Want to make the first step

Can someone give some tips here. Iam looking to trade and just need to take the first step. But which way. When you are working with charting software, how much of the day does it take up? Iam not looking to trade for a living but am willing to spend an hour or so a day. US stocks are highly liquid and so I guess the monitoring would need to be more regular?.

How much background research do you do when picking the stock to start with? PE ratios etc. or do you just pick on an up trend? listening for resistance etc

So much information compounded with "no right way or wrong way"...I would really appreciate some advice from you veterans

Can anyone recommend any good practical books. Ive read a couple but they tend to just outline the general approach.

Cheers

Simon

Simonb
There is really no real answer to your question. It all depends on the type of trading you want to do.
It sounds as if you want to trade EOD (end of day) but over what time frame, long term short term? Also as regards to using technical analysis or fundamental data, I happen to use both but my main stock picking is to visually scan the charts (I trade the FTSE 100) and look for charts that I like the look of and then whittle them down from there.
TA is my main tool but I usually look at the company fundamentals as well. one of the other thing I look for is how the sector is performing against the FTSE, finally I wait for an entry signal check for any news on the company that might effect my decision (x div dates. bad press, etc) work out my stop loss and pull the trigger. there is a lot more than I have mentioned above but in general that is how I find trades.
I also suggest you read the thread on beginning to trade.
Hope that Helps
Regards Dave

just one other thing I would like to add and its been aired many times on all trading BBs Stop loss the reason I am mentioning it again here is that yesterday the FTSE went down by about 2 percentage points and very nearly stopped me out of a couple of trades. It could be said and I have heard it all before, that as the whole market as dropped will ignore my stop loss as it is not just my share that has fallen but the market as a whole. A stop loss is a stop loss is a stop loss. It is proberbly the biggest mistake you will ever make . Ignore it at your peril.
Dave

Hi Simon

Welcome to T2W

The best place to start is to work your way through the threads and links on T2W First Steps Guide. There is a lot of very good and useful information there

A great way to start is to play the spread bet simulator . There is a free one on the City Index site. When you are making consistant profits then have a go for real.
GOOD luck

There's also the facility to run a dummy shares account on T2W - a virtual £50,000 in your account which is reset to zero every month. So you can buy and sell UK stocks to build up your skill levels. As you're a beginner, your objective should be not to lose any money, but that will be easier said than done. Anyway, it's free and fun:

http://www.trade2win.co.uk/competition/

Haven't been able to reply sooner than I would have liked to.Thanks guys for all your comments