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

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

#62

Post by burp3141 »

acconrad wrote: post #34

Intelligent Investor and it's even denser cousin, Securities Analysis (both by Graham) are often touted as must reads without the recommender actually reading them. I have read both and you can safely skip most chapters. I can summarize for you, that based on your description in this post, you are what Ben Graham calls a Defensive Investor, as you want to preserve capital without being able to make significant time o…

Agree completely. I found Margin of safety much more practically applicable than Graham's books and much more enjoyable read.

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

#63

Post by maaku »

eorge_g wrote: post #60
SteveNuts wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's a good place to buy index funds, and how can I set it up on an automatic deposit?

Vanguard is the gold standard https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/index-funds

Cannot upvote this enough. This link should be the only answer to this entire thread...

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

#64

Post by fiftyacorn »

acconrad wrote: post #34

Intelligent Investor and it's even denser cousin, Securities Analysis (both by Graham) are often touted as must reads without the recommender actually reading them. I have read both and you can safely skip most chapters. I can summarize for you, that based on your description in this post, you are what Ben Graham calls a Defensive Investor, as you want to preserve capital without being able to make significant time o…

Ive read Intelligent Investor twice - and there is a chapter midway through the annotated version which basically says that if you arent willing to put in the time finding value shares then stick with passive investing in low cost funds.

I also read Buffetts share letter and he frequently touts how well passive investing would do, even with respect to Berkshire Hathaway

Im purely passive now based mostly on bogleheads

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

#65

Post by Homunculiheaded »

If you really want to dive into the technical details there's really no better book than Hull's "Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives". It's extremely well written and if you have a basic understanding of calculus and probability the math isn't too difficult. The only catch is that it is a very expensive book, but if you buy a used copy a few editions back it is more affordable. Also don't worry about the "derivatives" subject matter, if you want to understand derivatives you naturally have to understand the underlying instrument. If you just read the first 100 or so pages (covering Futures pricing) you'll have a pretty good sense of the basics of thinking about financial markets.

I really recommend this book even if you're not interested in Finance as a general guide for thinking about stochastic processes in a practical manner. Nearly all "basic" business/web metrics can be understood best if you understand how to correctly model financial instruments. Personally, I think the basics of quantitative finance are just as relevant to Data Science as machine learning is.

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

#66

Post by ultramancool »

SteveNuts wrote: post #58
sharemywin wrote: post #14

Keep putting your money(about 10% or more if you can swing it) in a good index fund and ignore it for 40 years. There's a good chance you'll do about as good as 50% of the stock market investors(or more counting fees lost) and you can do something more productive with your time. Stock market investing reminds me of that insurance commercial with the fishing pole. "you gotta be quicker than that..." If you want a bett…

Where's a good place to buy index funds, and how can I set it up on an automatic deposit?

You can buy ETF-based index funds (Vanguard, iShares, SPDR, etc) via most brokers as they're listed on major exchanges.

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

#67

Post by osullivj »

tcoppi wrote: post #17

Read "Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners ( http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Exchanges-Market-Microstructur... ) This will give you an idea and maybe whet your appetite about how markets and trading actually work, and all the reasons people use markets. From there you can work towards learning more about actually developing trading strategies more complex than buy and hold.

Seconded: Harris Trading and Exchanges is an excellent book. I read it in 2006 when I was working for a rates trading desk, and wrote a series of blogs posts on it: https://etrading.wordpress.com/category/reading-harris/

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

#68

Post by streblo »

SteveNuts wrote: post #58
sharemywin wrote: post #14

Keep putting your money(about 10% or more if you can swing it) in a good index fund and ignore it for 40 years. There's a good chance you'll do about as good as 50% of the stock market investors(or more counting fees lost) and you can do something more productive with your time. Stock market investing reminds me of that insurance commercial with the fishing pole. "you gotta be quicker than that..." If you want a bett…

Where's a good place to buy index funds, and how can I set it up on an automatic deposit?

You can do this through your normal brokerage. Just pay attention to the fees. ~$10 per trade is normal, but many brokerages will offer reduced or no fees for certain ETFs or mutual funds.
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