Book or web site resources for an absolute beginner to learn about stocks and investing?
The Motley Fool's How to Invest How To Invest Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor The Intelligent Investor If you like The Intelligent Investor then try Benjamin's Security Analysis.  But that one is not a beginner book. If you just want to save for retirement, start with a financial planning book, like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Simple-Financial-Strategies-People/dp/0743269942 and here's my editorial on the investing part: http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund/ If you're thinking of spending time stock-picking or trading for fun, then there are lots of options.  Web site: Morningstar Premium (http://morningstar.com) has very good information. They analyze almost all large-cap stocks and some small caps too, plus mutual funds and ETFs, and have some good general information articles. It doesn't have the sales-pitch hot-blooded tone of most other sites. Morningstar analyzes companies from a value investing point of view which is probably what you want unless you're day trading. Also they analyze funds, which are probably the most practical investment. Books: If you want to be competent (in the sense that a professional investor trying to beat the market or control risk vs. the market would be) then I thought the CFA curriculum was pretty good: However, this will quickly teach you how much is involved in being competent. The level 1 curriculum when I did it was 6 or 7 thick textbooks, equivalent to probably a college semester courseload. I didn't do level 2 or 3. I don't think level 1 was enough to become competent, it's just enough to learn what you don't know. The actual CFA charter requires all three levels and years of work experience. If you more want to dabble, then Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor certainly isn't a bad place to start, but you'd also want to read some efficient markets stuff (Random Walk Down Wall Street, or something by Bogle, or The Intelligent Asset Allocator http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Asset-Allocator-Portfolio-Maximize/dp/0071362363, are some options). It wouldn't be bad to just read a textbook like http://www.amazon.com/Investments-Irwin-Finance-Zvi-Bodie/dp/0256146381 which would be the much-abridged version of the CFA level 1 stuff. If you're into day trading / charting, then I don't know much about that at all, some of the other answers may have some ideas. I've never been able to find info on this that didn't seem like it had a sketchy sales pitch kind of vibe. Honestly in a world of high-frequency trading computers I'm skeptical this is something to get into. Unless you want to program HFT computers: http://howtohft.wordpress.com/ "There is only one book worth reading in my opinion: One Up on Wall Street. It's short and no other book even comes close to it for honesty, correctness and good sense. Also, it is written by the second most successful investor of all time, Peter Lynch. The Intelligent Investor has some good technical content, but the book is dated and a lot of it is irrelevant to the modern investment environment. When I was younger I used to ready books like this and when a friend of mine asked for investment advice. I said ""Look at stocks with a PE ratio of 5-10"". A few days later he comes back to me and says ""There are none"". Right. That pretty much sums up the problem with the I.I. Graham himself in interviews during the 1970s said that his book was obsolete and he no longer recommended those methods." The Winning Investor http://winninginvestor.quickanddirtytips.com/ This is a blog and a podcast. Load a bunch of these onto your iPod and start listening. Stikky Stock Charts http://www.amazon.com/Stikky-Stock-Charts-professionals-smart/dp/1932974008 This is a beginner's guide on how to read charts. Lots of charts, not too many words. Los Angeles Times Investing 101 http://www.latimes.com/business/la-moneylib,0,3098409.htmlstory Clark Howard's Investing Guide http://www.clarkhoward.com/news/clark-howard/personal-finance-credit/clarks-investment-guide/nFZK/
"Good question! It seems to me that there is no minimum order size for shares trading on the LSE. Please note, I couldn't find an definite answer, but: According to the ""International Order Book"" document (see: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/traders-and-brokers/rules-regulations/change-and-updates/stock-exchange-notices/2010/n2210_attach1.pdf) from the LSE (page 7): Question 7: Would respondents support a revision of the minimum order    size of 50 units?   Whilst there was   limited support for a low value based   minimum order size the  majority of   respondents requested its complete   removal.  This was  incorporated into   the September 2010 quarterly review as   per Service  Announcement 001/100910   and as from 20 September 2010, the   minimum  order size in all IOB   securities has been 1 unit Even though not all trading on the LSE is performed on this IOB system, it would be very wierd if the international stocks can be traded in any size, while domestic stocks will have an minimum size. Further, consider looking to the times and sales of various stocks (here you can find an example http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/exchange-insight/trade-data.html?page=0&fourWayKey=GB0006731235GBGBXSET1&formName=frmRow&upToRow=-1). Those trades also suggest that there is no minimum order size (for example, I just saw an executed trade with an size of 13). At last, look at the Interactive Brokers (no relationship with) Exchange List at http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/exchanges.php?exch=lse&showcategories=&ib_entity=llc. Here you can click on various stock names, and in the popup window that opens, look for 'size parameters' and the size increment. I could only find stocks with an size increment of 1 (i.e. you can trade anything with a minimum of 1 stock, and more needs to be in steps of 1 stock). Even though I couldn't find official information on the LSE site (like a leaflet for beginners or such), it does seem to me that you can trade any size you want on LSE.  Please note that mutual funds and illiquid OTC stocks which don't have an continuous market can have different rules, so double-check with your broker." I'd go to specialist community web sites such as The Motley Fool and read their investing articles, and their forums, and everything. You cannot get enough information and advice to get going, as it is really easy to think investing is easy and returns are guaranteed. A lot of people found that out in 2008 and 2000! For example, they have a 'beginners portfolio' that will teach you the very basics of investing (though not necessarily what to invest in) They are actually both undergraduate texts; however, Investments is FAR more complex.   Essentials of Investments really waters down the statistical and mathematical notation while Investments does not.  Investments also has an entire section (4-5 chapters) called options, futures, and other derivatives while Essentials of Investments does not.   [Of course, if you want to learn about options, futures, and other derivatives, there is a seminal book by John Hull with that exact title.] That notwithstanding, neither book is sophisticated enough to be considered a true graduate school textbook in quantitative investment theory.  No grad schools worth their salt are going to rely too heavily on Investments in a specialized finance curriculum.   It's a great book to start out, though. Now the question: is advisable for a beginner to speculate in CfDs?  No. If not, is there a better way to invest with a small amount of money? In the US, and I'm sure this carries to the UK, most (if not all) big brokerages (Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, Vanguard, etc) have a set of funds that are zero load and zero commission though the fund will still have an expense ratio.  This is the Barclay's UK page related to zero cost investing in the Barclay's funds.  Barclay's might not be the right fit for a beginner as it seems there is a hefty account minimum, but the same zero commission concept exists in the UK.  Again, most of these brokerages will also have an extremely low expense ratio S&P index (or some other market index) fund.  As a beginner that's where you should start. This is not meant to patronize beginners, it's just math.  Assume your trade commission is £7.  If your investment is £100, you'll lose £7 right up front to the buy commission, then another £7 when you sell.  Lets say your position raises 10%, you'll be at a net loss of 4.7%. Meanwhile if you put your £100 in to a 0.1% expense fee mutual fund with no transaction commissions and no load fees, after a 10% gain you'd owe £0.11 due to the expense ratio at the of the year.  You'd have £109.89. Beginners get crushed by fees and commission.  It is not advisable, by any stretch of the imagination, to attempt to day trade or actively manage a portfolio of any sort of security; and commodities and currency are the WORST place to start. Books are a great place to start, Jason Kelly's The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing will give you a broad foundation of the stock & bond market. "This is a tough question, because it is something very specific to your situation and finances. I personally started at a young age (17), with US$1,000 in Scottrade. I tried the ""stock market games"" at first, but in retrospect they did nothing for me and turned out to be a waste of time. I really started when I actually opened my brokerage account, so step one would be to choose your discount broker. For example, Scottrade, Ameritrade (my current broker), E-Trade, Charles Schwab, etc. Don't worry about researching them too much as they all offer what you need to start out. You can always switch later (but this can be a little of a hassle). For me, once I opened my brokerage account I became that much more motivated to find a stock to invest in. So the next step and the most important is research! There are many good resources on the Internet (there can also be some pretty bad ones). Here's a few I found useful: Investopedia - They offer many useful, easy-to-understand explanations and definitions. I found myself visiting this site a lot. CNBC - That was my choice for business news. I found them to be the most watchable while being very informative. Fox Business, seems to be more political and just annoying to watch. Bloomberg News was just ZzzzZzzzzz (boring). On CNBC, Jim Cramer was a pretty useful resource. His show Mad Money is entertaining and really does teach you to think like an investor. I want to note though, I don't recommend buying the stocks he recommends, specially the next day after he talks about them. Instead, really pay attention to the reasons he gives for his recommendation. It will teach you to think more like an investor and give you examples of what you should be looking for when you do research. You can also use many online news organizations like MarketWatch, The Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance (has some pretty good resources), and TheStreet. Read editorial (opinions) articles with a grain of salt, but again in each editorial they explain why they think the way they think." thanks for the advice, I still have few weeks before my master course starts and would like to do more reading regarding trading, any books that you would recommend ?   Also I always assume that modelling skill is not that important in sales and trading, is my assumption correct ? Modelling is probably one of my weak skills but if it is needed I would like to work further on it   thank you Coolness - It's not only a matter of staying calm when being up or down. You must keep yourself from chasing a stock that appears to be running away. Or from betting all your money that something(like say a crash) will happen tomorrow because that would be great for you. Use your head not your heart. Empathy - You need to understand what other speculators, investors, institutions and algorithms are going to do when there is a new development or technical signal. And why. For publicly traded corporations, fundamentals and technical indicators only have the value that people(and their algorithms) choose to assign to them at that particular moment. And every stock has a different population trading it. There is no rule of thumb. Patience - To trade successfully, you must avoid trading at all costs. Heh. If you can't find any good trade to do, don't open positions in order to meet your targets, buy a new smartphone, or to fight boredom. Diligence - If your strategy relies on tight stops, don't make exceptions. If your strategy relies on position sizing, don't close when you are a few points down. Luck - In the end almost every trade can turn against you very badly. You must prepare for the worst and hope for the best. You can't buy luck, or get luckier, but you can attempt to stack probabilities: diversify, buy options to insure your positions, reduce holding time, avoid known volatility events, etc.