There are many great sites to help you start to make money investing online. Today, more than ever, many investors are turning to the internet to help them invest and achieve financial freedom. Unfortunately, with online investing also come some potential pitfalls. Here are some tips to help you avoid the traps that many investors have fallen into when trying to make money by investing online. First of all, the number one thing you must realize is that, when investing online, it can be very tempting to fall into the trap of active trading. This simply means making many transactions as your stock price either rises or falls. The reason this is so tempting is that it is very easy to get on the internet and see instantly how your stock is doing. If it’s going up, then it can make selling it a tempting proposition. However, if it is falling, you might panic and sell it. Of course, stock brokers love this, because they make a percentage every time you invest through them. Therefore, you lose a certain percentage of every investment (usually 1 to 2%) just on the transaction alone. This can make turning a profit when investing online very challenging from the get go. Also, whenever you buy a stock for the short term, you generally have to disregard the company, because the market short term doesn’t value a company according to its’ profits; only how most investors feel about the stock. Therefore, if everybody jumps aboard and buys a certain stock at once, it won’t matter how the company is doing; the stock price will go up. However, long term the market always values a company according to its’ actual profits. In reality, while some investors have made a fortune guessing the wild swings of the market, just about everybody loses in this game long term. This way of investing online is akin to gambling; it can be lucrative short term, but long term you almost always lose. Therefore, if you do plan on entering the exciting world of investing, don’t put your money into a stock unless you are confident of its’ long term potential. No, this way may not be as exciting as active trading, but long term it will be much more profitable. This is the best way to make money investing online