So years later and I'm only sort of doing this. Of course the recent publicity of "retail trading" brought it back to mind.
I started back a few years ago getting started using my bank to buy Apple stocks. That was pretty painless and only bought 4 shares. That is an unrealized gain as of now as most of you could imagine.
The second stock I bought turned out to be a penny stock. I know the company and wanted stock in it. I didn't go overboard or anything but bought in at $.67 and it is now at $2.40. I'm not planning to sell anytime soon and even when I do I'll likely be able to buy a mini for the gains. It was really my first trade in something that falls into penny stocks. I used my bank again and that is where I learned I had to set a limit so I didn't get sold stocks at prices that were not acceptable.
The third stock I bought was a penny stock again but this time it was to try out a new app. The app was easy to follow and I put $40 into the stock. Basically it was money I was willing to throw out the window with the chance that it would go up. So far it hasn't and I'm ok with it. I'm playing with features of the app (Schwab) this time rather than the goal of making money. I'm not doing anything outlandish but more the automated trading features.
One suggestion I was given upthread was to trade on paper before putting real money in it. I have done that a number of times and generally ended up with a gain. Of course, this isn't always the case, but certainly nice to feel like I would have made money. Until I get a real handle on the business world I'll hold off on making any future trades that would be a loss I'm not willing to make.
When I started this thread times were different. Good and inexpensive brokers were hard to get and for a "retails trade" to happen was expensive and difficult. Now with so many apps it changed the game drastically. I mean, it is free to trade with Schwab and was with my bank until they moved us to Schwab. We also have so much realtime data at our fingertips now. I've got a terminal window open now with my stocks pretty much non-stop now.
Ticker is a cool and relatively easy to install app. Apple Stocks app falls behind when it comes to watching "realtime".