Top products from r/stocks

This is what I tell all beginning investors, also being told this myself as a beginner, but before you find any sort of apps to trade on or taking stock recommendations, you need to figure out what kind of investor you are and develop an investing technique that fits you. What kinds of stock you invest in are mainly determined by how long you want to wait before selling the stock and how urgently you need the money.

Most investors are typically classified as either Defensive or Speculative. Defensive investors are ones who buy stocks in companies that have a long history of slow growth, and are not likely to make big gains quick. These kinds or stocks are the kinds people would invest in for their retirement or educational plans and are either classified as Defensive stocks (slow steady growth) or Income Stocks (stocks that pay out high dividends above the national inflation rate).Stocks like these would belong to companies that sell products that are classified as Essentials such as food, water, or energy.

Speculative investors invest in stocks that they believe are going to grow quick, and are willing to take on major risk in order to potentially see those large gains. These kinds of stocks are classified as Speculative (high growth and risk), Growth Stock (small or start up companies with high risk), or Cyclical (performance fluctuates with the economy in major losses or gains). These kinds of stocks would belong to companies that sell luxury products that may not sell well if demand is not high enough.

What you need to know is what kind of investor you are, and what kinds of returns you want, and how quickly you want them. Once you know that, you can find the right stocks for you. But now is the best time for people like you to be learning about investing, gaining experience, and investing in companies.

Once you know how quickly you want returns, and how much risk you want to take, you can begin to develop an investing technique that suits your comfort zone. This will ensure that you don't get ahead of yourself, and lose all your money in blind foolishness.

If you want an app to practice investing before you do the real thing, Investopedia.com has a great simulator that lets you invest fake money and get accurate feedback of the market. The website also has a wealth of information about every subject you could learn about in regards to the stock market and trading.

Yahoo Finance is one of the best websites I've found for easily accessing the data you need on each stock and getting the best feedback of the current state of the market. You can also easily find stocks with the Yahoo Stock Screener.

If you want a book recomendation, The Intelligent Investor is considered an essential read for anyone who wants to have success, large or small, within the trading market. Warren Buffet, the most successful stock trader in history, said that it is "By far the best book on investing ever written." Here's the amazon page to buy it.

> How do you know what companies to look into purchasing?

You don't always have to look too far. You can get your ideas from anywhere. You could be in a hospital and see that they've purchased new medical equipment. Check out the manufacturer. See if it's publicly traded. Or you can be out at a store, and you overhear customers demanding a certain product but it's always sold out. Find out who's making this stuff. Get the name down.

So, take note of trends. Observe people and their purchasing habits. That will put you ahead of the game, since most people rely on data reports, rather than being on the ground floor, and actually seeing what's going on. But don't forget to evaluate the product personally if you can, or get a face to face review from a friend, or a user.

If the company is producing junk they'll be sure to let you know.

However, if you don't want to do this, you can also use a stock screener. You can filter stocks, and look for bargains by setting the P/E ratio, dividend, market cap, etc. But again make sure the companies you buy into have a good reputation. Reputation is everything these days.

https://www.google.ca/finance/stockscreener

Personally, I like stocks that have a price to earnings of 15 or lower. If you invest in developing foreign markets, like India or China, you'll tend to get an even better bargain. But be suspicious of low p/e ratios. Read their news. See why it happened, and if it's negative, find out whether you think they can recover.

> When you are considering purchasing a share, what should you look for in that company to make an educated purchase?

This can greatly depend on the industry. In the tech industry you'll pay more, because there's a lot of growth. Meanwhile, in say, banking, the ratios will be a lot lower. In general, you'll have to compare a company to its main competitors. See who is in a better position. Go with the #1 guy, the one who is lean, and more efficient. Take a look at their profit margin. Do they make 3% on every dollar they bring in? 4%? Also, you don't want companies which too much debt. That will crush a company.

Again, you have to compare. Each industry is different. Pick a company and compare it to its competitors. See which one is doing better. Read the balance sheet, read the income statements. Look at the charts. Remember, if you're new, you want something stable, something that is continually going up.

Since you're a beginner, I highly recommend practicing with play money before jumping in. Don't be in a rush to invest. Get a feel for the market.

http://www.investopedia.com has a free simulator you can join. Practice there. When you spend enough time looking at stocks, and understanding each point, you will be able to make a better educated guess. I know that sounds like vague advice, but as far as I know, experience is the only way to gain that instinct. But again you don't want to risk losing your money, so a simulator is a good idea.

> When should you sell?

If it goes below a certain percent of your purchase price. Say you bought a stock for $100, and it declined later to $90. That would be a time to sell. But no more than 10%. Like I say, 3.5% to 10% and no more. For me, it's around 5% or so. A big drop tends to indicate further decline.


> How long should you hold a stock for?

That's your personal preference. Honestly, if you get the right company, it could be for your entire life. How long you hold will depend on the shape of the company. Sometimes you get a company, and then it heads for disaster, and you have to sell off. There is no specific period.




If you're interested in picking up a book, check this out:

http://www.amazon.com/Buffettology-Previously-Unexplained-Techniques-Buffett/dp/068484821X

Again, don't take every piece of advice you here. Once when I was 19 years old, I went on a forum, and they talked me out of Apple. That would've been a cool $100,000 in my pocket had I not listened to them. Use your gut. Be skeptical.

The first rule is not to lose any money. Don't take the big risks. Analyze rationally.


More useful links:


http://www.stockta.com/

http://www.fool.com/

Oh, and if you guys want quick, easy money, here's a little trick:

Buy a stock before it splits. If you have a discounter broker, you can sell it off immediately, and pocket the money when the split occurs.

http://biz.yahoo.com/c/s.html

http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/upcoming-splits.aspx

Funny, I just had a conversation with a buddy about this. From 2005-2015 I spent a TON of time in researching and trading FX. Similar to most traders, I blew up a a couple small accounts (~5k total losses) and then spent a few years looking for a holy grail trading strategy. I really enjoyed the challenge of FX because it forces you to be in tune with world economies and interest rates but, even after a decade, I had trouble being consistently profitable (granted I did have some severe periods of trading ADD) During that time however, I did study a lot of technical analysis and became pretty good at very short term price action scalping. My problem was that I could just never reach the point in FX where I felt confident enough to throw money down the gauntlet again, no matter how well I did in paper/demo accounts.

In 2015, after watching some friends making easy money in stocks while I was doing brain surgery on the EUR/USD, I decided I would start spending more time studying stocks and doing some stock demo/paper trading. Turns out it was MUCH easier for me to look at a company's earnings/filings for fundamentals and then read the price action day to day. Maybe also because with FX there are SO many things influencing the direction of the dollar on any given day. For me, it made trading a micro/small cap much easier to read in terms of straight price action/volume. IMO FX is the perfect training ground to build solid TA skills.

It wasn't until May 2018 that I decided I would start trading stocks seriously. Of course, that turned out to be not the best time to start trading stocks! BUT, I think the years I spent in FX helped prevent me from getting into any really bad/overvalued positions. So far I've built up an initial 8.5k into ~103k. A long ways to go toward being a 'pro' but showing consistent profitability (for now at least).

EDIT: Point of clarification regarding my balance, I should note that once I showed some profitability, I began making additional deposits to my account (which now account for an additional 16.5k). I’ve posted screenshots and deposit history here

I consider myself a 'trader' not an 'investor' and I think you can do that with stocks just as easily as you can with FX. You just need to know more about the fundamentals/drivers of price on whichever company you're trading at vs the economic implications on currency. Really just adapting what you know to a different market. Same thing goes for switching to futures/options. When I switched over to stocks, I started with a lot of the value investing classics like The Intelligent Investor and others in the Grahm/Buffet realm, just to get an idea for valuation and long term strategies that have worked for the most successful. Depending on your trading/investing style you can drill down from there.

​

​

I was in your position a couple weeks ago as a beginner, and here are some of the resources I found useful to learning the basics:

• Read all of the basics on the r/personalfinance sidebar, it has some pretty good advice.
  
  
• Read all of the sidebar frequently asked questions on the /r/investing sidebar.
  
  
• Read If You Can by William J Bernstein. Its a short pamphlet with some additional assigned reading found inside that will fit what you’re looking for. (I've personally read the first two 'homework' assignments and they were very good.)
  
  
• Read The Richest Man in Babylon by George S Clason.
  
  
• Read The Little Book on Common Sense Investing by John C Bogle. It's a very well written short book highlighting the power of Index Funds. It's very clearly biased (he was the one who basically invented them and also founded Vanguard), but is absolutely worth the read.
  
  
• Read The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. This can apparently be likened to the Bible of Value Investing. Certainly much longer than all the previous reading, but also worth taking the time to read and learn. I found the additionally commentary chapters by Jason Zweig very helpful.
  
  Im currently reading A Random Walk Down Wallstreet, and it’s definitely very valuable and worth reading. Highly recommend.
  Hopefully this helps and at least gives a starting point.
  
  Good luck!

An hour a day devoted to learning about stocks is a solid plan. I would suggest that the very first book you read be "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham who was Warren Buffetts mentor at Columbia University and taught Buffett how to use the Value Investing approach https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661

This is a dense read and you should approach it as if you were taking a course and studying for a final exam. Get yourself a notebook and write down all of that golden info buried in each chapter. Keep in mind this book was first written in 1949 and the format of it and the financial language may be difficult to get through but take your time, don't rush through it, take notes, highlight paragraphs, and absorb the information you'll be glad you did in the future.

​

Below is essentially a list of things I wish I could have told myself years ago in order to save a lot of heartache and lost money. Hopefully it helps you to avoid a lot of painful lessons that I learned the hard way.

• Study "value investing" in depth. Ignore the people who say Value Investing doesn't work, Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Joel Greenblatt, Peter Lynch, Mario Gabelli, Mohnish Pabrai, etc... have made fortunes buying companies at discounts using the value investing approach.
  
• After reading The Intelligent Investor further educate yourself on value investing by reading about the above investors, some have written book themselves others have had many books written about them. Also checkout r/SecurityAnalysis
  
• As a beginner invest heavily in a broad based index fund that cover the whole S&P500 (VTSAX, SPY, etc...) and only devote a small percentage of your portfolio at first to stocks you've selected until you get your feet wet.
  
• Ignore the financial media at all costs (Mad Money, Fast Money, Squawk Box, basically everything on CNBC...) they will lead you down a dark path that mostly resembles gambling as opposed to investing.
  
• Be in it for the long haul. Do not day trade. Find undervalued companies with great management teams that have been beaten up by the market and buy shares that you know should be valued at $50 on sale for $25 dollars when the conditions are right. As Buffett has said imagine that you have a punchcard that has 20 tickets and each time you buy a company a ticket gets punched all you get for your whole life is just those 20 companies. You would want to take your time and analyze each company to ensure you're making the right decision before you buy.
  
• Don't spend 10 minutes even thinking about buying a companies shares unless you are comfortable enough with your decision to hold it for 10 years.
  
• Do not trade options, futures, forex, etc.... as a beginner just stick with equities at first. Get some experience under your belt and then if you want to tred into these waters later do so, but with caution.
  
• There are some decent financial advisors out there but there are also lot more not worth their salt. It's good to talk to them once in a while but take their advice with caution, no one will safeguard your money or care about it as much as you do. Also most of them get paid commissions for putting you into whatever investments will give them the highest commission so look for a "fee-only" advisor if you're going use one. Trust me your financial advisor will still sleep like a baby if he loses your entire life saving, how will you sleep though?
  
• Pay no attention to the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) this is some academic mumbo jumbo out of the University of Chicago that tries to make the case that markets are always efficient, it's been in most financial textbooks for decades and like most things learned in college is complete bullshit. Markets are very emotional and prone to all types of irrational behavior because well people are very emotional and irrational at times....especially when money is on the line.
  
• Pay attention to large scale macro-economic conditions such as the current 10-2 year bond yield inversion that just happened a few days ago and has been a signal that has preceded the last 5 recessions. Usually a recession doesn't occur for 12-18 months out after the yields invert and there's no guarantee that it will happen just be aware of it and other macro economic indicators so you know where the economy is in the business cycle. This will allow you to take advantage of certain buying opportunities when prices are depressed.
  
• Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

Let me start off by saying your comment made my day, thank you. Also, if I could give some encouragement, it'd be that understanding market sentiment for commodities isn't something that comes naturally to anyone. I spend a lot of time online at night researching - kind of became a hobby. I'd highly recommend getting a Seeking Alpha account and putting gold ETFs on your watchlist to get articles on gold. Read anything that's written by Avi. I've learned an immense amount from him. (I also like Taylor Dart.) What you just said about 'the economy doing great so gold would do bad' is a pretty common mistake. Don't take any "truths" on gold as a certainty. Sometimes it moves inverse the SP500, sometimes it moves inverse the dollar, but not always. It's not a hedge. It crashed alongside the SPX during 2008. It's pretty correlated with the Yen and inflation expectations, but knowing that won't really help you in the long run. Fundamental analysis will only get you so far. People will use news to explain price action after the fact, never before - because it doesn't work.

"Gold moved $10 today because Trump tweeted something mean about China." BS... there's always news going on. You can know everything about global economies and still not be a successful gold trader. But basic technical analysis and market sentiment will get you pretty far. I look at the CFTC report (https://www.investing.com/economic-calendar/cftc-gold-speculative-positions-1618) for a reference on how people are positioned. See how in August gold was at one of the highest net long positions ever? Red flag.

As for technical analysis, I watch plenty of YouTube chartists. If you want to think like a technician, you have to listen to them. Lastly, I love this book (https://www.amazon.com/Charting-Technical-Analysis-Fred-Mcallen/dp/1456468693/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483683042&sr=8-3&keywords=technical+analysis+of+the+financial+markets) too. It's not dry at all, and was a great starting point. Happy trading.

I became interested in the markets around my sophomore year of college as well and have since spent a vast amount of time in self-study and reading about trading and the markets as a whole. If you are like me, you probably have an idea of what "stock trading" is to you. Let me promise you, your idea is probably vastly different than reality in the markets. Please, please take the advice below. I can't stress enough how important these resources were and still are for me.

Long-term investing/wealth building:

Read everything put out by Stansberry Research (I am not affiliated with them in any way)

A.) http://stansberryresearch.com/book/the-stansberry-research-guide-to-investment-basics/

B.) http://stansberryresearch.com/book/the-stansberry-research-starters-guide-for-new-investors/
-- After reading the two books above, pick up the books recommended in the back of the "Stansberry Research Starter's Guide for New Investors"

C.) Stansberry Radio also produces a fantastic educational podcast. Definitely worth a $10/month subscription. The quality of guests and interview segments are second to none.

Shorter-term trading:

Check out Investor's Business Daily (IBD) at www.investors.com

A.) How to Make Money in Stocks: http://www.amazon.com/Money-Stocks-Complete-Investing-System/dp/0071752110
-- This book probably taught me more about the stock market than any other

B.) Trend Following: http://www.amazon.com/Trend-Following-Updated-Millions-Markets/dp/013702018X
-- The book that started it all for me. The author also runs a fantastic podcast (Trend Following with Michael Covel). This educational value of this podcast is indescribable.


At a time when the stock market continues to break all-time highs, please be careful when trading/investing. Control your risk FIRST (http://www.vantharp.com/tharp-concepts/position-sizing.asp)

Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions. I love to talk trading!

OptionsHouse requires a minimum of $1,000 to open an account. They also have pretty low transactions fees if you end up doing more trading than buy and hold. OptionsHouse also has a virtual account that is an excellent tool and one I highly recommend trying before using your real money.

All that said, I'd really recommend reading a couple of books before you jump in. When looking to buy and sell stocks there are different strategies which you'll know doubt pick up upon by reading the various replies to your post. There is the buy and hold versus a more active trading by buying on dips and selling on peaks.

Also evaluating the company and its stock is divided among the fundamental evaluation versus the technical evaluation. There are tools out there to help, vuru.com for instance can assist you in the fundamental evaluation. Technical analysis is basically looking at the price history, reading the charts, looking for technical indicators of when a stock might be oversold or over bought, and looking for buy and sell signals. StockCharts.com has a chart school section that can help learn about technical analysis.

If you get the impression that this subject is a bit intimidating and you have a lot to learn, well it is, and you do. I'm not trying to dissuade you from buying stocks but I really, really recommend reading and learning as much as you can before jumping in. With little knowledge and understanding on the subject you may get lucky and buy a stock that will increase in value, then again you are just as likely to pick something that will lose value and you'll just get frustrated.

Here are three books I recommend reading before you start to at least help you understand a bit more about what you are getting into.

Fundamental

Amazon - Value Investing

Technical and understanding markets and their cycles

Amazon - The Visual Investor: How to Spot Market Trends

Practical and the psychology behind markets and trading

Amazon - Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management

Since the seems to be a common question I'm just copy pasting some of my older responses.

Books to read:

• This book while perhaps a bit dry has all of the information that you are looking probably looking for. It is widely considered the definitive guide to investing in individual securities.
  http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661
  
  
• Here's a PDF of the Intelligent Investor.
  http://www.set.in.th/ben_graham_the_intelligent_investor.pdf
  
  
• This book, is a solid guide to building a stable portfolio. However, it doesn't get into the nitty gritty of individual stock evaluation. It is a good read, and offers solid commentary on how to avoid making bad choices.
  http://www.amazon.com/The-Investors-Manifesto-Prosperity-Armageddon/dp/0470505141/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334165783&sr=1-1
  
  General Advice
  
  
• On individual stocks: Without a lot of prior knowledge and research, the best you could hope to be doing buy buying an individual security is speculating. This is not a good way to invest for the long term.
  
  
• Until you get a better background in how the markets work, you are much safer going with an Index fund or ETF. Personally I like the S&P 500. Over the long term you will earn about 8% on your money (not bad!). Park your money for now, and do some reading to become more informed.
  
  
• Also, avoid penny stocks at all cost. You might as well take your money and go play blackjack at a casino, at least you get free drinks there.

> "I've been doing my research and realise there is no way to make it rich quick ..."

It appears that you've already learned two of the most important things about investing: [1] Like anything else in life, what you will get out of it is a direct result of what you put into it (doing your research is extremely important to investing in individual stocks). [2] Investment returns are a direct result of the amount of risk taken, so you generally won't "get rick quick" unless you risk losing everything quick and there's still never any guarantee. That approach is not recommended, especially for beginners, but it's important to know that very many prefer that approach so you must take all advice and "hot tips" with a pound of salt.

As someone else suggested, it might be best to start with an ETF while you continue to learn how to evaluate individual companies, sectors, etc. ... perhaps an ETF that focuses on a strategy like DGI (dividend growth investing). Last, but certainly not least, read [The Intelligent Investor] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661) by Benjamin Graham.

When you go to the DIDG website it says:

Digidev, (Digital Development Group) is a Los Angeles, California based business which provides a seamless, scalable and integrated back-end technological solution giving content owners distribution capability across multiple platforms using existing Internet Protocol (IP) services, providing increased monetization opportunities and greater control over distribution.

However the 2011 10K filing says:

We are a start-up mineral company in the pre-exploration stage and have not generated any operating revenues since inception. We
have incurred losses since inception and our auditors have issued a going concern opinion since we must raise additional capital,
through the sale of our securities, in order to fund our operations. There can be no assurance we will be able to raise this capital.

It also says that they ran out of credit to put money into the business. It seems pretty sketchy. 99.9999999999% of stocks under a dollar are scams with $0 intrinsic value that uneducated people buy and then lose all their money.

Go read The Intelligent Investor and learn how to invest, not speculate. It may make you reconsider your current holdings as well.

Good luck!

The old adage goes "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he's got food for life" or something along those lines.

Therefore, instead of answering your Reddit post, I will refer you to the Bible of Investing, "The Intelligent Investor".

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) (Collins Business Essentials) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060555661/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_ESjbzbJMA1ZR0

Don't be a sucker who plays the market. It's on a tear right now and everyone is overly optimistic. Place it in a vanguard etf or a robo advisor like betterment or wealthfront. Take the emotion out of your investing and enjoy the 4-7% growth over the next ten years.

I was recommended this book since charting/technical analysis is one of the most trustworthy ways of determining what a stock is going to do next. Other than that, I just went out and bought a couple of "investing for beginners" kind of books.

A good brokerage to start with is an app called Robinhood, which is free of brokerage fees (the fees most places charge for buying and selling stock), and they offer a couple of free day trades per week, if that's something you want to do. Very intuitive app that does a lot of what you want it to. Other than that, Google is your best friend, but invest off your own research and start with safe investments like ETFs while you read up.

One fundamental book I would recommend if you have the financial literacy is The Intelligent Investor by Graham. The book does assume that you understand what stocks and bonds are and how they fundamentally work.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347416372&sr=8-1&keywords=the+intelligent+investor

As for other resources I would recommend that you learn all about stock fundamentals first. (ex reading balance sheets, earnings per share, ect.). I would also recommend that you look for patterns in stocks on a site like marketwatch.com. Look at stocks that have had huge runs like Walmart (WMT) and stocks that have had huge declines like Facebook (FB) and figure out why they moved these directions. (WMT has had increasing earnings and positive momentum/ FB had a disappointing earnings report and a discouragingly high P/E as well as negative momentum)

Yeah, the questions been asked before. But here's a summary.

Wish you the best.

Video Tutorials

• Khan Academy
  
• Yale University / Robert Shiller
  
• the rather basic ones at our site
  
  Great Books
  
  
• Peter Lynch: One Up On Wall Street
  
• Joel Greenblatt: The Little Book That Still Beats The Market
  
• James Montier: The Little Book of Behavioural Investing
  
• Richard Oldfield: Simple But Not Easy
  
• Phil Fisher: Common Stocks and UnCommon Profits
  
  Stock prices & news
  
  
• Google Finance
  
• Yahoo Finance
  
• CNNMoney
  
• CNBC
  
• Reuters
  
  Investment commentary & ideas
  
  
• MarketWatch
  
• Seeking Alpha
  
• Business Insider
  
• The Motley Fool
  
• Bloomberg BusinessWeek
  
• Forbes
  
  Stock screeners & stock picking tools
  
  
• FinViz
  
• Google Finance Screener
  
• MarketWatch
  
• Reuters Screener
  
• Stockflare DISCLAIMER: this is our site
  
• Yahoo! Stock Screener
  
• Ycharts
  
  Stock exchanges & useful wikis
  
  
• Nasdaq
  
• Nasdaq's list of all recent IPOs
  
• NYSE
  
• Wikipedia's List of Stock Exchanges
  
• Wikipedia on Value Investing
  
• Wikipedia on Growth Investing
  
  Great investors profiled on Wikipedia
  
  
• Warren Buffett
  
• Ben Graham
  
• Phil Fisher
  
• Shelby Davis
  
• Hetty Green
  
• Peter Lynch
  
• John Neff
  
• Sir John Templeton
  
  Relevant Subreddits
  ================
  
  
• /r/business
  
• /r/economy
  
• /r/finance
  
• /r/invest
  
• /r/investing
  
• /r/InvestmentClub
  
• /r/pennystocks
  
• /r/options
  
• /r/stockmarket
  
• /r/theartofsimpletrading
  
• /r/wallstreetbets
  
• /r/securityanalysis
  
• /r/stocktraders
  
  

These are the books that helped me most. I've read many; these were my favorites.

How to Make Money in Stocks by William O'Neill. This book makes the assumption that you want to be an active trader and not a passive "buy & hold" investor. This is the one that got me started.

Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van Tharp. This book addresses the trader rather than the trading. Among the most useful concepts I learned is how to think about Risk.

Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book by Phil Gordon. This is a book about how to play winning poker, but the principles are identical: calculating risk/reward, how to think about sunk-costs, cash management. Very, very helpful.

Markets in Profile by James Dalton. I didn't really start trading successfully till I learned what this book teaches about auctions. One caveat: market profile has been superceded by Volume Profile. This is a technical book, that may not be much help unless you are a technical trader.

And speaking of technical trading: I consider Technical Trader's Guide to Computer Analysis to be an invaluable reference.

How to Make Money In Stocks by William O'Neil

O'Neil also wrote a "lite" version of that book that covers the same material but at a much higher level:

The Successful Investor

I recommend the first one, but if you want an introduction the second one is good.

• Paul Tudor Jones' "Traders" documentary. You'll have to search the net for it as he keeps on forcing people to take it down ;)
  
  
• "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" (https://www.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Stock-Operator-Edwin-Lefèvre/dp/0471770884).
  
  
• Buffet's shareholder letters: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html
  
  
• Schwager's "Hedge Fund Market Wizards" book is pure gold!
  
  Lastly, when it comes to technical analysis I'm a huge fan of market profile. Here's a great free ebook about it: https://www.cmegroup.com/education/interactive/marketprofile/handbook.pdf

• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - Jack Bogle. He explain why just buy and hold a low cost index fund (like SPY) is the way to go.
  
• The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham. The Bible of Stock Picking. Unfortunately, less than 1% can beat the market long term doing that.
  
• The Single Best Investment - Lowell Miller. Good if you thing is income.
  
• Dual Momentum Investing - Gary Antonnacci. A really good improvement of Jack Bogle's thesis of investing only in index funds.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332351037&sr=8-1

Great book to start with. Also, check out r/investing; it's more active than this subreddit, and there's a nice list of recommend readings, online resources, FAQs, etc on the sidebar.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661
(.pdf version could be found online free)

Fee Free Investing:
loyal3.com
robinhood.com

Disagree with Irwin-- I noticed investing in stocks is something rich people do. Even the young ones because I noticed this while in college. I'd say if you're concerned about increasing your wealth you're concerned about the correct issue;

happy trails

I use TA as one engagement tool among many. One book I enjoyed was The Joy of Charting by Tim Knight. I've been a reader of Tim's blog SlopeofHope for nearly ten years. I don't follow him or any other single person exclusively but his methods have helped me develop some profitable trades.

Short CAKE and long QD are two profitable positions I have on now that I first found out about on Slope.

Disclosure: No association with the blog other than being a reader/subscriber.

Yeah go for it, it looks like a good starting point. Haven't read that one personally but the reviews look good enough. (Although i would still recommend (https://www.amazon.de/Intelligent-Investor-Benjamin-Graham/dp/0060555661/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=E8GWZJ82X1VQ0A590ZF3)

https://www.amazon.com/Neatest-Little-Guide-Market-Investing/dp/0452298628

This is a good intro book. Watch investopedia videos as you read the definitions in the beginning. After that its a pretty easy read. He summarizes all the major investors books and strategies, highlights his, and ties them all together.

• The Intelligent Investor: http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661
  
• Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets: http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661
  
• Security Analysis: http://www.amazon.com/Security-Analysis-Edition-Foreword-Editions/dp/0071592539
  
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits: http://www.amazon.com/Common-Stocks-Uncommon-Profits-Writings/dp/0471445509
  
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street: http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393340740
  
• One Up On Wall Street: http://www.amazon.com/One-Up-On-Wall-Street/dp/0743200403
  

I can't seem to locate the exact paper, but I'm pretty sure it was by this guy:

http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~lharris/

He touches on similar topics here:
Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners

It's a bit dated, and doesn't get into what modern quants do at all, but I would consider it required reading on the fundamentals of how markets actually work.

I would advise you to learn more about the history of the stock market, and how difficult it is to beat the market. Books like A Random Walk Down Wall Street will give you a great history of the market.

I personally have a hard and fast rule of never putting more than 10% in a single stock. I'd recommend putting the majority in a retirement account in an S&P 500 index fund, and then using whatever money you're completely OK with losing entirely as a trading account you can go crazy in. :)

The Intelligent Investor is a great start.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060555661/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=006079383X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0QJSQH2JA725WYHP8J0M

My brokerage's website has really good learning resources. I've known a lot about trading before I looked there, but I even picked up some new things that's helped a lot. And sometimes reviewing what you already know isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're trying to get better at it.

As far as books, I just bought this one: http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661?ie=UTF8&qid=&ref_=tmm_hrd_swatch_0&sr=

It's vague because there's not really a magical get rich quick formula. Investing mostly takes time - basically waiting for the company you bought to sell products and then give you the money. The allure of fast rising stocks is very tempting, and while it may get you rich very quickly, it can also cut your account in half very quickly.

Investopedia will have the basic tenets - buy low, sell high, don't pay too much for a company.

A more detailed version would be "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661

Although a challenging read, this book is extremely helpful: Security Analysis: Sixth Edition, Foreword by Warren Buffett (Security Analysis Prior Editions) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071592539/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_iRlnDbSBKEB1T

I'd start by reading through Investopedia Stock Basics to get the general overview.

A few good books include:

• The Intelligent Investor
  
  
• One Up on Wall Street

This is one of the books I used to buy every year, last 4 years, and read it

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1507208944

​

First year, it was very useful and I read a lot.

Later years, I know the stuff, but I always buy this book and read once during the dec holidays as they publish around that time.

Every year, they drop around 10 stocks out of 100 and add new 10 stocks.

Each one, they write 2 - 3 pages analysis, fundamentals, moat ...etc

​

I would also recommend this book for CANSLIM

https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Money-Stocks-Winning/dp/0071614133

​

Warren Buffett's favorite book is The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham, specifically chapters 8 and 20.

That won't teach you much about bid/ask spreads though, so I would start with the Education section of whatever brokerage you are using, or Wikipedia.

Hello, yes, beginner here too

I suggest buying this book like I just did, we can read it and discuss different chapters and figure this money making thing out together

The Intelligent Investor

I use a version of the calculations found in this book. Which is a variation of the philosophies in this book. You'd be doing yourself a favor by buying them. Make sure to also get the workbook that goes with the first one.

Building on the idea of value investing check out:

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Still-Market-Books-Profits/dp/0470624159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334207938&sr=8-1

It explains a lot Ben Graham's ideas in an easy to read intuitive format.

The best thing for you now to Educate yourself by reading FAQ and few starter books

https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Money-Stocks-Winning/dp/0071614133

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471269654

I'm about the same age, and the first thing I did was to find some books about investment. I looked around google and found out that some certain books are "timeless", meaning they are always relevant (plenty on this sub suggested it too). I found out that "The Intelligent Investor", a book first published in 1949 (but of course revised and updated latest in 2006) to be quite important when starting with investment - Here's the amazon link. I doubt you could go wrong with it as a learning source.

But I can't say much - I am as much experienced as you. If you wait a little, some others with way more knowledge will suggest something better, probably.

Though you could look more, outside the wiki of this sub.

A great place to start learning would be the book "How to Make Money in Stocks" by William O'Neil.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Money-Stocks-Winning/dp/0071614133

I always recommend this book. It gives a great general overview of the most-used investment strategies and valuation metrics without being overbearing, overly technical, or difficult to read.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0452298628/ref=rdr_ext_tmb Great book to learn the basics.

The Richest Man in Babylon

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

This is what you wanna read. Free PDFs can be found

http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661

read the intelligent investor. educate yourself before you start.
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324880740&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060555661/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

book: "The Intelligent Investor"

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

The Intelligent Investor

It's what I've been reading. It's considered the Bible of stock market readings by some, and it's holy gospel for me so far as I've been getting my feet wet. Lots of stuff to learn here

This might help

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=nodl_

If you want a really in-depth advanced book on options, I'd suggest Options As a Strategic Investment. It has everything.

http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Exchanges-Market-Microstructure-Practitioners/dp/0195144708

Although a little old (and arguably outdated), I read this casually over the summer and found it insightful for getting a better understanding of how the markets function.

These are investing and trading books I'd read. Even if you don't believe their strategy, others do, and that makes them important to read.

http://www.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Stock-Operator-Investment-Classics/dp/0471770884

http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Living-Psychology-Tactics-Management/dp/0471592242/ref=pd_sim_b_27

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393315290/$%7B0%7D

http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661/ref=pd_sim_b_28

http://www.amazon.com/One-Up-On-Wall-Street/dp/0743200403/ref=pd_sim_b_26

I would head over to Amazon and read this book.

Also this sidebar.

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661

The best book I've ever read on investing. Will be reading it again soon.

Buy this book.

Use this link so no one gets a nickel:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC12C8

Look up Ben Graham (Buffet's teacher) https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661

Oops! Sorry was listening to some 50 copied wrong link. More beginner resources at :

http://education.optionseducation.org/course/?podcasts=1

https://www.cboe.com/LearnCenter/webcast/

Books:

http://www.amazon.ca/Options-Strategic-Investment-Lawrence-McMillan/dp/0735204659

http://www.amazon.ca/Option-Volatility-Pricing-Strategies-Techniques/dp/0071818774/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418529768&sr=1-7&keywords=options