What is the best way for an individual novice investor to get into the stock market?

Read books and financial articles and analyze the company you intend to invest in (watch its stock movement and try to predict the performance in the next day. Keep doing that for at least 3 months).

Go to amazon.com, there are a plenty of books about stock market, just type stock and you will get all the results.

Stock Trading for Dummies

Online Investing for Dummies

Swing Trading for Dummies

Those books are good to start with.

The answer depends on how much time you have to put into buying and selling stocks.

If you can't afford to or don't want to put much time in you are better off investing in funds such as Vanguard.

If you have the time, go to your local library and borrow a book on investing in the stock market. You are looking for a thin book that is easy to read. You do not want to get a book that you will not finish reading.

Once you have finished this book, you will have a feel for how you want to proceed. Whether you want to become an investor or a trader.

Now go back to the library and see if they have a book on your preferred method. Stick with the one method until you have mastered it. People usually fail because they keep switching from one method to another without spending the time to get good at any one of them.

Hi Jason,

Welcome aboard!!.....firstly, decide why you want to be involved in selling/trading stocks. If it's just a hobby, then this could be a deadly proposition. Stock/share trading should be treated as a business since you need to protect yourself out there and know what you're doing, so that you can be comfortable with your decisions and responsible to yourself.

Before even looking to start trading, I'd highly recommend that you check out a few books and perhaps enrol into a course or two so that you can network with other people and learn from others mistakes and triumphs.

These five books in particular are absolutely awesome and a MUST READ for anyone investing (from the beginner all of the way through to the seasoned investor):

Stan Weinstein - Stan Weinstein's Secrets For Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets:

- This book focuses upon looking at charts and how to interpret them and uses some excellent examples of how the "30 week moving average" concept applies.

Mark Douglas - Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude:

- This book focuses upon psychology of trading and how our past experiences can have an influence on our future behaviour. I'm not much of a fan of psychology stuff in general, but this was a fascinating read and an absolute must before placing ANY trade whatsoever.

Van Tharp - Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom:

- Another terrific book that deals with quite a lot of information in an easy-to-read manner. This book is the absolute best when it comes to "risk management" using a technique known as "position sizing".

Robert Kiyosaki - Rich Dad, Poor Dad

George Samuel Clason - The Richest Man In Babylon

I've also recently seen the recommendations of "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham and "Security Analysis" by B. Graham and D. Dodd. Yet to read them myself, but they look good.

Once you've read those and you're clear about your goals and objectives (never forgetting to give back to society as a whole too!!), then you'll need to do some research into what strategies work best for you. Be sure to look into things such as share trading, contracts for difference (CFDs) and options. This may all sound scary and risky, but believe it or not, CFDs and options are actually designed to minimise your risk and are actually less risky than owning shares outright (and require less capital to begin). However, do be aware that CFDs cannot be traded in the United States - but options certainly can!!

Be sure to take a look around at various strategies and learn as much as you possibly can. You can look at "stop losses", "options", "covered calls", "collars" and "dollar cost averaging" as a few strategies to help minimise risk. Most importantly, you need to find a strategy that fits your personality, risk level and dedication level. Listen to your inner voice and you'll certainly find your true calling.

All of the best in your journey, it's a great ride to be involved in. Number one rule though, be sure to be comfortable with whatever you choose to do - you only have yourself to answer to!!

Cheers!!

First, start off by understanding the companies you are dealing with:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&xhr=t&q=annual+report...

This search page gives you links to many services that publish the annual reports of public corporations, which indicates have well or poorly they have performed over the past 1 to 5 years. This is a good place to start, but yes, you need to read books and speak with financial advisors.