[Packerfan1]

Scotty:

As a 36 year old with a lot of financial planning backround, but just started trying out swing trading (journal coming), I'll give my 2cents.

First: Good for you for thinking ahead and trying hard to get a "head start" on something you think you'd enjoy.

Now, reality time. I just starting swing trading this past week. These are stocks I want to get in and out of in 1 day to a week or two with a 2-3% target gain. I started with about $7500 (a very small % of net worth) and with a margin account have 2x that ($15K) in buying power. This gives me enough for about 4-5 stocks at any one time. Thats not a lot and is 50x what you can "try" with right now. AND if you get flagged as a daytrader (4 daytrades in 5 days) the SEC requires a MINIMUM $25,000 account. Many brokers will have a $2000 minimum to even open an account. So, here's what I'd suggest.

1. Take $100 of the money and buy the best books in the particular area you're interested in. Whether its daytrading, swingtrading, options, futures. Whatever you think is cool / interesting.

2. Learn from the web. Investopedia.com, Teenanalyst.com, heck just do a search for the area you're into.

3. Trade on paper for the next year using a realistic starting amount.. say $10K, or $25K. Better yet, challenge a buddy that you can beat them. Bet him $100 for the year. That'll pay for the books that helped you win. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

4. Build your financial base over the next 5 years. This includes having 2 mos pay in SAVINGS before even thinking about investing. All I ever know about is poker and money and IM just starting messing with individual stocks now that I'm set with my "long" investments using mutual funds.

Hope that helps.

Pack.

PS- If thats more answer than you were really looking for, I've heard that you can buy low volumes of stock at sharebuilder.com. and what ever you do, don't pursue penny stocks just because you've got pennies to invest. Good luck.