More Benefits of Online Investing
Most online investment programs, such as mine - Sharebuilder, Scottrade, Ameritrade, and Etrade (some of the bigger names, can’t think of others, but there are other companies that offer this too), will let you make your own “watchlists”.
So say if you’re watching your hot stock tips show, like Bulls and Bears, or that crazy stock guy on Mad Money and you want to start tracking some of the stocks they mention, and maybe eventually purchase it if it performs well, you can add it to your tracking list so you don’t forget about it.
I did this with Google stock, and bought it at $283/ share - I ended up making quite a bit on it in the end, although I wasn’t able to invest much - but that was a good example of a stock I’d been watching on my watchlist for a while, that ended up really paying off for me in the end. That’s actually partly how I got out of my credit card debt!
Most online investment sites will also have some sort of money market fund that your money that is not invested will automatically go into, before you invest it. You can also just elect to keep it in the money market account, if you have no stocks you’re interested in buying.
The cool thing about money markets is that they are low risk, and they’re a higher yield than most savings accounts from banks, so they’re a good “middle road” to keep your inactive money in while you’re deciding what to do with it.
