How to Invest in A Stock Market, a guide for first time investors

"It is not how much money you earn, but it is how money you keep." This is where I will start my blog. This famous quote of Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the best selling financial book, Rich Dad Poor Dad have made me realized how significant saving and investing are. Though I haven't read the full version of the book but I somehow know what Mr. Kiyosaki is trying to convey to his readers.

For more than a year now, I am now into saving and investing. I started by attending various seminars about financial literacy, the discipline of saving, and the basics of investing in the stock market. For financial literacy, I will do a separate blog for that. For now, I will be discussing to everyone what I have learned from the 6 - hour PSE seminar held yesterday September 1, 2018 at Sky Hall inside SM Seaside in Cebu.

Two years ago, the stock market was on my list as my investment platform for my extra money. But nobody from my peers knew about the thing. It was just last September 2017 when I first learned the basics of investing in the stock market through the convention I had attended in Pasay City August of the same year. For the information of everyone, investing in the stock market in not that easy but I could say it is SIMPLE.

Many people believe that investing in a stock market is like a gamble and you lose a lot of money if you don't know how to play your stock.
Mmmm... my take maybe yes maybe no. But this is what I would always tell them. Never engage in things that you don't know. What I mean, you need to learn first before putting all your hard earned money in this kind of business. Yes! You heard it right, this is a business not a game of chance. After all, investing your time in learning is the best investment of all.

Okey! But how do people joining the stock market earn?

There are two things:
First is CAPITAL APPRECIATION
The simple explanation to this is BUY LOW, SELL HIGH. For example, you buy a certain stock at a price of P1/share. When the price reaches P1.1/share then you earn 10%. Well that excludes the commission fees and taxes. I will definitely explain this in a separate blog. That's simple, isn't it?

But what if the price goes down, obviously you lose money. It is just a paper loss. It is not an actual loss because you still hold the stock. Unless you decide to sell them.

Second is through DIVIDEND. What is Dividend? It is a sum of money that a company gives to its shareholders out from its profits. Or in other words, it is like a bonus money given by the company that you have invested in.

The next questions there is, do all companies give dividend? The answer is NO. Not all companies give dividend. For example, a certain stock will give P0.3/share worth of dividend. Which means that if you're holding 10,000 shares of that stock then you are entitled of P3,000 as your dividend. Isn't it great?!

But the ultimate questions is how to start investing in the stock market?

This is the very first thing that you need to know. Find a stock brokerage firm. Fill up a form and present at least 2 government issued IDs.

During yesterday's seminar, several firms were there presenting different ideas and learnings in investing obviously promoting their companies. But the famous among them was the COL Financial. You can check on their websites if you have queries. www.colfinancial.com. By the way, my brokerage firm is the Abacus Securities. If you are also interested just feel free to search www.mytrade.com.ph.

Anyways, I guess I have laid out a few of the many more basics of investing in the stock market. Personally, I am still on the learning process about this. I just want to share some of my ideas and maybe I can inspire others to fo investing as well. Thank you and I do hope to see you in my next investment blogs.