Online trading platforms- what’s best for beginners?

[Noflukeforthenuke]

My DC (13) wants to start some online stock trading.

I know very little about it. Can anyone advise on best apps to use and where we can find resources to learn about it? Anyone know of a ‘how to’ guide for beginners?

DC will be making small trades ( I’m supervising, and will give a small amount of funds for them to trade with to practice).

I've found Etoro quite good, there are some helpful bits of info on there too

Thanks @Hayley1256 . Do you mind if I ask if you’ve put in a lot of work into learning about how it all works? Or do you just invest in safe bets?

Not really, I have some past work experience though. There are people on etoro whose trades you can copy and there a lots of you tube videos you can watch too. Keeping up with current events across the globe can also help. I started low with Etoro and find it quite fun but it can be risky and you have to not check it constantly.

EToro you have to 18 or over

For a child I would suggest investing in

https://www.gov.uk/junior-individual-savings-accounts

Also

NS& I
Premium Bonds
All winnings are tax free

I would suggest looking at

Benefits of compound interest
Long term savings
Risk
ISAs versus pensions
Cash & stocks & shares ISAs
Taxes
Spreading risk & not putting all your eggs into one basket

Money Saving Expert website

Money & Business sections on BBC, The Guardian etc

rather than trading with money, which they couldn’t do on their own account anyway with how old they are it would have to be yours, set up a paper trading account for them, they can trade and learn without any actual monetary loss. Trafing212 have paper trading option and obviously you would have to be the account holder.

Regular child savings account

My niece got into it at 13 too, and we set her up on Interactive Brokers. It was a bit much at first, so she tracked stocks on paper for a while before using real money. Helped her see how things move without losing cash right away. That’s so cool your DC wants to start trading. Investopedia is solid for learning, and we found some decent YouTube videos too. Biggest thing was making rules—like no buying just because something’s “going to the moon” and actually researching first. She’s made some wins, some losses, but it’s been fun watching her figure it out. Your DC will probably pick it up fast—kids seem to get this stuff way quicker than us.

Thanks for this- sounds exactly what I was looking for. Don’t want to be getting him investing loads of money.

but to understand how stocks work. It should hopefully make him research a bit about companies and see how world events affect markets. Think it’s a great thing for kids to learn about. The possibility of earning money should gamify for him too!