I have a 401k but during this lockdown I have for the first time bought some shares on my own. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing aside from what my retired stock-market-crazy uncle tells me to do. Can anyone recommend an alright book or series of articles to get a total noob to understand some basics?
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The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. It’s more or less the investment Bible. Gives you fundamentals.
I like reading articles on Seekingalpha.com, and motleyfool.com because it helps familiarize myself with concepts, companies, terminology, etc. They aren’t offering any crazy good insight that will lead you to huge profits!!! But you will start to understand the patterns, events, and mechanisms that CAN affect the market. Understand you are more or less gambling by investing in stocks especially with a less than 10 year time horizon. Hell, multiple international markets stalled out decades ago and have gone sideways since, so long term returns aren’t garaunteed either.
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That’s actually something I do understand, maybe the only so far. 
Thanks for the info.
One novel investment advice I received that I’ve found to be sound was “invest in something you understand”. I.e., if you have an genuine interest, whatever it may be, you can probably tell the good companies from the bad. Invest in those.
That can leave you with quite a fraile portfolio though.
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This is the book to read. Personally, I think the Motley Fool is worse than useless, but Seeking Alpha sometimes give useful information.
In 10 years _____ stock skyrocketed 12,000,000%. Don’t miss out this time around with a new technology stock that has analysts investing their own money.
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Eh, I’m not reading these blogs/websites for hot tips or analysis to use. I’m reading them to learn the language, and learn about the world of investing… Like what stocks are even out there haha.
Whatever Motley Fool advises, it’s probably best to do the opposite whenever possible.
Not to sound like a dick, good advice is good advice, but I’d like to see something more out of the box
Nothing against “The intelligent investor”, I even have a copy in my desk, but don’t we all know about it already?
I, personally, got back to studying python, in hopes that I’ll play around with algotrading, probably trend riding.I know next to nothing so far mind you, but those are not so often discussed consepts, which makes them more interesting imo
No, a lot of guys don’t know about Benjamin Graham already. I’m heavily into dividend stocks short term aside from the funds I have. I’m not a gambler though. I will probably liquidate some stuff just before flu season and try to be cash in hand for whate comes then. Short term is going to get a little nuts.
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Not to discourage you from your programming efforts, and Python is a fine language as any, but as someone that used to work in fintech there is a reason that algotraders set up their computers down the street from the exchanges they trade on. Every bit of latency you have, that your opponents don’t, is like hearing the pistol shot at the start of the race when the others have already passed the finish line.
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In meathead terms, seems like Graham is ripetoe and that book is his SS. It’s good fundamentals that you can stick with forever, or use as a springboard to more advanced methods. At the least it gives good food for thought so you aren’t just buying motleyfools pick of the day haha.
Not discouraging at all.I see algotrading as a fun project to motivate me to learn python.In a year or two I’ll have a degree in mathematics, so even if nothing comes out of it, math (with heavy focus on probability and statistics) and programming knowledge will be a nice combination
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I did it at open 
My Coronavirus stricken portfolio increased 4.6% today with my largest holding, BA, 2%.
ERI, PENN, CCL, DAL, ALK, UAL 
BA announces Q1 earnings (losses) tomorrow. 
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I’m going all in on BA if it drops below 100 in the next few weeks. As the largest employer of HOMEOWNERS in my area I feel comfortable losing it all if BA goes under as the housing market here will take a similar hit and prices will likely drop by about as much as I lose… And I’m trying to buy a a house here in the next couple years.
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This is how I think it will play out over the next three months. The market will continue to go mostly up as the economy (society) reopens. Once all businesses are up and running again, the only news left will be earnings, unemployment and bankruptcies and the market will start tanking. How much and for how long, I can’t make a guess.
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So, what did you buy Brick?
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What do you call a passive tracker fund? Do you mean funds like XLF, XLE & XLK which are index funds for certain industries or do you mean funds that track gold and oil and the like?
I’ll take a different tack than the others in this thread. I think it’s important to understand credit cycles and how the economy works in broad terms. That’ll help you understand how asset prices (including stocks) are influenced by interest rates, borrowing, and the money supply. Check out this video from Ray Dalio to start.
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Apple, Microsoft, Facebook.