One of the most common investing questions I hear is this one: “How do I start investing?”
I have written before about the steps to take before you start investing. This includes things like paying off your credit card debts, creating an emergency fund, understanding your risk profile, and ensuring you have money to invest that you won’t need for at least three to five years.
It’s important to do your research on investment platforms, but it’s also important not to get stuck in endless perfectionism and analysis-paralysis.Credit: Simon Letch
Today, assuming you’ve done all that, we’ll move on to the more practical steps.
Once you’re ready to start investing, the first step will be to select the platform you want to use to buy your investments. Thanks to technology, today there are quite a few options available.
To give some background, not too long ago, if you wanted to buy shares you had to call a broker who would effectively act as the middleman and execute your trade orders.
Today, we have online trading platforms, like SelfWealth, Pearler and Stake. These serve much the same purpose, acting as a middleman to facilitate transactions for investors.
Starting an imperfect investment journey is far better than aiming for perfection but never starting.
Most big banks have an online trading platform you can sign up to, too – for example, Commonwealth Bank has Commsec and NAB has nabtrade.