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 better investment spend it on educating yourself... or something where you can have inside advantage like your own company.
+1 for Index investing - also called passive investing, couch potato investing etc. It is so simple and elegant I can put it in code:
// Decide asset allocation based on risk tolerance. E.g. 75% Stocks / 25% Fixed income
set_asset_allocation(risk_tolerance)
// Determine which index you want to track. E.g. 25% Canada (TSX)
// 25% US (S&P500), 25% Developed World (MCSI EAFE)
select_funds(list_of_funds)
// Set up automatic purchase plan so your account automatically purchases the funds bi-weekly or monthly.
enable_auto_purchase(name_of_financial_institution)
while (alive && working)
// Live and not worry about investments. Instead focus on coding, knitting, cow tipping, etc.
live(1 year)
// Buy/Sell more units of your funds to return to desired asset allocation
rebalance()
done
retire()
And there are services now which automate this. For a management fee (generally 0.025%/year) you can set up automated recurring deposits, choose a risk tolerance, and let the algorithm continuously rebalance your portfolio automatically in a tax-efficient way. Just click some nice big friendly buttons and enter your information and forget about it, and watch your portfolio grow (or drop, with the market).
I work at a startup (https://www.sigfig.com) that does this, and lets you view in-depth information about how your portfolio is performing through rich charts and tables on our site and mobile apps. Our competitors (https://www.wealthfront.com/ and https://www.betterment.com/ among others) offer a similar service with slightly different value props.
There's really no excuse anymore for not signing up for something like this. It's insanely easy and ridiculously cheap. Like, maybe an hour to set up with zero paperwork to send in, and a tenth of the cost of an active fund.
This is my opinion as well. It's possible for more agile traders to consistently make money year after year. It's just fraught and you won't know until after the fact whether you have what it takes. You could also do well for a very long time and then lose those gains.
People tend to trumpet their winnings and not their losses and a shocking number of people don't actually know their rate of return.
Until you have read at least one of them I recommend you not start investing. The Intelligent Investor is a little optimistic and in later editions even Benjamin Graham admits that maybe active investing is not the greatest idea for most people.
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.
> There's a good chance you'll do about as good as 50% of the stock market investors(or more counting fees lost)
A naive response may be "well, then. I'll invest in the other 50%...".
It's important to note that no one, to date, has shown they're capable of predicting who which survive, which fail, and which beat the markets. And if such a person or persons exit that can do so they're sure as hell not sharing it with you.
Stock market investing reminds me of that insurance commercial with the fishing pole. "you gotta be quicker than that..."
If you want a better investment spend it on educating yourself... or something where you can have inside advantage like your own company.