HOW TO BUY SNAPCHAT STOCK

Snapchat is one of the most recent social media sites that have exploded into favor with the younger generations. What makes the site unique is that any message or picture that is sent from person to person disappears after a set number of seconds determined by the sender.

As you might expect, this has led to the proliferation of racy and questionable content being sent by teens to one another along with outrage from parents. Because images are soon deleted after they are sent, young kids feel like they can send selfies of themselves that are inappropriate and say things they might not otherwise say. Snapchat has gotten a lot of publicity due to the fact that many believe such a site is extremely harmful to kids who don't fully understand that the images and messages they send can be screen captured and then circulated around the Internet.

2015 may be the year that Snapchat decides to go public but it may not happen until 2016 or 2017. At this time (early 2015) there is no indication that the company has any plans to have an IPO anytime soon.

Snapchat has been able to get enough funding from private investors to let it expand and grow on its own and that means it can take its time and stay private for awhile. Once a company goes public, it is under constant scrutiny and has a lot of rules it must follow. That is why many companies prefer to stay private for as long as possible.

Going public often means big paydays for its owners and investors and that can be one of the reasons for having an IPO. The other is that the company needs additional funding that it can't get on its own. A rapidly expanding business may decide to have an IPO because it needs to tap into an additional source of funds so that it can continue to grow.

Sooner or later, Snapchat will undoubtedly go public, spurred on by investors who want a big payday, the need for more funding, or a combination of the two. Only at that time will you be able to buy Snapchat stock if you are a "regular" investor like I am.

To buy any stock now days, you need to have an online stockbroker account. If and when Snapchat goes public, you will need to have money in an account if you want to buy the stock. Many people procrastinate and never end up opening their first account and thus never end up putting money in stocks at all. That is a big mistake.

There are lots of reputable and reasonably priced brokers such as E*Trade, Schwaab, Scottrade, TradeKing, Optionshouse, and others. Do a simple search to find out what their rates are per stock trade but they should all be under $10 and a few under $5 for each stock buy or sell you make. Pick the one you feel most comfortable with or the one you feel gets the best reviews online. After you put money into your account you will be ready to buy Snapchat stock when the time comes that they go public.

One of the ways people invest is by picking popular companies or the companies that have popular services and products. While that may work sometimes, just because you like a company doesn't necessarily mean that its stock will perform well.

This is something that you have to think about anytime you buy into an IPO stock. Often, the hype will drive the price up so high in the initial weeks that the stock is not a good investment. Additionally, even though the company may be at its height of popularity, it may not be run too well or the future prospects may not be as rosy as the company would like you to believe. The stock may end up doing poorly for many reasons even though the company itself seems to be going along fine.