Alain Guillot

Life, Leadership, and Money Matters

How to know Where to Invest in Stocks during the COVID-19 Crisis

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If you’re just starting to become interested in investing in stocks, there is no time like the present. With ever-improving technologies to trade and access to up to the second information, it’s relatively inexpensive and easy to trade stocks without committing a lot of capital. In fact, there is a panoply of platforms and apps that allow you to trade commission-free. Once you find the beste Portfolio App or stockbroker, you are on your way to learning the ins and outs of stock trading.

Let’s take a look at some stock information websites that can help you get your way to investing correctly with the resources that you will need, and what types of things you’ll want to keep in mind as you begin your stock market investing adventure.

Stock Market Ticker Websites

While Yahoo is not likely a search engine you use as much as Google, it did have its heyday. In fact, in 1998, Yahoo was the most popular and most widely used search engine, having started establishing its popularity circa 1994. If you wanted to search for a term, a store, or for shopping, you simply turned to Yahoo. Now, Google fills that space, but as true as that may be, Yahoo trumps Google when it comes to financing websites.

While many stock websites will require you to purchase a membership, or only show you limited details, Yahoo Finance is thorough and is an ideal place for beginners to view stock market tickers. With both delayed an real-time quotes, Yahoo is an ideal place to begin if you’d like to begin investing during the recent market tumble. As a reminder, the stock market will recover, and many stocks have already begun to rally after the initial dip about a month ago.

Next on the list is Google Finance, and frankly, if you’re willing to invest, you may want to instead stick with Yahoo for some better personal finance management tools. Google has similar information as Yahoo, so if you’re used to using Google as your default search engine, reaching for it’s financial pages may feel like second nature. If that’s the case, go for it, but simply be aware that Yahoo does offer slightly more thorough information concerning stocks.

Researching Terms

If what you need is basic terminology, you can’t go wrong with Investopedia. Think of Investopedia as the go-to for listening to earning calls as a beginner stock market investor. One of the key ways to really learn about stock investing is to mark when various earning calls are going to be broadcast, and then listen to them with Investopedia open so that you can quickly search terms you aren’t fully knowledgeable about.

There’s no need to use Investopedia for any stock market tickers or direct investing, but if you need to learn the ins-and-outs of investing, this is your ideal website. The more knowledgeable you become, the better choices you’ll make when purchasing stocks.

Investing Websites

If you are new to investing, you want a user interface (UI) that is super user-friendly, since it can be nerve-wracking to invest in stocks without having a financial advisor do it for you. Robinhood is hands-down the most attractive from a UI of any investing application or website. However, it should be noted that over the past several months, Robinhood has had some major outages on incredibly important days that have impacted users. On the other hand, it’s also relatively affordable to invest via Robinhood in comparison to other options if you are only looking to purchase small amounts of stock.

Another key factor to consider is that Robinhood just raised a series F round for $280 million, so they are here to stay. Ideally, that investor money will help to smooth out any outages they have in the future and continue improving the user experience.

Researching stocks is vital

If you need help with understanding how to research specific individual stocks, your best bet is to head towards the blog called Modest Money’s Stock Wizard. This can help point you in the right direction if you’re unsure of when to invest in a specific stock, or how to go about knowing which stock is ideal for you.

Staying the course

If you’re interested in investing, this really is a great time to get involved in the stock market. Many stocks that were outrageously expensive six months ago are frankly quite downright affordable now. It’s important to remember that while there will always be bubbles and crashes in the stock market, stocks are invested for the long term, not the short term. Purchasing the right stocks now can pay off in huge ways in several years.