Ask HN: How to start on the stock market | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to start on the stock market

6 pointsniico13 comments

Hi guys, I wanna start learning on stocks and stuff. I might even be interested in attending to courses or even finance school. What's the best school in the US? In NY?

Thanks amigos!

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Hey, you should first learn the fundamentals of accounting so you can understand the 3 financial statements (Income statement, statement of cash flows, balance sheet). This is definitely the first and most important thing you should do.

Then from there learn the basics of valuation - discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis and comparables.

Combine this with industry knowledge in a specific sector you understand.

Spend a few months reading everything recommended here, especially in the Best Book Ever thread:

http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?forum=Newbie

Best school in NY is probably one of NYU's divisions - Stern School of Business, Courant Institute, or NYU Polytechnic:

http://www.stern.nyu.edu/

http://math.nyu.edu/financial_mathematics/

http://www.poly.edu/academics/departments/finance

There are many ways to approach the stock market, the correct term should be financial markets. Most of the comments here are focusing on fundamental investing which has a very longterm view.......benjamin graham's book is a good starting point here. Since this is hacker news, i would recommend you focus on ignoring fundamental data and focus purely on statistical analyses, thereby using price, volume, econometrics on price data and probability theory to extract profits from the markets. Research what firms like renaissance technologies, d.e. shaw ect are doing. Edward thorpe also has some good some stuff, especially his stuff on blackjack. I would recommend reading some stuff on richard dennis, his methods are very trivial by today's standard's but it will make some light bells go off. Also the work of benoit mandelbrot, for me his work has made the biggest impact on me with regards to the way i approach the financial market.

Also don't limit yourself to the stock market, you should really look at derivatives across all markets especially exotics, there is so much inneficiency it is not even funny. If i could move money freely around internationally there is so much stuff i can do, but now with the patriot act and, it is hard to move money freely and quickly.

i would recommend you focus on ignoring fundamental data and focus purely on statistical analyses, thereby using price, volume, econometrics on price data and probability theory to extract profits from the markets.

This is terrible advice. I know, I tried.

I disagree. Could you let me know why you believe this is a terrible idea? There are many successful funds using strategies within this category to generate alpha. Trading and investing is not easy, if you had to thoroughly learn all the different fundamental or statistical approaches to pulling money out of the market you still not guaranteed being consistently profitable.

How much money have you made with these tactics? How much have you lost?

You can start trading immediately on sites like Sharebuilder (given that you're of legal age, if not, get a parent to help).

Assuming you know nothing now, you can easily start reading up on sites like investopedia.com (http://www.investopedia.com/university/buildingblocks.asp).

You can also open "play" money accounts on stock market simulations. Have fun.

@niico

I started the same journey a few years ago, and looked at every approach under the Sun. The only one that made sense for me was value investing.

Since figuring that out, I never looked back. Remember "trading" is not the answer. "Investing" is.

To start off, here are the books I would recommend: 1. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham 2. F Wall Street by Joe Ponzio (Get a taster here: http://www.fwallstreet.com/article/25-calculating-the-value-...) 3. Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham

Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions. Email is in my profile.

The first book I read was Beating The Street by Peter Lynch. It's well written and helped me get some confidence and the right mindset.

This is way too broad. What do you want to learn?

What are the things I could learn? Im very open

Thanks for all the info. For what I see I have quite a lot to read

Read the book - The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.

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