Decide what action you are interested in companies and stock to buy. First let it be shares of any one company. Open Google Finance or Yahoo! Finance, get out there stock the company you are interested, take a look at what exchange they are traded, what their ticker, how much they cost. For example, if you make a search for shares by name «Microsoft», you will find the company’s shares Microsoft Corporation, which is traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol MSFT and cost at the time of this writing, about $ 24 apiece. At the same time look at trends in the course of the last week, month, three months. Decide on how much investment do you expect: Usually in investment /companies have a certain minimum amount to which the investor is invited to enter the market. Some people firms is $ 2,000, others $ 5,000, the third $ 50,000 or more. It is important to understand that this is not a hard limit, but only they recommendation. On the one hand, they are trying to protect themselves from the very very small clients not to waste them in vain at the time. On the other hand, investors also profitable (in terms of profit margin) to invest more money in stocks, to reduce the percentage of losses in overhead expenses and commissions.