Never take the word of someone else as an investment tip. If someone is giving you the “inside scoop” on a particular stock, you need to make sure for yourself. There are laws against inside trading, so for an average trader or investor to have any good information, it’s highly unlikely.

Never buy all of your shares at once, you should buy into any position incrementally. Stocks rise and fall all the time so to lower your cost basis. Most likely you’ll never be able to buy at the bottom so you need to be prepared to buy more when the price falls. Typically I wait for an 8% pull back from the stock’s recent high or 5%-8% drop from my cost basis before buying any more shares.

If you’re still looking for good solid reliable information, but not sure where to go. I use Yahoo Finance as well as The Street.com. Jim Cramer has been a never-ending resource of good stock leads for me. Not only is he entertaining, but very well aware of the stock market. I listen to his “suggestions” on what stocks or sectors are looking good, but I still don’t buy into the company because he thinks it’s good. I do my own research into the company to see what he sees or doesn’t see.

Diversifying your portfolio is very important if you want to protect your you profits or minimize your losses. If you go ahead and invest of your money into one company or sector, you could lose a big portion of you portfolio in the process. As I said before, all stocks rise and fall and that also goes for complete sector at times. That is why you need to invest across the board (equities, bonds, precious metal and other commodities). Divide your investments into several different vehicles, typically no more than 20% into any one sector or stock.

Look for companies that offer dividends, larger companies are the ones to look towards. Dividends are a return of the company’s profits that are distributed among the share holders. Let’s say the company’s stock is $20 per share and they have a 10% annual dividend. Each year you would receive $2 per share (paid quarterly) for just own the stock no matter what the stock price is. So even if the company loses 5% value on the stock price, you’ve still made 5% on your investment.

In later posts, I will offer other stock tips that will also help increase you gains.

Where to go to get good information? Well that could be anywhere. I’ve learned to take information from all sources to assist me and my trades. The one thing to keep in mind is to make sure you follow up on the information to assure that it’s correct and valid. There are more mistakes made in the stock market than there are not. Traders and Investors make mistakes everyday and that’s just the way it is. To help limit your mistakes, you need to do your own research and due diligence before you invest.

Getting stock tips are not the only information you should be looking at when it comes to buying and selling stocks or investing your hard earned money. What about the condition of the economy? Is it stable? See what’s going on in Washington. If the U.S. Treasury is printing out money like it’s going out of style, then realize that the dollar isn’t worth what it was before the increase of currency. Unemployment plays a major role in the condition of the markets and when you see the unemployment rate climbing, then it’s going to push the overall markets down.

What about the new tax laws (or the end of old tax breaks) that will effect your gains? In 2011, the Bush tax credits will come to an end and traders as well as investors are going to pay more in capitol gains taxes. The will be increases across the board when it comes to investment taxes. There will also be increases on dividends.

Have you given any thought about investing in precious metals? Gold, silver and platinum are a good way to hedge against the falling dollar. No matter what happens to our currency (or any other), gold will always be the investment of choice when the economy is getting worse. Gold has been a great investment during those times of trouble.

Just remember that looking for stock market information, you need to look further than just a bunch of stock tips.

First thing you have to ask yourself is, how old are you? Depending on your age will determine what kind of risk you should take. Starting young in your financial future is the best thing you can do to secure your later years. If you’re in your twenties then you can take a little more risk than a person in their forties. If you experience a setback in your portfolio, you’re have time to make it up.

What about if you’re going to retire in just a few short years? You need to start moving your retirement account into “safer” investment. When you reach the time where you are soon to be retired, you should have built a decent looking portfolio, so you’ll want to secure what you have than risk a good chunk of it if something goes wrong.

Where can you go to find reliable stock tips? In my opinion, you should only trust yourself and the research you do on each of the stocks you are going to invest in. I find many of my leads by just following the daily blogs and media sites. I’ve found some great leads on twitter and Facebook as well, but just because someone gives me a “good stock tip” doesn’t mean I just jump into the stock. I follow up on each of these leads myself by looking into the company’s financial reports and balance sheets as well as listening to their conference calls and earnings report. More times than not, you’ll receive some bad tip and lose a bunch of money in the process.

Learn how to read the technical charts as well. Many traders and investors learn to do technical analysis. Technical analysis is looking at a stocks performance by studying the charts. history repeats itself and that holds true in the stock market as well. It’s too much for me to get into here in this post, but I will in a later one.

Never buy all your shares at once. when you decide to build a position in a company, you need to do it incrementally. This way when the stock price drops, you can buy more on the temporary weakness of it. This will help reduce your cost basis and increase profits.

One of the key thing you need to know before you start trading stocks is that you need to do research on each of the companies that you want to invest in. You can’t just say I like a particular stock and buy shares of the company. You have to know if the company is doing the right thing and making a profit. Is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) a successful businessman? Does he have what it takes to make the right call for the benefit of the company and it’s shareholders? Is the industry that the company in on an upswing or head in a downward motion? A company can be doing the right thing, but if the industry and it’s competitors have a bumpy road ahead of them because of the economy, it’s most likely that they may suffer along with the rest of them. Of course that is not the case all the time, but it can play into the price of the company’s stock.

When you go to build a position in the company, you must do it incrementally. You have to figure out how much you are going to invest in the company (usually no more than 20% of your portfolio). Buy 20% first just in case the stock pulls back a little. After a healthy pull back (typically 5-8%) you invest another 30-50% of your total investment in the company. if it continues to pull back, well then you buy the remaining shares to help lower your cost basis ( average price per share).

Another Stock market basic you need to realize is that there is no sure thing as a good stock tip. If anyone has inside information on a certain stock, they wouldn’t be telling you. It’s against the Security Exchange Commission law to divulge any information that could give anyone a leg up on the other investors. Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading within her own company.

In future posts I will list a few other stock investing basics to help you get better and to make more money in the stock market.

It’s the same way with these websites that seem to be popping up on what seems to be a daily basis. With the overall market being down so much from it’s high in 2007, there are many traders out there that are trying to make their money back by starting these subscription base websites. In doing so they not only make money on the website’s traffic, but also in the stock that they are pumping at any given moment.

I’m not saying that every site out there is doing this type of shady practice, but I know that there are quite a few out there. You as an investor/trader need to take responsibility of your portfolio and your actions instead of expecting someone else’s decisions to make your stock purchases. Yes, it’s a lot more work for you to research stocks and to do your due diligence on a daily/weekly basis, but at least you know where your money is and who it’s invested with.

No matter who you may open an account with for your online stock trading, you need to use the tools and other resources that the site provides to really know who you should and shouldn’t be investing in. You should also use other sites to affirm your research. Don’t ever rely on one site to do all your research on. Some sites will list things different than others and in some cases, you’ll find information on one site that you couldn’t find on the others. Remember, knowledge is power and someone else’s knowledge will only take you so far.

1. EMOTIONS- If you involve your emotions into trading stocks, it will impair your judgment as well as cause you to over-react in your trades. You do not buy a stock because it has a sentimental meaning to you. If a stock that you like is going up in value, don’t worry about not getting in on the gains and jump into it after it’s gone up 5% or better (it will come back to you in time). If you see that the stock you bought is losing value, don’t instantly panic and dump you shares (it may be temporary).

2. RESEARCH- Like I said before, don’t just buy a stock for a emotional attachment to it. The only reason you get into a company’s stock is that you did the research and the company has strong fundamentals. You need to look into the company very closely before making a decision on if it’s a good investment.

3. ADVICE (TIPS)- Don’t just take the advice of someone who says he/she has a great stock tip. There is no such thing as a great tip. If the person tells you that they received a HOT tip on a particular stock and say that you need to get in on it. Don’t do it until you do your research on the company to confirm what the person said is true. If you think he has information that you are not privileged to, don’t think that since if he did have inside information and shared it, it would be legal and both of you would be in a heap of trouble.

4. BUY INCREMENTALLY-Never buy into company all at once. When you do buy all at once and the stock loses value by 3%-8% you won’t have any capital to buy any more and reduce your cost basis.

I know that these tips will help you as you trade stocks. They have helped me many times over the years.