How To Start Buying Stocks To Build Your Portfolio A stock portfolio simply refers to the stocks that you own. It could be two or three or a hundred, as long as you own it, it’s your stock portfolio. The good thing about having a portfolio is that you can diversify your assets and it can help in achieving more financial security. Now if you want to diversify your portfolio, this means that you need to have a lot of money and thus, higher risk on your part. In this article, we will talk about how to start buying stocks to build your portfolio the easy way. 1. Before you start to buy penny stocks, you have to decide whether you would need a broker or simply trade by yourself. Using a broker to help you how to find stocks means securing a commission based payment. On the other hand, if you are on your own, it means that you will not get any financial advice which is not much of a problem if you know what you are doing. But if you are just starting out, it is better to hire a broker for obvious reasons. 2. If you are a little short on money, you should consider buying directly from the company through a direct purchase plan (DPP). There are companies that will allow you to setup monthly plan that will let you purchase individual shares or a fraction of the shares through a specified monthly fee. 3. When you start building stock portfolio, the best thing to do is to use a folio service. This way, you can start investing on specified stocks in small amounts each month. Although companies set a minimum rule, you can easily invest with as little as $75 each month and before you know it, you already have a portfolio. 4. Another option to have a portfolio is to buy an index. You can use an exchange traded fund which contains a lot of stocks in a single exchange. Although you will not have individual stocks, you will have a portfolio of many different stocks in a single share. 5. Make sure to choose your stocks wisely. Buy stocks from companies whose products you have used. This will help ensure that you are buying stocks from companies with good products. If a company has poor customer service, you better move on. There is no point in letting them get a taste of your dollars. 6. Lastly, you have to diversify your investments. To do this, you have to buy from companies that offers a variety of products in their stocks. Don’t limit yourself with bank stocks or technology stocks because if these things will go down, it will take your money with it. Having a good diversity of stocks will ensure that you will have a backup system in case one type of stock goes down. How to start buying stocks and building a portfolio is not that easy but, its not rocket science either. It’s more advantageous to have a portfolio than to stick with a single stock because in a portfolio, when one kind of stock goes down, you still have a few others to back you up. The same thing cannot be said with a single portfolio. Read our other articles to know about how to trade penny stocks.