Stock Markets Exposed - Plunging into Stock Investing?

Plunging into Stock Investing?

im 14 and i read all i could about stock investing, i read about 89 books about the subject and ive earned a place in the top 10 at hedgestop.com, i have saved about $2,000 and im ready to start investing little by little. My question is DO community colleges offer courses on stock investing? and even do im a minor can i still enroll? not as a long term thing though. more like enrichment. im wondering if they offer classes like that.

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I have invested money for years, and I have subscribed to Financial Newsletters written by Ivy League Graduates. They have degrees in economics, math and various other disciplines . And you know what ? After following their recommendations for over 20 years, I realized their returns were not much higher than my own picks. Yet I was paying several thousand dollars a year for their expert advice. There are some valuable things you will learn in college about investing, but most of your true knowledge comes from experience. When it is your money on the line, you develop a different point of view from most of these financial advisors. Most of these Financial Advisors, seldom invest their own money into their recommendations. This could be very legal reasons, but I suspect their income comes from the sales of their newsletters. I go to an interesting website: low-cost-stock-recommendations .com I have only purchased one recommendation from this site. It cost me only $10 and it suggested I put money into SVR, a silver ETF. In the last 5 weeks, it has increased in value by 15%. However, I believe the owner of the website would tell you, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But, I appreciate their honesty. Check it out.....Good Luck
Gabriel, You ask a GREAT question..especially at 14 ! (pats Gabriel on back) Typically, not only do Comm Colleges NOT offer stock investing courses, most dont offer basic budget and financial planning courses.Maybe some continuing/adult education classes might..Perhaps you could "audit" (listen) to one with a parent or adult.. My best advice is to buy/borrow a couple of good books.. Investing for Dummies by Eric Tyson, Jim Cramer's Books, and The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle. If you have a library close by, go there on a Saturday and read Barron's newpaper (you wont understand it all in the beginning, but take notes and ask questions here). The most important lesson is the difference between investing and trading. Get rich slow (or get poor fast) and stay far away from "penny" stocks. Last tidbit is "Tips are for waiters and doormen". Good luck !!
They teach it in business class, usually not by itself. They teach you how to do researches based on fundamentals and the old buy and hold method. not very fun. If you want to make quick money and a lot of it, learn options trading. Google options trading and you'll find a lot of free info
stocks are gambling. so dont have more than 5- 10 % of your net worth in gambling .that way when the market goes south for you you dont get sick, ive traded for years and i know how to minimise losses,average down etc, but I dont actually have the dicipline to do it. I break all the fundamentals, use margin, concentrated positions, etc, so if you find yourself breaking the basic rules then you might as well go to vegas
advice for you, wait a couple weeks until the market drops bottom low, then buy up, because even at the price right now alot of them are bargains. Yahoo Intel Apple AMD Cisco these companies are all tech sector, which are also consider as the most violatile company, so they have a beta greater than 1, which is SP500 standard. My Principle of Finance class taught me bunch of stuff like this.
I doubt many offer a course specifically. Honestly not sure what 89 books you read... I don't think I've read that many. There are text books on Investments. Also stop by the library with a list of say 20 stocks you like. If your not sure I'd start with the Sivy 70 on CNNFN.com and narrow it from there. Ask the librarian to look at the Value Line & S&P Reports on your 20 companies. See stuff you don't understand, look it up.. Investopedia is a Ok starting point, or stop by a used book store and get an Investments textbook. You have $2,000.00 now, your goal if you want to build a portfolio of individual stocks is to work up to 30 holdings amongst a variety of industries to be properly diversified. You could open an UTMA with an online broker, I use Scottrade, and that would be appropiate for a small investor. I looked at Etrade as well but they're targeting larger accounts & frequent traders. Scottrade has S&P Reports available right online. You could also start with DRIPs through a place like Computershare (Sharebuilder might work this way too) but you'll be a little limited as to what companies you can purchase. If you don't plan to trade, but to invest - which I would recommend...[ Now all this is assuming your building a long term stock portfolio, and aren't planning on liquidating it for a car in 2 years or college in 4. ] If you went with say Scottrade, you could probably start with 3 stocks, with around $600 plus each. Maybe a little low, but we want you off to a good start. Decide on three very different companies, don't take say Google, Apple & Cisco... three tech companies to start with. Make them in very different industries... Then keep adding stocks, buy the next one when its about the average amount you have in your current stocks... build to a least 30 different positions. Early on you classify stocks by the top category - but after say 8 positions you can sort by sub-industry. For example, for your first three you wouldn't want more than one Financial company, but after say the 8th... if you had Goldman Sach (an investment bank) you could add AIG (an Insurance company) after the 8th, even though both are Financials. (its late I hope that makes sense)