<p>thanks a lot guys. I'm just curiosu, where did you guys build up your knowledge of all this? Wikipedia? any particular books? I really wanna get a good feel for all my options before I take a decision.</p>
<p>Do not take random people's advice, but
read the following books-
One up on Wall Street-Lynch
The Intelligent Investor-Graham
Security Analysis-Graham
Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits-Fisher
A Random Walk Down Wall Street-Makiel
^those are the classics</p>
<p>then get an account at motleyfool.com</p>
<p>Also, take classes! Study finance, accounting, etc.
A lot of this stuff is theory, as there are no laws to investing. There is no fool proof plan, and your return will largely be determined by randomness. Simply based on the 100 years of stock market data, I do believe there is some cyclicality in the market that can be used to make excess profit/avoid excess loss. Some people call this mean reversion. For this reason, I believe large cap growth stocks are overdue for a good run.</p>
<p>For someone new to investing, I've found Real Money by Jim Cramer to be quite informative.</p>
<p>Try several issues of Money magazine for a cheap introduction.</p>
<p>You mean Mad Money? It's on NBC...whatever channel that is.</p>
<p>Large Cap stocks are overdue for an upswing since they are relatively undervalued compared to Small & Mid Cap Stocks.</p>
<p>However, if you know nothing about stocks, you might want to look at DIA, SPDR or QQQQ, which are the ETFs for some of the large cap stocks.</p>
<p>There always are options when the market starts to fall and putting in long puts, but you better know what you're doing.</p>
<p>Well, Mad Money is Cramer's show on CNBC, but he also has three books of which I'm currently reading Real Money (his second one). </p>
<p>He approaches investing very logically and tells you all of the opinions rather than just his own. Additionally, he throws in a few of his own experiences which help a lot.</p>