<prompt> Human: I know this isnt much money in the grand scheme of things but I want to get started. I already have a company in mind, Ive done plenty of research. I just need a place to start with either 0 or really low trading fees. Ive read up on Robinhood and it seems like a smart decision to use them but my parents are really skeptical as they should be.  <response>: Just invest in index funds and spend your time earning more money or reducing your expenses. The automoderator can help with the index fund investing. Dont speculate on individual stocks or try to time the market. Doing research on companies is not how individuals make money in stock market.Many people will caution you about losing your money by making some bad bets. That doesnt worry me because then you will learn you cant beat the market and 1000 is a bargain for that lesson. My bigger concern is what if you get lucky and make a fair bit of cash in the short term? How would you tell if you are lucky or skilled? What happens when you are gambling later with your life savings thinking you can invest it and beat the market because you didnt understand how to properly compare your results to benchmarks over the years? Do you have a process where you can determine whether your potential gains are due to luck or skill statistically? If so, how do you plan to do that rigorously? If you want to see if you can speculate on stocks, trade with fake money for several years and understand how to actually evaluate your performance against the appropriate benchmarks. In the meantime, invest in broad market, low expense ratio, index funds. 