I am interested in learning more about the Stock Market. I would eventually like to do my own trading on the internet. I am a total novice, and was wondering if anyone knows of any good books for beginners. Thanks!

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"It's never too late...just do it!"

Hi Fritztino...

I've also just gotten interested in the stock market and want to learn more. What I'm doing is starting an investment club with a bunch of friends. It seems like a great way to learn and have some fun at the same time. You can find guidelines at the following website.
http://www.better-investing.org/clubs/startup.html

I see by your profile that you are a Mom and active in a churchgroup. I'll bet you could find at least 10 people who might be interested as well, given your pool of people resources.

Best of Luck.

[This message has been edited by avk (edited 01-06-2000).]

Best of luck is indeed the operative word. I've been in the stock market for the last 17 years and here are my rules (for what their worth). I do not buy and sell, I buy and sit, to build something up for retirement. This is one hell of a long term project that will test both your patience and your pain threshhold e.g. when you go thru a correction or worse still thru a crash.

1. Find a stock broker who deals with small clients and stick with him. If you don't know anyone who's dealt with him, go elsewhere, wait until u do.
2. Do it all yourself if at all possible. Partnerships are a recipe for disaster. You will argue over everything no matter how close you are to your fellow partners.
3. Pick the total dollar amount you want to put into the market and divide it by 15. You should not have more than one dozen to 15 stocks max. By putting the same amount into each company you will end up with a balanced portfolio and not be overweight in any single company. This is hard to do when everyone around u is making bucket loads of money on one or two stocks. Good luck to them, that's their investment philosophy and their return is exactly matching the risks they're taking (whereas on the other hand accountants are staid conservative blokes who are usually risk averse).
4. The first company you buy is one you know, and you buy it without advice or prompting from anyone. My first stock was the biggest bank in Australia, I knew who they were and what they did (and I've still got them). If I was going to lose money on this stock then so would every man and his dog in this place, I wouldn't be losing money alone, and the whole Australian economy would be floating with me into the Pacific.
5. Never buy shares again in the same company. Your second purchase is also a company you know, whose name you recognise, do it about 3 months later. By doing this, patiently, you're easing yourself into the market, gradually. No one knows when it's a good time to buy so just buy every quarter for 3 or 4 years until you've built up the portfolio you want. My second stock was Australia's largest manufacturer of paper - now there are two stocks in two industries.
6. And three months after that I bought shares in an auto parts company, again the same dollar amount as the other two. This might not be easy in the US, as you have lots of stocks with huge prices per share. In Australia our companies keep splitting their shares over time to keep the per share price below twenty dollars, which makes it easier to match the dollar amount of each purchase.
7. What you will then find is that you get an annual report each year from each company. Read them! You should also get dividends twice a year, which is the return on your investment. From what I've learnt about the US dividend payments they are miniscule compared to those here in Australia. Your corporations are more interested in increasing shareholder wealth thru capital growth (increasing share prices) than thru annual dividend payments. This is an interesting business philosophy which is a bit alien to me down under.
8. If you have an accountant you should talk to him! If you don't u should consider getting ahold of one (again go to one where you know someone whose dealt with him). How are dividend receipts taxed in the US? If they're taxable in the hands of shareholders it may explain the aversion US corporations seem to have to paying out dividends. In Australia they are not (fully) taxable.
9. Over time you will become impatient with the buy and sit philosophy and you may want to trade one or two shares a year. You will succumb so do it! I'm guilty of it. But when people buy a second piece of real estate they're happy to sit there and collect the rents every year and just leave the asset alone. But when the asset is a share we all have an urge to buy and sell and buy and sell. But the transaction costs of going in and out like a yo-yo will see the profits you've built up evaporate.
10. Takeovers and mergers will also see your portfolio change over time. My second and third stocks went that way a few years back.
11. With any luck you should be able to find a few books for beginners in a large bookshop. Regular reading of the financial pages of a newspaper will also help. When I bought that first lot of shares I knew precisely nothing about stocks, the market, dividends, total cap of a company, PEs, EBITs et. al.
12. An old bloke told me early in the 90s that what happened in 1929 and 1987 is a once in a generation thing and won't happen again in my lifetime. I sure as hell hope he's right.
13. And when we decide to stop working some time early in the next millenium, we'll hopefully have something with which to retire on.

Hi gtho4!
That was so nice of you to share your investment stategy! I thought it was very helpful! Right now I am reading a book called, "If you're Clueless about the Stock Market..." and it is down at my level with a little bit of humor injected and I am learning a lot! Your thoughtful words are much appreciated!! Thanks for taking the time to help! Much luck in your investments!

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"It's never too late...just do it!"

and all the best 2u2, and maybe some time early in the next millenium we'll be lying on some beach in the Bahamas, or Rio or the Pacific, and then again maybe not! http://home.kscable.com/fortsage/Tror.html

[This message has been edited by gtho4 (edited 06-01-2000).]

There is some very good advice in these posts.Others should take heed of it.I've been into the market for about 15 years and I've done fairly well.My goal is to retire early and travel as much as possible.I get most of my background info from reading newspapers like Barrons, magazines like Forbes, and listening to pundits on CNBC.My broker has also been of great help to me.

LoneRanger
hiya! and welcome aboard, haven't seen many of your posts. You should enjoy this place, it's a lot of fun and it's also been called a zoo. It's 02:20 Sat here and I've just updated my spreadsheet, didn't like the look of it so went round the FT boards. Haven't been in this one for a while and just noticed your post.

The market is looking pretty crook down under, the index might be at or just below an all time high but almost all the big caps are down except for one, News Corp, and I don't have it! This one stock represents 14% of our index and has been masking a gradual correction/ bear market over the last 3 months. I'be broken a couple of rules recently and ended up with 30 stocks. Dumped 4 this week and am now working my way down again to a manageable number.

Bought an insurance company which everyone told me I shouldn't have - their earnings are too volatile, there's not much difference between a racetrack an insurance company. There's another lessson I learnt. This company took on a bucket load of re-insurance which turned out to be a truck load and lost a cool billion or so, the board weren't aware of the extent of the losses/ claims coming thru the pipepline. Got rid of them b4 30th June (end of fiscal year here) and the announcement came out in July (thankfully), but then went and bought into another one in August. Now I can't wait to get rid of it. Another human foible, impatience.