[arca_vorago]

Just head over to /r/wallstreetbets to see all the things to not do. Or... leverage x3, yolo, and join in the yacht club. Up to you.

Want safe returns? They're smaller but have less risk. Index funds, CD's, t-bonds. Want lots of money? You take a gamble.

Unless you are applying machine learning etc into higher freq trading, I'd avoid stock picks in general. The market thrives off little guys shoveling cash into the mouths of big movers who have faster connections and data sources (bloomberg terminals), know more, and move faster on info. Algorithmic trading accounted for over 85% of market volume in 2012!

If you are really interested though, I think the key differentiator for those who still pursue more risky options is hedging techniques.

I'm just a sysadmin learning data science and wanting to apply it to the market, only paper trading so far, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

[dsacco]

I agree with the bottom line here, but there is plenty of opportunity for market making strategies without going into high frequency trading (which you're not going to be doing as a solo retail investor anyway). There are opportunities where demand is available but liquidity is disproportionately lower. You'll need a lot of capital, but as a smaller investor it might be worth it for you whereas larger firms might not find it worthwhile (or know about it, yet).

Just a clarification, because it seems like the most mentioned facet of what traders do these days is something with "machine learning" and "high frequency trading", but the actual use of either of those in active trading is small. Even in algo trading, the "machine learning" is very often just rebranded statistics, and not very complex statistics either (think linear regression).

That said, unless you have a real plan to do better than average in the market, you probably won't, so the advice to just invest passively is right on the mark.