Starting to invest? Tips for beginners can help you start to fine-tune your investment strategies and take advantage of stock investment tools.

Everyone has to start somewhere. That old maxim certainly applies to investing or trading in stocks. Do you consider yourself a stock market newcomer? Here's one way to think about stocks for beginners: Don't think of yourself as a beginner at all.

That's because when learning how to trade stocks, you may be your own best research director, money manager, and market expert. Is "now" the time to start trading stocks? Regardless of what the market is doing, it's always a good time to educate yourself about how the stock market works and where potential investing or trading opportunities may exist.

Sound investing, or a trading strategy, generally boils down to the numbers. That means quantifying and weighing how much risk you're taking against potential rewards, understanding what's "expensive" versus "cheap," and other numbers-based assessments.

Math applied to investing or trading is not unlike the due diligence you might do when buying a home or other real estate transaction. By some investors' thinking, if you don't do the math, you're not really investing.