I like the idea of sticking to purchases where your commission makes up 2% or less of your purchase.  At TK, that means an order of $250 or more.  Most stocks give moderate gains, so if you were to get into a stock and get out with an 8% gain you would have paid out 2% (to buy) and then large a percentage of your gains to sell.  Remember, you haven't made any money until the stock is sold and you must account that sell-side commission.  Over the longer term, the commision eats less of your profit (provided your equity goes up), so on a multi-year horizon more than 2% might not be as painful.

Consider a purchase that uses exactly $200.  You first subtract your commission, 4.95 and then gain 8% on the difference over a twelve month period (I don't think this is particularly low in the current market).  You make $10.65 on your $200 before you subtract your $4.95 sell-side commission.  The above scenario slightly underperforms a 3% yield money-market account and you incur far more risk for that "reward". Of course, if you compounded that same 8% over several years, you would be looking at much healthier gains vs said money market account.

I don't want to recommend any stocks, but I would suggest you look into ETFs if you just want to get your feet wet and have a solid investment.  It's much easier to diversify (something that you basically cannot do with very little money and individual stocks) and you have a good opportunity for making money over the long term.  Of course, if you're just interested in speculating, ETFs might not be the "fast money" you're after.  

Those are just my thoughts, hope it helps. 

I'm new too and maybe you can learn from my mistakes.  I'm trying to swing trade but would be a little tuff on 200.  I look for stocks trading sideways or up with a big daily swing.  Look to buy at just above the suppport and sell just below the resistance.  The mistakes I've made is to buy on good news.  Stock goes up fast I wanna part of that buy in and it pulls back and i loose money.  I lost by buying and found out there was a down grade from and analyst and lost.  So look at all the news before buying.  I've done really good trading TGC.  I found in using a stock screener.  Day traders did a number on it today but if you watch it and buy on a dip I really think it may do well in the near future.  The PE is well below a lot of the oil companies.  Some say it will dip to 2.20 but I don't think so.  I think I would just watch it for a while and see how it goes.  I do own a bit of it currently.  Didn't pay attention and set a limit buy 1.00 higher than intended once and bought higher than I intended so be carefull and review you orders.  Actually I made a litte money on that one.  I lost money every time I impulse buy on some stock everyone is talking about.  Don't forget they charge .01 per share for stocks under 2.00.  You have to buy a stock that will go up at least 4.95% just to cover commissions.  Buy cost 4.95 plus sell cost 4.95 = 9.90.  $200 x 4.95% = 9.90.  Good luck!  OK I own TGC (wait and see what it does for a few days) and HYGS (impulse buy will probably loose)! 

If you're new to the market, I think the best thing you could do is papertrade until you start getting a good handle on when to enter and exit a trade. The only problem with paper trading is you don't feel the true emotion/stress sometimes when you lose white paper compared to green paper. And during the time you take paper trading, you can do weekly or monthly deposits until you can build your capital up a little more. If you did want to jump right in though, I would suggest options because you have more leverage of a stock without putting up as much money.

Another thought is to find a site that shows you sector trading.  This will give you an idea which sectors are performing well and which are not.  Each sector will show a list of companies and how well they are performing.  You still have to do your homework on one you might pick.  As already suggested, remember the $9.00 it will cost when trading.  Your personality plays a big part.  If your a laid back type you don't mind watching a stock for a while. Also, watch out for all the e-mail you get that will tell you the "next big winner".

Hi Dave - have a look over the fee schedule and FAQ sections under "Welcome" on the site.  Most or all of your questions will be answered there.  If you still can't find the answers you need, try posting a new thread with your questions so that posts in the thread will be relevent to the topic of interest.