rage1973 said:
You can study charts and trends and look for support levels.
LOL. This is what some people call Chartist investing. You're just looking at charts, shapes, curves. It's a terrible way to invest because it has too little basis to it and is too heavily related to emotion. Emotional investing = you lose.
There are two types of investing that you should practice:
1. Index Investing: Diversification via Modern Portfolio Theory. Just buy a bunch of different index funds of varying cap, equity (growth vs value), and domestic/foreign. Rebalance these funds to the original allocation after a certain percentage change. Requires little thought, makes an average of 12% per year.
2. Value investing: You study sectors in the industry, worldwide events, how that influences the stock you're looking at it. Think about the actual future worth of the company.
Warren Buffet, the king of value investing, says that stocks overall are overpriced right now. I think he's right.