to two hundred $12.83 that's a
pretty significant drop and so right now
there's a dip that I'm looking to buy at
I don't know when the bottoms gonna be
in fact it could continue to drop but
this is where you got to be a little bit
careful in trying to time the market
because nobody knows when the bottom is
I do believe it is gonna drop more and
so I still I'm not putting all my money
into this I'm gonna buy a little bit on
the dip and then wait and hold wait a
little bit more to buy more when it if
it you know if and when it goes down but
I've also been buying actually more down
during the decline and as long as things
in the next year three five ten years
returns back to three hundred nine
dollars and even exceeds that which I
believe it will because it's always done
that after recessions even the
depression then whatever I buy here at
the bottom I can get some great returns
over the long term and also benefit from
dividends that are paid out in the mean
time as well so I always like to look at
the charts and the history and you know
just gives me a lot of good idea of the
the value of the company and you know
oftentimes the value might of a stock
might not even actually be is actual
value based on you know the earnings per
share and all of that is often can be
inflated or even be less than what the
actual value is based on whether people
are buying or selling it people can
drive up the price and many companies
can be worth more than they actually are
just because a lot of people are buying
it won't go too much under that though
so here you can see some market data the
ask price is the is the
the lowest amount that someone's willing
to pay for it the bid is the highest
amount someone will pay for it there's
some market data the the close is what
it closed at yesterday at 4:30 p.m.
Eastern Standard Time that was the price
yesterday is 432 dollars and the open
it's not showing me for some reason but
usually that will be whatever it opened
at at 9:30 a.m. PST the volume today and
the average volume is going to be a
reflection of just how many people are
buying and selling it so right now the
volume is really high and when volume is
really high like this I can oftentimes
make an order for this company at less
than what it's actually trading at right
now because a lot of people are trying
to sell right now based on this
volatility of what's happening so I can
get a little bit less because a lot of
people when they're panicking they want
to get out they're willing to drop their
price even less than the current value
of it now dividends I love dividend
dividends means that these companies
will pay a dividend to shareholders if I
buy and own the stock I'm a shareholder
shareholder of it based on how many did
share is that I have the dividend yield
is 2.6 percent per share so that's about
a dollar 22 and this is the next date
June 17th when they're gonna make the
next dividend payout most companies pay
out every quarter some can pay out every
month others every year and some not at
all there's many companies that don't
pay any dividends at all like Amazon and
the reason for that is a company like
Amazon you know they could you know the
reason why a lot of investors like
dividends is you can get some cash as
the company is growing and you get the
cash flow coming in but when a company's
paid dividends it can also slow down the
company's growth because the company
can't use that to reinvest and grow the
company so it's a great benefit for
investors we like to receive dividends
but in cases like Amazon or Shopify or
even Facebook a lot of these companies
they don't pay dividend Tesla they don't
pay dividends because they want to grow
fast and so you're more gonna benefit
when you sell that company when it
appreciates over the long term and so
when you buy and hold it and then you
sell it then that's when you're gonna
profit from it and even though I don't
get the dividends in Amazon for example
every quarter I'm okay with that because
it's gonna grow typically a lot faster
than if they did pay dividends and I'm
gonna basically defer that money that
I'm gonna get from when I sell it it'll
be worth more and I'll kind of get what
I would have normally gotten from
dividends if that makes sense so I like
dividends though but not every company I
buy most of them do I'd say have
dividends here I'm able to see my
position my position is how many shares
I currently hold so this specific stock
706 is my holdings on the daily profit
and loss this is how much money I made
or loss so far today so far today I lost
fourteen thousand almost fifteen
thousand dollars which I'm not concerned
about I don't worry about because again
I'm holding long-term so I don't worry
too much about the day-to-day I look at
and evaluate things over many many years
but total my unrealized profit and loss
is negative thirty five thousand dollars
and that's how much I've lost total
since I originally bought and even
bought throughout the cost basis right
here is actually how much money I put in
and the market value is the current
value of that so you know right now I'm
negative thirty-five thousand dollars
and so you know I put in one hundred
eighty six thousand but the value right
now is only 150 thousand so that's
negative thirty five thousand this has
been an average price that I bought it
at and unrealized means that I haven't
sold it yet so I realize profit loss is
when I sell it that's when that's when
your profit loss is now official okay
it's realized then you pay the tax on
that unrealized means that I it just
hasn't been realized yet it hasn't been
sold yet and so it's not my actual loss
until I do decide to sell anyways often
times they'll have some you know
information here news events you know
you can you know some brokerage accounts
give you a little bit more data that you
can browse around with but I'm gonna now
show you how you can actually buy so I'm
gonna buy this company right now this
ETF and here it's pulling up the most
important information you could do a buy
order or a sell order now it's going to
ask me the quantity
this is how many shares that I might
want to buy so if I put in 10 and I can
either choose to buy shares or this is a
US dollar account so I can determine how
much US Dollars I want to invest and
some brokerage accounts give the ability
to enable fractional shares that means
that you don't have to buy one share you
can actually buy less than one share so
for example companies like Amazon and
Google one share the price of it is over
a thousand dollars and you might not
have a thousand dollars and so buying
enabling and buying fractional shares
gives the ability to still invest in
Amazon Google without having to buy one
share you can own a fraction of a share
so anyway so if I put in let's put in 20
here now there's different types of
orders the main two ones you really need
to focus on that I pay attention to is a
market order a market order is just
gonna allow you to buy it at whatever
the current prices so if I make a day
trade right here I submit this order
whatever the price is right now or
whatever someone's selling it for that's
what the trades gonna be I don't like to
use a market order I usually avoid it
there is a time and place for it but I
mostly use what is called a limit order
type this means I can set the price that
means that I want to buy this but at my
price and so what I often do especially
because there's a lot of volume and
there's a lot of selling happening right
now I'm pretty confident I can get this
at cheaper than $211 it's been dropping
as we had this conversation so I could
put in for example sixty-seven cents
less than what the current value is of
right you know it is up right now and
let me go to shares so let's say I buy
50 that's about ten thousand dollars ten
thousand five hundred dollars u.s. at
this price okay so let's say that's what
I want to buy it at in fact it's even
dropping more noticing a trend here so
I'm gonna go a little bit less here I'm
gonna go to ten fifty and by the way I'm
not I don't try to get too crazy about
trying to get a perfect price because
again I dollar cost average over the
long term and ultimately I'm buying this
long term horizon so I'm gonna put
10,000 and now but I still have a lot of
cash that I'm holding and I'm gonna save
that because I do think it will drop
even more but I don't like to try to
perfectly time things or anything like
that this is still you know less than
what it is now and it's definitely less
it's almost 10 percent drop that we're
at here today so far so you know I can
go a little bit less if I like but and
by the way when I make this trade the
time in force means that this is going
to be a trade that I make today and so
this will expire if this doesn't go
through at this price if it doesn't go
through by 4:30 p.m. est then the trades
not gonna go through but I could set it
I could even set it at $210 and then
wait and see if anyone's gonna sell it
at that price and if not then I can come
back and modify that too so that's
something that you can often do as well
and I can even look I like to look at
the day like in a day like this there's
a lot of volatility so this is what I
mean how they're kind of clunky I'm
trying to click on this but it's not
showing oh there we go yeah so you know
I can see kind of what it started out
the day it's been dropping so it's kind
of on a downward trend so it probably
will close at less it that you know this
price maybe around 210 or around there
so I can wait and see and modify it
throughout the day if I'd like as well
okay I'll just do 210 so I'm going to
now preview the order so this is going
to show me what it is this is the
Commission right here the order type
I always verify this information before
Ashley go whoo go ahead and place my
order and when I'm comfortable with
everything I'm just gonna click on
transmit order order submitted perfect
now if I come here click on orders it
will show me all the orders that were
filled so far today so these are some
other stocks that I did buy today I'm
not gonna go too much into them but this
one was filled so it was sold at q10 I
could have gone less right maybe I could
have gone down to 209 or to you know to
208 dollars so that's kind of an
interesting thing to observe sometimes
is you know I probably should have gone
less but I'm a bit distracted as I'm
doing a video for you guys but that's
all there is to it that's how you can
buy a stock that's how you can invest a
stock and then I can kind of track
my investment over time and see how it
does and again because I have that
long-term optimistic horizon I'm
confident it will recover it'll get
better I think it will even drop more
but I don't know for sure there is
sometimes a risk and waiting and waiting
too long I've had times like that where
you know I thought it's gonna time it
perfectly and no one the bottom was then
sometimes you miss your window of
opportunity as well so I like to kind of
pace myself and buy on the declines and
you know do the dollar cost averaging
which is what I suggested and when you
have that long-term horizon you know one
thing I learned from Warren Buffett is
he's not that as concern as much about
nickel and diming of the price he's
buying based on a business he believes
in he's confident in and you know he's
done some of his research on and one
thing I mentioned - one thing that I
believe in is to invest in what you know
invest in what you know as a common
piece of investing advice so a lot of
the companies that I invested in buy our
company is that I'm familiar with
companies like I mentioned I run online
businesses so a lot of the tech
companies I'm pretty familiar with I'm
very confident I know more than the
average person does because every day
I'm spending time and utilizing these
platforms for my business so for example
I like to invest in tech companies like
Google YouTube you know Google and and
everything they provide I'm very
familiar with Amazon very familiar with
Amazon I'd help people build Amazon
businesses most people don't know how
much money Amazon makes from their AWS
Amazon Web Services they're clouding
service they've got different parts of
their business but I'm very familiar
with the company I'm very familiar with
Facebook I'm very familiar with
Salesforce some familiar with PayPal I'm
familiar with Apple I'm familiar with
Tesla I'm familiar with a lot of these
companies Oracle app I mentioned Apple
but a lot of these companies that I use
and they're part of my day to day life
that I barely confident in knowing the
industry in the sector those are the
ones that I have the most confidence
when it comes to investing in but I do
diversify across many different ETFs
there's emerging market ETF says bond
ETS there's real estate ETFs there's oil
ETF's there's high dividends company ETS
there's a whole variety of ETFs and
like to primarily build my portfolio
based on ETFs which is more passive
investing and then I also do some stock
picking as well with companies that I
believe in and know and then I have
maybe a very small percent of my
portfolio which are more riskier stocks
and companies when I'm willing to take
the risk on whether that is some
cannabis in the cannabis sector I've
invested some biotech companies and some
other ones too just to you know I'm
willing to take a bit of risk it depends
how much money and how much reserve that
you have with that so hopefully this has
been helpful for you I know I gave you
more than just how to buy a stock I want
to give you the philosophy and the
mindset and kind of give you that
context to help you learn a little bit
more about just the belief system the
mindset when it comes to investing as
well but hopefully this is a good
introductory for you I did mention some
brokerage accounts I'm gonna link to
below in the description those are great
ones to get started with don't
procrastinate and think that you've got
to find the perfect one there is no
perfect one they all for the most part
are very similar just pick one get
started get familiar with it and
investing is a long-term journey so
you're not going to know everything all
at once you're gonna learn as you go and
for me I've been doing this for many
years now and I'm continuing to learn
because I'm again just a student just
like you are and trying to learn from my
wins and my losses everybody doesn't
lose once in a while but as long as you
win a lot more than you lose then you're
on the right track so thank you so much
for being here for watching this if you
enjoyed this video please give it a
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on project life mastery not just on
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project life mastery is about leave a
comment below
leave a comment let me know what you're
buying what you're investing in right
now as well I'd love to hear your
opinions on what you think are some
great opportunities right now in the
market otherwise I look forward to
seeing you again soon god bless you and
take care