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I do NOT recommend trading stocks. At least not starting out.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn and implement the basics of safe, passive investing. Even myself, who is interesting in stock trading, is starting out with the vast majority of my holdings in well-diversified mutual funds.

Then, and only then, do I recommend looking into stock trading, and see if that's an investment style that fits you. It's perfectly fine if it does not.

If it fits your investment style, then I recommend to set aside time to learn how to invest actively and do your own research. Stock trading will require time and effort, and you have to be comfortable doing your own homework.

Trading individual stocks can be dangerous, especially if you do it haphazardly and without much thought to safety. The key to investing in general, not just stock trading, is in learning how to minimize risk, not maximizing gains. The gain is obvious. We all want as high a return as we can get our hands on. The question is how do we do so without running into the good chance of losing the shirts on our backs.

This is especially true in stock trading, where all the safety devices that are inherently built into other investment vehicles are not initially there.

Where there is big money to be made, there is also big money to be lost.