first of all, how old are you? and how much money to you have set aside to invest? i'm not talking about how much you have in your bank account that you need for regular expenses, but like how much specifically saved for investing do you have?
my guess is none.
no offense to you or to your mom, but it sounds like she's got bad advice for you. If you don't know what you're doing, you have no business investing in individual stocks, that's for sure. if you have extra money saved specifically for investing it, you'd be best off contacting T.Rowe Price of Fidelity and talking to them about "no-load mutual funds". Mutual funds with no broker fee to get into, mutual funds that are very conservative to start with, and that have a low minimum investment, as in $250 or $500 minimum and start that small.
If you don't know what a mutual fund is, it's essentially like a shopping basket of goods, but the goods are stocks of different companies. By having your money spread across multiple stocks and industries (i.e. technology sector, pharmaceuticals, industrials, consumer goods, etc.) you lessen the risk that your overall investment will severely decrease in value if one of those stocks/companies happens to not do well. It's call diversification.
anyway, give us some info. and if you want my credentials so you know i'm not a 13 year half wit.... I'm 24, i went to CU for finance, and just recently finished working for Wells Fargo as a financial advisor. Licensed broker, licensed investment advisor. No claim, just who i am. Now then, how old are you and how much are you considering investing?
