Invest in Stocks

The terms "stocks" and "shares" have a similar meaning, and are often used interchangeably, particularly in American English.

The difference is that "stocks" appear to be a more general term referring to the piece of ownership in a company or several companies.

On the other hand, "shares" mean the same thing, but it is mostly used to describe ownership in a particular company.

For example:

• I invest in stocks.
• I invest in Apple shares.

While these terms can be used as synonyms in a standard description of financial markets, be aware that they have more distinctive meanings in some countries and languages.

Depending on their traded volumes, liquidity, volatility, and spread values, stocks can be divided into three groups: blue chips, mid-caps and small-caps.

Blue chips are commonly believed to be the most reliable and liquid. These are stocks of major global companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Coca-Cola, IBM, General Motors, etc.

Mid-cap and small-cap stocks are less liquid although they can sometimes be more promising.

Securities of famous companies do not always yield the highest profit, however, when it comes to investments, they are considered the least risky if compared with mid-caps and small-caps. It might be a wise decision to create a portfolio that consists of assets of different types.

More conservative traders prefer to trade stocks of American companies because the US market is thought to be more stable and liquid over the past decade. But certainly, if you want to try some "exotics", you can add some European or Japanese stocks to your portfolio.

Traders who are interested in trading stocks are divided into three categories:

• Passive (for reliability and stability), who prefer "blue chips"
• Active (for the highest possible profit with moderate risks), who mostly prefer "blue chips", but could also go for mid-caps and small-caps
• Speculators (for early income, short-term buying/selling), who choose the most liquid “blue chips”

Being more reliable and liquid securities, “blue chips” may be considered the ultimate instruments suitable for all traders who are interested in trading stocks regardless of their strategies. It’s important to understand that trading mid-cap and small-cap stocks requires traders to have advanced knowledge and impressive experience in trading on the financial markets. It is not recommended for beginners to add them to their portfolio, because injudicious actions may result in loss of some or all of their investments.

Here is your guide on how to buy stocks with RoboMarkets:

1. Open a trading account and make a deposit into it.
2. Choose shares of which company you want to buy.
3. Decide on the number of assets to buy.
4. Login into the platform and place an order.
5. Analyse the results.

Open and deposit a trading account
If you are interested in investing in real stocks and having the maximum number of instruments available, choose the R StocksTrader account. Here, you can also buy stocks without commission using the "1:1 (Commission-free)" option.

You can also trade stocks via popular MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms on Prime, ECN, or Pro accounts.

In both cases, you can choose trading through an app: R Mobile Trader for MT4 accounts and R Stocks Trader for R StocksTrader accounts.

Select a company to buy shares from
For guidance, you can refer to the Top Gainers watchlist in the R StocksTrader platform, or conduct your own research on the most promising companies.

Decide on the number of assets to buy
This will depend on your initial investment.

For example, to buy 10 Apple shares at 125 USD per share, you will need to have at least US$1,250 on your account plus an additional sum to cover commission expenses.

Login into the platform and place an order
You can choose between 3 types of orders as follows:

• Market: buy shares at a current market price.
• Limit: buy shares below the current market price. The order will be executed only when the stock price reaches the designated level.
• Stop: buy shares above the current market price. The order will be executed only when the stock price reaches the designated level.

Analyse the results
Keep an eye on the state of your position: is it profitable or not? Determine where the asset price might go next depending on technical and fundamental analysis, etc.

Commission-free stock trading at RoboMarkets is available only on R StocksTrader accounts with 1:1 leverage.

Other differences include:

• Only BUY orders can be placed (Market, Limit, Stop).
• Stop Out at 0%.
• No financing fee.
• No limit on maximum order volume.
• Available instruments: only real US stocks (.nq or .ny suffix in tickers).

To register your Members Area with an R StocksTrader-account, follow the link.