How do I start investing in stocks?

Honestly, the hardest part is that there are too many ways to begin, so people freeze. Here is the short version that works for almost everyone: open an account at a large online broker, move over a small amount of money, and buy one broad, low-cost index fund. That is it. You are now an investor, and you can figure out individual stocks later if you ever want to.

Opening the account takes about fifteen minutes. You will need your Social Security number, an ID and a bank account to link. Pick a broker with no account minimum and no commission on stock trades, which today describes most of the big names. There is no prize for choosing the perfect one; they are all more alike than different.

The first purchase matters less than the habit. Set up an automatic transfer, even $50 a month, and buy the same fund each time. Ten years from now, the fact that you started in a slightly bad month will be invisible. The fact that you kept going will be the whole story.

One thing to skip: the urge to research for months before putting in a dollar. You will learn more from watching $200 rise and fall than from reading a shelf of books, and the amount is small enough that mistakes are cheap.