Lux Investing
Is there a class or something I can do to learn about how to invest and learn about stocks & the trade?
For stock Im not sure what all the acronyms mean and the lingo. I also want to invest money and am unsure how to take the appropriate and smart way of doing so.
Public Comments
- read different books. Don't go to a class because whoever is presenting will probably sell you software, books on CD, or whatever else that he/she did in the past. It's so ridiculous that seminars are allowed to be held promoting that crap. It's good to hear different perspectives from successful people, but no 1 person has all of the answers. It's not a sciene either...people REALLY REALLY REALLLY need to understand that.
- A good place to start is by reading all of the Money101 series on cnn.com. Here is the website: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/index.html. While these do not have a lot of specific info, it will familiarize you and provide answers to basic terms and concepts. From there, read EVERYTHING. Reading financial forums online is interesting for its various view points, but dont trust anything, find out for yourself. Before you know it, you will be a well informed investor. Good luck!
- Read my free book on investing. It focuses on retirement investing, but you will pick up the basics of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Click on my profile and read my info to get the website. The book is in PDF format. www.investopedia.com also has good tutorials
- Check out your local college or junior college, and look for classes in finance, economics, and business. There's a lot more to learn than just one seminar or lecture can teach you, so try enroll in as many courses as possible. In the meantime, read up on stocks through books such as "Mad Money" and "Real Money" both by Jim Cramer. Be careful of lectures and seminars by motivational speakers, if they were so good they wouldn't need to waste their time selling tapes and books. Good luck
- I think the best book for beginners is David Bach's book "The Automatic Millionaire". There will be several important concepts here, such as living below your means, the importance of having your ongoing investments automated, the importance of diversification, and good long term investments. If you only read one book, this is the book. There's a ton of people out there spouting strategies on how to invest. Virtually all of them are bunk. To get an idea of what you should be (and should not be) investing in go through the 12 step program of Index Fund Advisors online tutorial here: http://www.ifa.com/12steps/step1/ If you want to learn more, I would read Burton Malkiel's classic book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", and finally William Bernstein's book "The Intelligent Asset Allocator". In Bernstein's book the math can be somewhat painful, a good knowledge of statistics really helps, but if you can get through the early chapters the later chapters have very specific advice on what types of funds to buy and how to think about what funds you should own in your taxable accounts and which to own in your non-taxable accounts (i.e. IRA's and 401k's). Taking time to research and having a strategy is really important. Blindly buying shares of XYZ stock because someone at the gym told you it's a good investment is not a plan, it's idiocy. Buying a stock because some talking head like Jim Cramer recommends it is also idiocy. The common theme in all these sources is that the conclusions and recommendations are based on academic research that has studied the stock market going back hundreds of years. Unfortunately, these Nobel Prize winning academics don't work down at the local Merril Lynch office advising would be investors. There's no quick road or short cut to wealth (unless you're willing to take wild gambles and end up either rich or broke). But there is a strategy that can make virtually anyone a millionaire, if they're willing and have the discipline to follow the strategy for about three decades or so. I need about 7 more years to hit the million dollar mark.
- Just an FYI I would be careful before paying any money to a workshop when you can learn the same stuff for free. Some may offer a free class, but then have a high pressure sales pitch to buy some kind of expensive investing software from them. As far as websites for beginners I have listed a bunch below that are FREE to browse and learn what you need to get started. You should learn about mutual funds, index funds, and exchange-traded-funds (ETFs) first as a beginner since these are less riskier than "individual" stocks..
- You don't have to take a class to learn how to invest. Most of the information you need to get started investing is on the Internet for free. You can go to your local library and check out some books on investing and get you a finance dictionary. It will define any term that you don't know. First take a good hard look at yourself and determine why do you want to invest? What are you trying to accomplish by investing? What are your short term and long term goals? How much risk do you want to take? First you have to become comfortable with the idea of investing your money. Don't do it because every one else is doing it. Do it because you want to. A good book is the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and any other material he has written. You will have to tune out a lot of noise a lot of people are going to tell you different things. www.financial-realities101.com is a website that is written for the beginning investor. I learned a few things on that site. It is pretty cool. The best thing about the site is they won't try to sell you anything.
- Plenty of good advice here. You may also want to hang out with experienced traders once you've learned the basics: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TradingZoom/
