[ryandrake]

Only basic thing that comes to mind is: Don't buy $200 worth of stock. If you pay a broker $10 commission, you're already down 10% as soon as you decide to do it ($10 to buy and $10 to sell). Hell, even if you're buying $2000 worth of stock, you've lost 1% right off the bat.

The stock market is a casino for rich people, not us.

[harryh]

Anyone making an engineering level salary in the US should be saving a portion of their money and investing in the stock market. There are a wide variety of options that involve no commissions and allow you to own a broad cross section of the market. The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is a good place to start. As are Vanguard's age based funds and automatically reallocate to more conservative positions as you get older.

Writing off the stock market as a "casino for rich people" is a good way to make yourself poorer.

[yeukhon]

I wish there was a crash course on this when I was in college. I've been meaning to understand stock market, how to get involved. The most I got was 401k but I don't even look at my Fidelity. I know certain industries are projecting or doing well currently... but ugh.

[harryh]

Most of the information you need to know can fit on an index card:

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/01/07/index-67f786d0f1f...

[hamandcheese]

I think the parent meant don't waste trivial amounts of money buying individual stocks rather than don't invest at all.

[empath75]

I'm picking stocks with a small fund (started with $1500), and I'm up 300% in the past 12 months. I'm just doing it for fun, though.