<prompt> Human: So she has a fidelity account set up for stocks, I dont know what exactly, but she says I cant look at it because her information or something is on there also. When I was younger I had an interest when she set up the account was shut down when I was 3 for private reasons. My interest in investing has always gone up and down, down when im doing normal kid stuff and up when I go onto cnbc bored out of my mind during summer vacation and seeing cramer or something about money on. Today my friend just had her birthday 18th, and she said shes opening up a stock trading account. Its not out of jealousy or anything like that but that did sorta just push me over the edge of oh I should open one.So the question is what are my steps, what am I doing exactly. This is the deep end of the pool for me. What are the terms, companies, trading options, everything. I do know the company symbols such as F for ford, BAC for Bank of America what that stands for. If you have any questions please by all means ask. edit: Still in highschool, about to start final semster and then graduate, work a job, make between 800-1200 a month.  <response>: Take 5000 to 10,000 dollars. Put it in a Vanguard index fund or three. Dont take money out, keep adding to it for about 30 years.Thats pretty much all you need. 