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Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

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Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

#1

Post by n13 »

I find it really hard/confusing to understand stocks and the market from the investing perspective. I'm a beginner in this domain. So, I keen to learn about it so that I can understand the technical details too. I did a search and found out that everybody is recommending "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham. I'm kind of person who likes to watch videos, so I also found couple of courses (paid) on Udemy but those aren't good and just wastage of money. I also found that Investopedia is an excellent resource. It contains a lot of good tutorials [0], guides [1] and videos [2].

You might have already learnt what I'm trying to. What's your story? It would be really nice if you can also share the resources that proved really useful to you.

[0] http://www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/ [1] http://www.investopedia.com/university/ [2] http://www.investopedia.com/video/

Re: Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

#2

Post by moshiasri »

Well the real question here should be how much pain can you bear to learn the process. Because the term stocks and market covers a big area, you have to select a more specific domain, like bonds,derivatives, stocks, commodities or forex and the learning curve is steeper than the traditional processes like coding or design, plus there is capital involved, if you are a newbie i would advice you to start with "Paper Trading" and read a lot of books.

Do not enter the market, right after you finish a few courses, you will just be chewed up and spit out, and find a book called "A Complete guide to Day Trading" by "Markus Heitkoetter" it is plain and simple with lots of examples, and put "the Intelligent Investor" away for six months at least, that is a good book but is not for now.

I Started three years back when i was in engineering final year, and went on to get the certification as a derivatives and equity trader from the regulatory body.

Good Luck

Re: Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

#3

Post by 1123581321 »

Not a joke: I communicated 60 minutes each way for a year and thought about all the ways you could know which lane would travel faster than the other, and when.

For information to input into that way of thinking, I got in the habit of reading primary sources (Fed PDFs, company announcements, etc.) as much as possible. At the time I had a subscription to a service that aggregated primary sources in the sectors that interested you. That service has pivoted a few times since then and is now useless for gaining a real information advantage.

Edit: yes, commuted is what I meant. :) Leaving for posterity.

Re: Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

#4

Post by mdorazio »

Probably not helpful to you, but I originally learned from my grandpa when I was in middle school. He was quite the stock market investor and broke down for me the way the market worked at a basic level so that I could understand. However, I didn't really learn about the fundamentals of the market and the basis of all the derivatives/options/leveraged investments, etc. until I took an Investments class in college.

What's your end goal here? Do you just want to be able to make some good personal investment choices, or are you trying to be a day trader or algorithmic investor? The materials will be different depending on your intended path.

In any case, I definitely wouldn't pay for a class. There are more than enough free materials out there like this MOOC from Stanford GSB: http://online.stanford.edu/Stocks_and_Bonds_Fall_2014

Re: Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

#6

Post by pstrazzulla »

I started when I was a kid with my brother as we wanted to make money for some reason and learnt very slowly over years.

Don't read The Intelligent Investor, it will just put you to sleep. Realistically, you shouldn't be picking stocks on your own. You should just be putting money into ETFs that track the market and can help you diversify your holdings cheaply.

Look up a few of the key terms in investopedia like stock, bond, etf, etc. Then, either create your own ETF portfolio via an online brokerage account, or go with a robo advisor like Betterment.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

#7

Post by galfarragem »

IMHO investing is more an art than a science. It's a chaotic game that can be played with several focuses and sets of rules but always with the same goal: make money by predicting his evolution. Which focus is better? I don't think there is one, at most, it depends on your personality, investing time frame, amount of money to invest and how much time do you want to spend.

The best actionable advice I heard from somebody making a living from it, paraphrasing:

"Imagine you are a mouse. Investing is to learn how to steal the cheese without being caught."

Re: Ask HN: How did you learn about stocks and the market?

#8

Post by kdamken »

I'd recommend http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Lari...

I've recently been trying to learn more about investing and this book has been right on the money.

Basically, the advice is don't buy individual stocks, you can't pick them and outperform the market consistently. Instead, get an index fund or ETF that tracks the whole market, like https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0085&.... Vanguard is the best for index funds as they have the cheapest expense ratios.

If you want to learn more about the basics of economics, which are important as well, I've enjoyed this lighthearted youtube series - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPNZwz5_o_5...

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