Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Even though all this Stock Market stuff is very confusing to me i still find it very interesting and want to learn more about it and eventually start buying stocks.
I've been watching some Timothy Sykes videos. does this guy seem legit? I purchased his book -- An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund
I also purchased - Stock Investing For Dummies
by Paul Mladjenovic
Any tips/suggestions you would give to a beginner? books or websites you would recommend?
Even though all this Stock Market stuff is very confusing to me i still find it very interesting and want to learn more about it and eventually start buying stocks.
I've been watching some Timothy Sykes videos. does this guy seem legit? I purchased his book -- An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund
I also purchased - Stock Investing For Dummies
by Paul Mladjenovic
Any tips/suggestions you would give to a beginner? books or websites you would recommend?
My advice would be to stay away from individual stocks. Investing in individual stocks requires 3 things that most of us don't have:
1. Intelligence/knowledge
2. Time (to acquire the knowledge and apply it.
3. Temperament.
Even if you have #1 & #2, most of us do not have the temperament to invest well. Our brains aren't wired that way.
My advice would be to invest in a solid performing mutual fund that invests in a mix of stocks and bonds and hold it for decades. Keep adding money to it. Add extra if you can in bad years, as performance usually jumps the following year. I'm thinking of funds such as:
Vanguard Wellington VWELX
T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation PRWCX
Dodge & Cox Balanced DODBX
Oakmark Equity & Income OAKBX
Mairs & Power Balanced MAPOX
All of the above funds have beaten the S&P 500 Stock index over the last 10, 15, & 20 year periods and they've done so with less volatility (and FYI, it's difficult to beat that index).
My favorite is T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation as it has stellar performance with reasonable volatility....but all funds on the above list are very solid. All have their pros & cons. Just pick one or two of them and stay with them.
The key thing to know about successful investing is that IT IS BORING.
Put your focus on: 1. How much you can earn from a job/business. and 2. What percentage of your income you save.
People who manage to save 50% - 70% of their incomes don't really need to get great returns to reach financial independence fairly quickly (10-15 years).
Even though all this Stock Market stuff is very confusing to me i still find it very interesting and want to learn more about it and eventually start buying stocks.
It is "confusing" because it requires years of study and experience to understand how stock investing works. (It is actually a professon). It doesn't happen overnight.
But an easy way to start is by investing in an S&P 500 tracking ETF. And read some good books like the following:
What not to do: buy a few books expecting to get rich overnight
What to do: Go to the library and look at books that cover the basics. Avoid "how I predicted the market meltdown!" and other such nonsense and hyping of themselves. Some good books mentioned already in this thread.
In terms of strategy: unless you are going to be a day trader, just buy index funds or mutual funds of sectors, or an S&P500 fund that tracks the index is just as fine. If you are a new day trader ... my best of hopes to you, because the big boys with millions or billions to invest get the insider tips, preferred rates, and first dibs on great deals. The only way to get rich in reality is establish a business that takes off, then speculating on stocks, which is what your first book advertises to do (and in reality just plugs said blowhard's funds).
Even though all this Stock Market stuff is very confusing to me i still find it very interesting and want to learn more about it and eventually start buying stocks.
I've been watching some Timothy Sykes videos. does this guy seem legit? I purchased his book -- An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund
I also purchased - Stock Investing For Dummies
by Paul Mladjenovic
Any tips/suggestions you would give to a beginner? books or websites you would recommend?
If you are completely "clueless" about investing, I would recommend opening a "play account" that allows you to buy and sell with fake money. This will give you a good idea how to use "ask" and "bid" prices, how to calculate the number of shares you want to buy, and the difference between a market order and a limit order etc.
The main reason people lose money in the stock market is making decisions based on emotions instead of logic. I know newbie investors that bought XYZ simply because it used to trade at $100/share and now it's only $0.50/share. Another common mistake is chasing stocks. For example, let's say you think AAPL will be higher a year from now, so you buy it. The next week, AAPL keeps going down, but there is no news or reason for the stock to be going down. You get frustrated and sell it for a 10% loss. AAPL then starts to go up the following week. You see it back at the price you orginally paid and think, hmmm maybe I should buy it back. You decide against it since you already lost 10%, but AAPL goes up another 10% and now you are really frustrated because in your mind, you believed AAPL would go higher, so now you buy it back. Soon after you bought it, it works it way down 10%, so now you are just really frustrated and sell it and quit investing all together. Don't do this!
I recommend newbie investors to use a fundamental analysis type approach because it is the easiest strategy to understand and one of the safest strategies to use. You want to look for companies that have growing sales, growing stores, growing market share, and a healthy balance sheet etc. I don't think you need to buy any investment books. I never did and I have been very successful when it comes to investing. You just need to practice with a fake account and you can google any questions that come along. This is the best way to learn in my opinion.
I am of the opposite opinion. You can get pretty wealthy from the stock market (given you invest a good amount of money) in individual stocks. You also avoid the stupid fees from mutual funds. you basically create your own mutual fund and pay the one time fee of $5-10/trade to buy the stock. after that it just sits there, fee free.
I suggest to look into Peter Lynch, One up on wall street.
basically choose companies you see in everyday life and see their business growing or things you like, and invest.
Its pretty easy to make a lot of money. just open your wallet and see what is in it, where do you shop, buy gas, etc?
most people would have a portfolio that would mimic this.
Visa
Mastercard
Toyota
Honda
Chipotle
Mcdonalds
Buffalo Wild Wings
Chevron
United Health group
Wellpoint (Blue cross blue shield)
Metlife
Progressive
Fedex
UPS
Dell
Sandisk
Aaple
Coke
Pepsi
Monster
noodles and company
Nike
Adidas
Sam Adams
Boeing
Beer and other vices are easy to make money in over long periods of time.
Those companies have produced many millionaires. Buy when the stock is down, not up. perhaps buy them when they pullback from their highs 20-50%. buy it, and hold on for dear life. don't ever sell. Buy when your instincts tell you to sell or when you lose interest in it. When you body/emotions say buy, that is when you don't.
I am of the opposite opinion. You can get pretty wealthy from the stock market (given you invest a good amount of money) in individual stocks. You also avoid the stupid fees from mutual funds. you basically create your own mutual fund and pay the one time fee of $5-10/trade to buy the stock. after that it just sits there, fee free.
I suggest to look into Peter Lynch, One up on wall street.
basically choose companies you see in everyday life and see their business growing or things you like, and invest.
Its pretty easy to make a lot of money. just open your wallet and see what is in it, where do you shop, buy gas, etc?
most people would have a portfolio that would mimic this.
Visa
Mastercard
Toyota
Honda
Chipotle
Mcdonalds
Buffalo Wild Wings
Chevron
United Health group
Wellpoint (Blue cross blue shield)
Metlife
Progressive
Fedex
UPS
Dell
Sandisk
Aaple
Coke
Pepsi
Monster
noodles and company
Nike
Adidas
Sam Adams
Boeing
Beer and other vices are easy to make money in over long periods of time.
Those companies have produced many millionaires. Buy when the stock is down, not up. perhaps buy them when they pullback from their highs 20-50%. buy it, and hold on for dear life. don't ever sell. Buy when your instincts tell you to sell or when you lose interest in it. When you body/emotions say buy, that is when you don't.
By the time you amassed that sort of portfolio, even with $5 trades you'd have more lost through fees than if you had signed up at any online brokerage, deposited your money, and just dumped it all into a S&P500 fund because that's the sort of fund you just described, and you don't even need to invest in a mutual fund. There's ETFs out there that have fees of a paltry 0.2% and many online brokerages waive the fees when you invest in them. Not to mention that ETFs have tax advantages over regular stocks.
That sort of advice isn't for everyone though. If you've already maxed out your 401k, your IRA limits, your HSA accounts, and then maxed out any sort of tertiary investing avenues, then by all means buy individual stocks. Personally I wouldn't do it unless every other avenue had been dried up.
There's also the tiny problem that many of these companies are cyclic (see Boeing as a great example). Does the OP have the time to exhaustively research each of these companies? No. Few would with that huge list. You'd have to hire your own personal broker!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
