I'm wanting to get started on investing. I know what I want to try investing in, and have been doing quite a bit of research on it. The thing that I'm a bit confused about are the apps used to buy and sell stock.
From what I've been able to find, the two biggest apps for doing so are Robinhood and Fidelity. You link a bank account to the app of your choice, and then just directly buy stocks with the money coming out of your bank account? Or do you need to transfer money from your account to the account on the app before you can buy stock, and then transfer the money again from the app to your account when you're at a point that you want to pull money out of your investments?
What about dividends, how do they work in this situation? I buy stock using the app, and when it comes time to receive dividend payments, do they go directly to my bank account that's connected, or do they go to an in-app account and I have to transfer the money to my actual bank account?
I had wanted to try playing around with cryptocurrency a couple years back to see how that all worked. Fortunately, I followed the rule of not using money you can't afford to use, it was just a little bit to see what kind of things happened. I found out the hard way about some coins needing to exchange through Etherium rather than work with directly, and the absurd exchange rates, and at the point I gave up and decided I had enough, I'm pretty sure I've still technically got money floating around random places with no interest in hunting it down and trying to get it back. I want to make sure I'm fully aware of how my money will be handled this time around, especially since this time I want to invest money seriously. (Still not spending what I can't afford, but this time with actual intention to eventually retire in my old age.)
From what I've been able to find, the two biggest apps for doing so are Robinhood and Fidelity. You link a bank account to the app of your choice, and then just directly buy stocks with the money coming out of your bank account? Or do you need to transfer money from your account to the account on the app before you can buy stock, and then transfer the money again from the app to your account when you're at a point that you want to pull money out of your investments?
What about dividends, how do they work in this situation? I buy stock using the app, and when it comes time to receive dividend payments, do they go directly to my bank account that's connected, or do they go to an in-app account and I have to transfer the money to my actual bank account?
I had wanted to try playing around with cryptocurrency a couple years back to see how that all worked. Fortunately, I followed the rule of not using money you can't afford to use, it was just a little bit to see what kind of things happened. I found out the hard way about some coins needing to exchange through Etherium rather than work with directly, and the absurd exchange rates, and at the point I gave up and decided I had enough, I'm pretty sure I've still technically got money floating around random places with no interest in hunting it down and trying to get it back. I want to make sure I'm fully aware of how my money will be handled this time around, especially since this time I want to invest money seriously. (Still not spending what I can't afford, but this time with actual intention to eventually retire in my old age.)
