One of the best ways to gain more confidence as an investor is to practice with play money. There are several stock simulators online that you can sign up for with just an e-mail address without having to share any personal information. Once signed up, you can practice buying and selling stock.  Make sure that you pay attention to the movement of the stocks to learn more about the market movements so that you can feel more confident about investing when you decide to open a real investing account.

 

There are several aspects of investing that you should pay attention to and make notes about when using a stock simulator. While investing you should:

-Take notes on why you decided to buy the stocks.

-Take notes on why you decided to sell the stocks.

-Determine what factors and forces might have impacted your stock(s) on a certain day. (Remember, sometimes movement in the market cannot be completely understood.)

 

By taking notes on why you bought and sold the stocks you can become more aware of the thought process that you used to make investing decisions. It is important to learn lessons from these decisions. For example, you might realize that purchasing a stock based on the recommendation of a friend was not the best decision. Make sure to keep these notes so you refer to them for future buying and selling decisions as lessons learned from the past can help you invest more confidently.

 

You can also become a more confident investor by learning what can impact your stocks. If you notice that a stock has lost value, you can often find news stories that will speculate as to why. For example, a stock might lose value because of lower earnings compared to Wall Street estimates, among other reasons. Over time, you will be able to learn just what types of factors and forces can impact the value of your stocks which can help you become more confident investing.