by Owen Jones

Retirement comes with a benefit and a drawback: more time and less money. The discovery of the Internet has brought about many changes in the way we lead our lives -.we can take care of our bills online, go shopping online, do our banking online, and even make a date online!

You can also participate in online stock investing, which I think, could fit in nicely with retirement. Online stock investors like having the ability to look at their online investment accounts whenever they want to, and online stock brokers like having the ability to take orders over the Internet, as opposed to using the telephone.

You could start your retirement investment process by reading the newspapers and watching the news with a view to gleaning information that could benefit a company. Any news items that suggest good news for a company can be followed up by greater research into the company concerned. Most stock brokers and brokerage houses now provide online company research to their customers as well as online stock investing. Another great thing about online stock investing in retirement is that fees and commissions are often lower. While online stock investing is great, there are a few negative aspects too.

So, if you are a novice to investing, having the ability to actually speak with a stock broker can be quite beneficial. If you aren't all that stock market conscious, online stock investing may be a rather risky thing for you to do, although advice from a stock market trader is expensive. If this is the case, make sure that you learn as much as you can about investing in stocks and shares before you start online stock investing. If you are new to online stock investing, make sure that you learn as much as you can about researching companies and investing in stocks and shares before you start to trade online stock for real.

You could control a dummy portfolio. For instance, many online stock brokers offer the chance to run a 'watch list' or dummy portfolio, where you can 'buy and sell' without risking your pension!

You should also remember that not everyone has a computer with Internet access with them all the time, although many mobile phones can get online. So you might not always have the ability to get online to make a trade when you want to. You will need to be sure that you can speak with your broker if you use an online stock broker. This is the case whether you are an advanced stock market trader or a beginner.

It is important too for the retired person to sign up with an online stock broking company that has been in business for a while. Naturally, you won't find one that has been in an online business for 30-50 years, but you can find a company that has been in business that long and that now offers online stock investing.

Sure, online stock investing is a fantastic thing for the retired - but it is not for everyone, the impetuous can lose money quickly. Think long and hard before you decide to go for buying stock online, and make sure that you really know what you are doing!

And so, in summary, pensioners can use their extra free time to investigate the stock market for nothing by finding leads in newspapers, magazines and news items. These leads can then be followed up by doing online research with the help of a free online stock investing account.

These hunches can then be tracked using a dummy or trial portfolio. When you have gained sufficient experience, you can go 'live' by opening an active online stock investing account.

If you want to learn more about online stock investing, please look in the links on the left.