I'm thinking of investing in some stocks during this downturn, and I would like to educate myself on some basics and fundamentals. So I'm asking for the forumites to post some good websites for learning how to invest in stocks wisely. I'm putting particular emphasis on long-term investments.
Depending on how much you know - I'd suggest starting with fake money in a reality-esque stock market.
I used Wall Street Survivor to monitor actual stocks.
You start out with a balance or $100,000 to invest in teh markets - all markets are accurate, you're pretending that you're in the 'real market' - and you can monitor in various ways how your stocks climb/fall - and you can semi-monitor the success of other game-players.
By doing things this way you can be involved, learn how the market responds to crisis and so on, see how the entire deal works really, without putting your head literally on the chopping block.
I did a wide variety of research before I decided to play a game, first - read up on stocks that would do well and how to determine the strength of a business, etc. . . it's complicated but interesting.
I like it checking in on the game, first - I've bought stocks based on the outcome of my "game-play" and have been quite pleased.
Never buy when a stock is high, btw - in a game or on real life- you'll just set yourself up for failure. The best time to jump in on a possible profit is when a business fluxes into a low. 18 months ago, when the market was spiraling downward, was great. if you don't mind big oil evils then BP might be an excellent investment if they show that they will somehow recover from this issue. . . because their stocks are at an all time low.
