I've been trading in the stockmarket for twenty years, the past five from the comfort of my living room. Online trading to be exact. Online trading has been profitable for me and for the most part quite exciting.

The most important thing to consider when starting in this field is which site to use. Here are a few factors I think about and which you should consider also. The first of these is the commission that is charged. This is a fee which is applied to each transaction and although charges overall have been falling the past few years there are a wide range of prices.

Some sites may charge a fee for charts and quotes you'll need to make your trading decisions but the better sites provide this information free of charge. Just be aware that this information brings no guarantees and does not tell you what you should do. What you get is the data and information to help you make decisions that turn out well in the long run.

Besides buying or selling stocks and awaiting the results of your decisions you'll find over time that online trading is a great educational experience. As you do your research into stocks and the companies behind them, you'll learn a great deal about the marketplace and the financial world and may in time gain significant expertise in one or more sectors of the marketplace. This expertise can help you succeed in the long run.

You may well share my experience, finding online trading to be both challenging and at times fun and almost always enjoyable. If you're willing to work at it and find online trading appealing, you may have found a career choice that's a perfect match for you.

Don't expect to get rich quick and be prepared for the inevitable disappointments. But if you stick to it and do your homework you'll experience, as I did, some very exciting and rewarding moments. In one case I picked a stock prior to it's IPO and then watched my investment multiply ten-fold in fifteen minutes. I took those profits and invested them in some emerging market securities and over a longer period of time witnessed similar growth. I then took those profits and put them into government bonds for safe keeping. And I did this all from my living room!

It's to your advantage though to keep a cool head. Don't get too excited when great things are happening or overly depressed when things seem to be heading downward. Either emotion can work against you. Certainly you should enjoy the good times and you'll want to persevere and work through the tougher times. You just don't want emotion to guide your decision making

One of the cardinal sins in investing in the market is that of falling in love with your investments. There will almost always come a time when it is best to sell a given stock yet many will hold on to it if it starts going bad, refusing to cut their losses or refusing to bail out of what is fast becoming a train wreck. I hope you will take some of these observations to heart as you embark upon your online trading career and I wish you well.

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