The real estate market is often seen as a save haven for investors. Where the stock market trading is frequently seen as a high risk investment.

The truth is there are many advantages to both real estate investing and stock trading. Real estate investors have also been subjected to significant crashes in the housing market.

There have been many housing market crashes in the past. One of the major ones occurred in the early 90’s where house prices crashed down by over 30%. If you a single property or more with borrowed money at this time, it could have been detrimental to your net worth.

The positive note about the housing market is that in the past it has always picked up and gone up. In many parts of the world, there is a growing population and an growing shortage of houses. The leads to a price rise.

It is a similar case with stocks. Crashes have occured on many occasions. Trading stocks is often more of an option to investors with a smaller amount of cash to invest. how to trade stocks is possible with a small amount of money. So mistakes do not have to be costly.

Some stocks are riskier than others. Some traders like to learn how to buy penny stock. These are often the highest risk choices.

Blue chip stocks are often considered to be lower return but much safer. They could be as safe as property. In the long run the major blue chip stocks have performed very well, although there have been some big crashes, just like property market.

One big advantage of stock trading is that there is the option to get a SIMULATED stock trading account. This permits you to practice placing your trades with “freebie money”. It can be a hugely more difficult to do this with the property market. It is always a good idea to practice on a dummy account for a while before trading with real money.

You will need an online stock broker if you are interested in taking charge of your own investments.

The advantage is that the fees are very reasonable so you will make more money on your investment because you will spend less of it on fees.

TD Waterhouse, Scott Trade and Etrade are examples of reliable online stock broker you can choose They may have different fees, so you better shop around first and find out which offers the best deals for you.

Find the broker that won’t charge you for having less than a minimum balance if you want to invest with a small amount of money to start.

Look carefully at the companies core competencies whose stocks you’re interested in so you are sure that the ones you pick will pay off for you.

If you plan to buy stocks for the long term, then you will be fine. It’s very important for everyone who want to start doing investments on stock market to always plan in the long term.

Most solid companies will have their ups and downs but if their core competencies are strong then they will recover and their value will return. As long as you did not panic and sell at a loss then you will be fine down the road. Some people have recommended to read stock market for dummies , it tells everything about ups and downs in the stock marketplace.

Unlike putting money in the bank, when you put investments on stocks, your money is actually at risk and and you could lost it. Lots of investors who put big money of their retirement into stocks can tell you all that is so true.

So never invest the money into stock market if you are going to be needed to pay your morgage the next month. If you take out all your money and invest them all into the market, you will certainly lost out.

The last but not least, it is very important for you to understand everything, at least some basics about online stock brokers before you get started.