How do I start investing?

Myth: A common myth when it comes to investing is that one needs to be rich, to be rich.

Premise 1: Rich people have more money (say $1M), so each time they invest, they earn a lot ($50k).

Premise 2: I don't have as much money as them (say $1k), so each time I invest, I earn very little ($50)

Conclusion: Therefore, I will not be able to become as rich as them.

Fact: Assuming you invest in the same stock as the rich person you are comparing with, you will get the same yield. In this example, we used 5% yield for illustration purposes. In terms of yield, you had made as good an investment as the rich person. Everybody starts somewhere, and little by little we will get there.

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Myth: $50 is too little and not worth my time, so I can't be bothered to invest $1k. I will invest when I have $10k.

Premise 1: The stocks that have good 5% yields are beyond my reach ($10k/lot).

Premise 2: I need to spend hours researching what to buy with $1k to get $50 which is not guaranteed.

Conclusion: Therefore, I will not bother to buy the penny stocks.

Fact: Everybody starts by learning baby steps. Starting with the lower-priced stocks also mean that any losses incurred would be lower in absolute terms. When you invest $1k, a 5% loss in capital is $50, whereas a 5% loss on a capital of $10k is $500. You lose more when you invest more, so start small to lose less, and most importantly, learn from these less expensive experiences.

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Myth: Rich people pay wealth managers to manage their money to become rich.

Premise 1: Rich people pay wealth managers to help them invest.

Premise 2: Rich people are rich through these investments.

Conclusion: Therefore, I should trust wealth managers because they know how to make money for their rich clients. Wealth managers should know more than me about investment because they invest for a living.

Fact: Wealth managers earn a living out of investors who are willing to pay 1-1.5% of management fees. Rich people probably earn more elsewhere than investing the money themselves, so they pay people to do the investing (which entails research, reading, calculating, monitoring prices, submitting orders, paying for orders, etc.) The rich people can afford it, but can you?

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How do I start investing?

1. Decide on a fixed amount to set aside monthly and don't touch it. Schedule an automatic monthly fund transfer to another bank account and don't check on it until 6 months later. It's fine if the interest rates are low. It's really fine. You will lose more by spending it.
2. Prepare for your first purchase by creating your CDP account and brokerage account. 
3. Start reading up about how to read financial reports if you don't have a finance background.
4. Read about Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). You can google for "singapore ipos" and read blogs to learn how people assess these stocks. These are the easiest to understand because the share prices are offered at fair values and purchase transaction fee is just $2. When you ballot, you will unlikely be fully alloted. There was a freak case of full allotment from EMAS Offshore Limited, and it is the one and only case I had noticed in the past 14 years of my investment journey.
5. Add some stocks to your brokerage account watchlist to monitor how buy and sell queues work. Learn how to read the time and sale charts, historical charts, and observe correlation patterns between price and volume, and price versus Straits Times Index (STI).
6. Set a target buy, sell, cut-loss price for the stocks you intend to buy, and re-adjust your valuation of the stock throughout the monitoring period.

Open your piggy bank after 6 months of studying and spend 50% of it to buy your favourite stock at your target price. Keep the other 50% as your opportunity fund (buy when the market crashes, which can happen anytime and you will never be able to time it).