Learning investment--books to read? Fundamental/Value/Motley Fool
You are smart to read books to better inform yourself of the investment process.  I recommend reading some of the passive investment classics before focusing on active investment books: If you still feel like you can generate after-tax / after-expenses alpha (returns in excess of the market returns), take a shot at some active investing.  If you actively invest, I recommend the Core & Satellite approach: invest most of your money in a well diversified basket of stocks via index funds and actively manage a small portion of your account.  Carefully track the expenses and returns of the active portion of your account and see if you are one of the lucky few that can generate excess returns. To truly understand a text like The Intelligent Investor, you need to understand finance and accounting.  For example, the price to earnings ratio is the equity value of an enterprise (total shares outstanding times price per share) divided by the earnings of the business.  At a high level, earnings are just revenue, less COGS, less operating expenses, less taxes and interest.  Earnings depend on a company's revenue recognition, inventory accounting methods (FIFO, LIFO), purchase price allocations from acquisitions, etc.  If you don't have a business degree / business background, I don't think books are going to provide you with the requisite knowledge (unless you have the discipline to read textbooks).  I learned these concepts by completing the Chartered Financial Analyst program.
"The ""price"" is the price of the last transaction that actually took place. According to Motley Fool wiki: A stock price is determined by what was last paid for it. During market hours (usually weekdays from 9:30AM-4:00PM eastern), a heavily traded issue will see its price change several times per second. A stock's price is, for many purposes, considered unchanged outside of market hours. Roughly speaking, a transaction is executed when an offer to buy matches an offer to sell. These offers are listed in the Order Book for a stock (Example: GOOG at Yahoo Finance).  This is actively updated during trading hours. This lists all the currently active buy (""bid"") and sell (""ask"") orders for a stock, and looks like this:  You'll notice that the stock price (again, the last sale price) will (usually*) be between the highest bid and the lowest ask price. * Exception: When all the buy or sell prices have moved down or up, but no trades have executed yet." "Investing is not the same as illegal drugs.  One does not start with pot and progress to things like heroin in order to get a better high.  Penny stocks are a fools game and not an entry into the world of investing. The charts you mentioned are fake and likely the result of pump and dump schemes as my colleagues have pointed out in the comments.  They have no bearing on investing.  Good investment grade companies have many peaks and valleys over time.  Look at any company you are familiar with Apple, Google, Tesla, GE, Microsoft, etc... One has a few choices in getting ""into investing"" to name a few: All of those are valid and worthy pursuits.  Read books by Jack Bogle." Start by paying down any high interest debt you may have, like credit cards.  Reason being that they ultimately eat into any (positive) returns you may have from investing.  Another good reason is to build up some discipline.  You will need discipline to be a successful investor. Educate yourself about investing. The Motley Fool is probably still a good place to start.  I would also suggest getting into the habit of reading the Wall Street Journal or at the very least the business section of the New York Times.  You'll be overwhelmed with the terminology at first, but stick with it.  It is certainly worth it, if you want to be an investor.  The Investor's Business Daily is another good resource for information, though you will be lost in the deep end of the pool with that publication for sure.  (That is not a reason to avoid getting familiar with it.  Though at first, it may very well be overkill.) Save some money to open a brokerage account or even an IRA.  (You'll learn that there are some restrictions on what you can do in an IRA account.  Though they shouldn't necessarily be shunned as a result.  Money placed in an IRA is tax deductible, up to certain limits.) ????? Profit! Note: In case you are not familiar with the joke, steps 4 & 5 are supposed to be humorous.  Which provides a good time to bring up another point, if you are not having fun investing, then get out.  Put your money in something like an S&P 500 index fund and enjoy your life. There are a lot more things to say on this subject, though that could take up a book.  Come back with more questions as you learn about investing. Edit: I forgot to mention DRIPs and Investment Clubs.  Both ideas are suggested by The Motley Fool. The steps you outlined are fine by themselves. Step 5, seeking criticism can be less helpful than one may think.  See stocktwits.com  There are a lot of opposing opinions all of which can be correct over different time-frames.  Try and quantify your confidence and develop different strategies for different confidence levels. I was never smart enough or patient with follow through to be a successful value investor. It was very frustrating to watch stocks trade sideways for years before the company's intrinsic value was better reflected in the market.  Also, you could make an excellent pick, but a macro change and slump could set you back a year and raise doubts. In my experience portfolio management techniques like asset allocation and dollar-cost-averaging is what made my version of value investing work. Your interest in 10k/10q is something to applaud.  Is there something specific about 10k/10q that you do not understand?  Context is key, these types of reports are more relevant and understandable when compared to competitors in the same sector.   It is good to assess over confidence!  It is also good to diversify your knowledge and the effort put into Securities Analysis 6th edition will help with other books in the field.  I see a bit of myself in your post, and if you are like me, than subsequent readings, and full mastery of the concepts in 'Securities & Analysis 6th ed.'  will lead to over confidence, or a false understanding as there are many factors at play in the market.  So many, that even the most scientific approaches to investing can just as equally be described as an 'art'. I'm not aware of the details of your situation, but in general, for you to fully realize the benefits from applying the principals of value investing shared by Graham and more recently Warren Buffett, you must invest on the level that requires use of the consolidation or equity method of accounting, e.g. > 20% ownership.   Sure, the same principals used by Buffett can work on a smaller scale, but a small scale investor is best served by wealth accumulation, which can take many forms. Not the addition of instant equity via acquisitions to their consolidated financials. Lastly, to test what you have learned about value investing, and order execution, try the inverse.  At least on paper.  Short a stock with low value and a high P/E.  TWTR may be a good example? Learn what it is like to have your resources at stake, and the anguish of market and security volatility. It would be a lot easier to wait it out as a long-term value investor from a beach house in Santa Barbara :) The Intelligent Investor When Genius Failed The Ascent of Money Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk The Big Short Mr. Market Miscalculates  +finance blogs (zerohedge.com [every once in a while; very depressing!!], the big picture, abnormal returns, epicurean dealmaker etc) "Benninga's book(s) are pretty much the best crash course to financial modelling with Excel - be aware though, he has two distinct types of book. One is more of a walk-through of financial principles in Excel('Principles of Finance with Excel, 2nd Ed.'), and the other could better be described as a 'glossary' of financial applications in Excel(the oft-recommended 'Financial Modeling') . As far as I'm aware, both contain roughly the same volume of information about the same topics (could be some minor differences, as the walk-through-style book is newer), but are taught in somewhat different ways. It might be useful to obtain a copy of one or the other from a library and see if you enjoy the style of the book before purchasing it. I was fortunate enough to have a roommate where between us, we have both, but doing this individually is a 200+ dollar endeavor, and you will only be duplicating identical information. ;)  If you're interested in reading other interesting material, that may help you develop different perspectives/insight into investing, I would suggest, aside from reading the usual stuff (Intelligent Investor, Random Walk, etc), also obtaining a copy of Seth Klarman's ""Margin of Safety"". You'll have to do so in .pdf form, as the book is entirely out of print (and from what I've heard, Klarman himself bought out many retailers of all of their copies and had them destroyed), but it's an interesting read, that has a lot of modern relevance -  perhaps best evidenced by the fact that it's author, president of one of the largest hedge funds in the world, no longer wants it in print." "I've had a MF Stock Advisor for 7 or 8 years now, and I've belong to Supernova for a couple of years. I also have money in one of their mutual funds. ""The Fool"" has a lot of very good educational information available, especially for people who are new to investing. Many people do not understand that Wall Street is in the business of making money for Wall Street, not making money for investors.  I have stayed with the Fool because their philosophy aligns with my personal investment philosophy. I look at the Stock Advisor picks; sometimes I buy them, sometimes I don't, but the analysis is very good. They also have been good at tracking their picks over time, and writing updates when specific stocks drop a certain amount. With their help, I've assembled a portfolio that I don't have to spend too much time managing, and have done pretty well from a return perspective. Stock Advisor also has a good set of forums where you can interact with other investors.  In summary, the view from the inside has been pretty good. From the outside, I think their marketing is a reflection of the fact that most people aren't very interested in a rational & conservative approach to investing in the stock market, so MF chooses to go for an approach that gets more traffic. I'm not particularly excited about it, but I'm sure they've done AB testing and have figured out what way works the best. I think that they have had money-back guarantees on some of their programs in the past, so you could try them out risk free. Not sure if those are still around." I would always recommend the intelligent investor by Benjamin Graham the mentor of warren buffet once you have a basic knowledge ie what is a share bond guilt etc  In terms of pure investment the UK is fairly similar the major difference is the simpler tax structure, ISA allowance and the more generous CGT regime.