
Ask HN: Best resources to learn about stock trading and investing? - vkbm
When you search for courses on how to learn software development, there are tons of resources, meanwhile when you search for courses on how to stock trade and invest, only investopedia comes up.<p>What are some good resources (preferably video) which are not books, to learn these subjects?
======
compumike
Bogleheads community, including a wiki
[https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page)
and forums [https://www.bogleheads.org/](https://www.bogleheads.org/)

~~~
imakwana
+1. Bogleheads has an amazing community maintained wiki. I would add that
their recommended reading list of books is also excellent:
[https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Books:_recommendations_and_r...](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Books:_recommendations_and_reviews)

------
PopeDotNinja
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: Including a Life-Cycle Guide to Personal
Investing by Burton Malkiel

Burton Malkiel Wrote "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" In ‘73. Have His Views
Changed? --
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLJCEP83QTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLJCEP83QTM)

Burton Malkiel | Talks at Google --
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnCxlIQjT-s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnCxlIQjT-s)

------
opportune
I think the best way is to learn how to read and understand financials, like a
10-Q, and other basic concepts and then get going on either a real account
(with say 5% of what you intend to invest down the line) or paper trading.
However a real account will be much more educational because with paper
trading/investing you’ll be inclined to ignore losses or make money taking
much greater risks than you’d want to make with actual money. Just do a ton of
googling, most financial books I read have not been super helpful, if you are
only doing stocks there are frankly not a lot of concepts to learn.

Personally I would not recommend “trading” as an amateur at all. If you are
investing over months/years that’s one thing, but making money long term over
<1 week time spans on stocks is quite hard. I think the appeal of amateur
“trading” is that it’s job-like but the reality is that you’re not going to
make significant money with a smallish account, retail tools, and no
professional experience.

In general I would never advise joining a course or “paid discord” or on stock
trading. Those are pretty much all scams. There are some real, formerly
successful traders that do these but the one I’m familiar with basically went
broke several times because he opened himself up to too much risk (which is
why you don’t see a lot of successful traders selling courses, they are too
busy making money trading). Some of these courses also sell straight up
misinformation like Technical Analysis

~~~
marketgod
Technical Analysis is not misinformation. Research it. A lot of people think
so but if you know what you are doing it's way better than fundamental
analysis, depending on what you are doing. I.e. doing TA for long-term stock
holding is probably not ideal but trading options with TA is definitely
profitable.

------
Closi
If you are wanting to learn because you find it interesting or are looking to
work in the industry - follow the advice in this thread!

If you are looking to do some personal finance - in general it’s not a good
idea to pick your own stocks. You are going against massive analysis teams in
Goldman Sachs, and they are probably going to win. Instead look into index
funds or similar!

~~~
marcusverus
This is sage advice.

Warren Buffet is such a firm believer in this principle that he bet a hedge
fund manager $1 million that he couldn't beat the S&P over a decade[0]. Buffet
won. The S&P beat the manager by 5% ANNUAL return.

Hedge fund managers pick stocks all day, every day. If these guys with Ivy
League finance bona-fides aren't able to consistently beat the S&P, you should
really think about whether you'll be able to beat it in your spare time.

[0][https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/306846](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/306846)

~~~
mandeepj
> he couldn't beat the S&P

if someone has bought FAANG + MS + TSLA 10 years ago - would s/he beat S&P ?

~~~
verylittlemeat
If someone bought FAANG + MS + TSLA today and compared it to 10 years from now
would they beat the S&P?

That's basically the point. It's easy to beat the S&P with knowledge in
retrospect.

~~~
maest
For an example where betting on tech (tech startups, at least, which is
considered a hot sector) hasn't played out, cnsider the Vision Fund.

~~~
mandeepj
Vision Fund had no vision fund. Their portfolio companies were useless right
off the bat

~~~
Closi
Easy to say in hindsight, eg companies like WeWork while obviously shit now
definitely looked like it would revolutionise an industry at the time.

------
torte
It depends actually what is your purpose.

If you intend to learn about stock trading for personal finance reasons you
can follow a lot of blogs or podcasts in the FIRE (Financial Independence
Retire Early) community. Some examples are the stock series of JL Collins
([https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/](https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-
series/)) and the Mad Fientist
([https://www.madfientist.com/](https://www.madfientist.com/), the blog is a
bit tax focused, but it goes well with the Podcast).

If you want to learn about active trading then you need vastly different
resources and not really my expertise.

Just wanted to mention that there are basically two philosophies here and
based on either what knowledge you want to gain or how much risk you want to
take as an investor you will need to choose what to learn.

------
hbcondo714
Try reading company annual and quarterly reports to help decide if you want to
invest in their stock or not. These reports contain a wealth of information
including candid management discussions, financial sheets, disclosures and
much more. These are long documents that do take time to read but my side
project (shameless plug) [https://www.Last10K.com](https://www.Last10K.com)
aims to help investors read these documents more efficiently.

You can also google study materials for the Securities Industry Essentials
(SIE) exam which covers basic securities information that can be applied to
investing.

[https://www.finra.org/registration-exams-ce/qualification-
ex...](https://www.finra.org/registration-exams-ce/qualification-
exams/securities-industry-essentials-exam)

~~~
brockwhittaker
I don’t think diving into reports is the right step for someone who’s asking
where to start.

You need a lot of context for what you’re seeing in your average quarterly.
Perhaps start with reading something like _The Intelligent Investor_ to
understand fundamental analysis, then read them.

------
nilram
I like AAII, American Association of Individual Investors. It's a independent,
non-profit organization with resources and publications to learn about
investing without bias to any particular company or product.
[https://www.aaii.com/](https://www.aaii.com/)

I see they have on-demand webinars, too.
[https://www.aaii.com/webinars](https://www.aaii.com/webinars)

Local chapters have meetups with presentations and discussion. Now online, of
course. There's a page on their website about local chapters and their
activities. Presenters at chapter meetings are supposed to be educational and
without a sales pitch. In practice they're 98% educational and may have a
slide or a handout on the company they work for. Here's the YouTube page for
past presentations from one chapter.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnxl8fQH-F4ooXb-U8IO6zQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnxl8fQH-F4ooXb-U8IO6zQ)

Ameritrade has videos on learning about investing, trading, and their platform
features, including most basic "this is a stock, this is a bond" type videos.
I thought E*Trade had a bunch of similar videos, but I'm not finding them now.
Both E-Trade and Charles Schwaub have both live and on-demand webinars.
Probably other brokers do also. [https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/investing-
basics](https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/investing-basics) (more textual)
[https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/events#events_tab2](https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/events#events_tab2)
(on-demand webinars) [https://www.tdameritrade.com/education/investment-
videos.pag...](https://www.tdameritrade.com/education/investment-videos.page)

Trying to look at it with the eye of a beginner, it seems to get pretty
specialized pretty quickly. Hope you can find something in there that fits
what you're looking for.

------
pesfandiar
Stock trading and investing, while not mutually exclusive, are not the same
thing. Please be aware of the difference before starting to trade.

That said, I don't have a good resource on trading, but when I looked into it
many years ago, most of them were either selling a platform/brokerage that
promoted frequent trading (hence earning commission fees) or trying to sell
information products by "gurus" that somehow decided to teach the ways of
trading instead of becoming a trader themselves.

------
tathougies
I would actually recommend learning accounting, not 'investing'. Why? Because
accounting teaches you to understand how a company reports, which is frankly
more important than any get rich quick investing book.

Accounting is incredibly dense, and you will come to appreciate the many ways
in which companies can report the same information. You'll also understand
what the terms you see thrown around mean, and you'll also see why financial
math is not software math.

------
itsoktocry
> _When you search for courses on how to learn software development, there are
> tons of resources, meanwhile when you search for courses on how to stock
> trade and invest, only investopedia comes up._

I think the problems are similar for both subjects. When you search for
software development, where would you even start? What language? Web, mobile,
embedded? The software development world is large and there's no good single
resource to "learn" it.

Ditto for investing; it might even be a _larger_ subject. If you want to
"learn to invest" because you want to save money, your best bet is to use a
service that buys ETFs, contribute money monthly and never look at it.

However, if you're interested in investing as an art/science, there's a vast
literature. Stocks? Bonds? Private equity? Distressed assets? Real estate?
Cryptocurrency? Options, futures or other derivatives? Long or short? Active
or passive? Fundamental or technical? On what scale do you plan to hold your
investments?

The fact is, there's no right way to start. You have to narrow it down. I see
a few recommendations to read financial reports. Sure, maybe. But this isn't
1975; I bet 75% of financial professionals have never read a 10k.

------
thebrid
I highly recommend "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" by Jack Bogle.
It's a super short book full of great advice from the inventor of the Index
Fund:

[https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-
Investing/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-
Investing/dp/1119404509)

~~~
hikarudo
I second this. Forget about trading, stock picking, and other wastes of time
(and money).

------
nileshtrivedi
You will find links to some MOOCs here:
[https://learnawesome.org/topics/cd05721c-f47f-4351-a637-8d1a...](https://learnawesome.org/topics/cd05721c-f47f-4351-a637-8d1a47cc5fc5-trading)

The one called "Trading Basics" by ISB seems like a good starting point.

------
elamje
I’ve been investing for a long time. Biggest key: open an account, add money,
and buy something. You will rapidly learn what works, what doesn’t, what
drives price etc.

Reading financial statements is a good exercise and certainly important if you
are investing at the institutional level, but you’ll find that price has a lot
more to do with supply and demand of investors who want the stock than
anything else.

This supply and demand principle in economics is oft lost in investing
principle books that try to teach theory of valuation, etc.

Assuming you are into tech, since you’re here, you will find that tech stocks
will barely reflect what an investing value book would teach. Possibly even
teach valuations that are off by orders of magnitude due to the money being
thrown at tech growth stocks.

Price doesn’t equal valuation until you are trying to sell.

~~~
elamje
If you are still looking for books, Margin of Safety is good. Intelligent
Investor (though very outdated) is good. Jack Bogle stuff is good . Read
annual LP memos from hedge funds and institutions like endowments and pension
funds. They are throwing around big money and it’s fun to see what they think
about.

Some good memos - Baupost Group, Berkshire Hathaway, Howard Marks. Email me if
you want any more info.

------
jlarocco
MIT OCW has videos of their Finance Theory class online, and it's fantastic.
The professor, Andrew Lo, is a great lecturer, and explains everything really
well. Doesn't cover everything you're looking for, but it'd be hard to beat as
a general introduction to the subject.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63B2lDhyKOs...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63B2lDhyKOsImI7FjCf6eDW)

Not only is it interesting in its own right, but it was coincidentally
recorded as the 2008/2009 financial crises was unfolding, and many of the
lectures open with a few minutes of discussion about what was going on in the
economy at the time. Neat to hear an econ PhD give a play-by-play on an
economic meltdown.

~~~
person_of_color
Is there something like this but fast forwarded to now?

~~~
gnicholas
I also noticed this was from 2007/8, just as the financial crisis was getting
started. I'm looking forward to watching this series and then finding some
sort of update for the last decade or so. To the extent that finance
professionals and investors would have taken courses like this one and learned
things like this, it will be useful to have a similar foundation.

------
lutusp
Of popular intellectual topics, nothing is simpler to explain:

* If you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas.

* If you want to make money, invest in index funds.

Further reading:
[https://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/](https://arachnoid.com/equities_myths/)

Yes ... it really is that simple.

~~~
andrei_says_
What do you do if you want to minimize the effects of an upcoming devastating
market crash but still retain the value of your retirement (I.e. not cash out
and get penalized)?

------
elvongray
[https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePlainBagel/](https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePlainBagel/)
\- Not really a course, but this guy gives really good advice on stock trading
and investing without all the bullshit

------
nerdyworm
[https://www.twitch.tv/thestockguy](https://www.twitch.tv/thestockguy) \- I
can personally recommend this channel for your daily dose of stock related
entertainment. It's not a yolo on options channel, it's just a guy that wants
to see other people grow their hard earned money into something meaningful.

The discord associated with this twitch channel has an amazing help section,
search and you'll find some remarkably well written answers. Just avoid the
degenerate-chat topic though.

------
TruffleLabs
Via the The Big Picture by Barry Ritholtz "Retired and want to try day
trading? Read this first: the overwhelming pattern is for them to eventually
lose much of their winnings." Marketwatch
[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/retired-and-want-to-try-
da...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/retired-and-want-to-try-day-trading-
read-this-first-2020-07-07)

------
obulpathi
For fundamentals, this resource by Varsity (kind of like Robinhood of India)
is pretty good. It uses India's stocks as examples and deals in Rupees and not
in Dollars.

After learning the basics, I would recommend "The 80/20 Investor" book. The
book has very good advice how to buy stocks, market bubbles and building the
circle of competence.

------
marketgod
Just added a few of the resources posted on this thread [1].

The page is hosted by us but the resources are not connected to us.

[1] [https://marketgodfathers.com/best-resources-to-learn-
about-s...](https://marketgodfathers.com/best-resources-to-learn-about-stock-
trading-and-investing/)

------
jason_slack
QuantInsti offers a course that is really in-depth. It’s like 4 months. All
video based with live instructors, practice and tests. It’s worth the money
IMHO.

Ernest Chan has written several books. He also offers live courses. He is one
cool dude.

Learning to read candlestick charts and recognize patterns.

Backtesting your strategies is crucial.

Try to use data sources that haven’t introduced survivorship bias.

------
sloaken
Although you do not want to read, I recommend a book 'Warren Buffett's Three
Favorite Books' by Preston Pysh. It is written in an easy to digest style. He
has videos to explain every chapter. He boils down a lot of the Buffett theory
on successful investing.

------
iKlsR
[https://www.internalpointers.com/category/finance](https://www.internalpointers.com/category/finance)
is a good resource to grok the basics and if you are feeling lucky after you
can bash out some C++ as well from the main url.

------
jacobedawson
I'd recommend Khan Academy - the videos there are always succinct and clear,
and it's free, an incredible resource imo.

Introduction to Financial Accounting on Coursera is also great, will help to
understand business valuation, read a balance sheet, etc.

The Plain Bagel on Youtube is a good investment channel, no bs.

------
HuShifang
I like "Unconventional Success" by David Swensen, who was Yale's endowment
manager for a while (and his apprentices now run several Ivy endowments). Very
Bogle-esque

------
davidajackson
Kevin O'Leary from shark tank has a good deal of online advice about investing
and budgeting in his YT channel.

------
jpn
[https://anchor.fm/valuehive](https://anchor.fm/valuehive)

------
carterharrison
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/)

------
voisin
The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham.

------
KasianFranks
The telegram group at vectorspace.ai

~~~
buffin
How do I join this group?

~~~
KasianFranks
[https://t.me/joinchat/GrCYjA8rPgD8coAiEhRuBA](https://t.me/joinchat/GrCYjA8rPgD8coAiEhRuBA)

------
sys_64738
Movie Wall Street with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas.

------
NicoJuicy
Start with it after November.

If you think you can miss eg. 5k. Only buy 2.5 k. In stock, the rest is spare
money for drops.

Only buy the ones that you have a good guess for ( happens once in a year).

If you get to 20 k. Congratulations. Now change tactics. Buy stocks that are
undervalued and don't buy too much. If it drops pretty hard, buy again. The
goal is to reduce your average purchase price.

Hold till you think it's appropriate to sell.

The more money you have, the more you can diversify your portfolio.

Don't use your savings, only what you will never need.

Be prepared to lose it all at the start. And lose up to 75% every 8 years when
you begin to slowly diversify your portfolio.

If you don't know what you're doing. Buy an index when it's low/drops. I'm a
big fan of the Netherlands.

Ps. Crisis ain't over yet.

~~~
brockwhittaker
You’re being downvoted because you’re mentioning a strategy. This is not
educational. Furthermore, as someone who does a lot of quantitative research
on the market I’m not convinced at all that your strategy will beat the market
when adjusting for risk.

You also say things that are unintelligible to someone who knows nothing about
the market. Buy undervalued stocks? What does that mean? Most people think
stocks with lower share prices are cheaper — let alone something that’s not
dead wrong like evaluating based off P/E ratio, which is still incredibly
wrong.

So I’d recommend against giving trading advice to someone asking for how to
educate themselves.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Ok, seems fair.

I was just giving 2 cents on practical learnings, which is indeed not an
answer to his posed question. But perhaps useful in the idea behind the
question ( starting with trading stocks).

Most important take-away from it: you can lose a lot.

Additionally, I always asses for risk. Eg. I lost 0€ because of Covid, because
I had no stocks when the markets dropped.

I didn't mention how to pick stocks though, which is the most important thing.
Since there are multiple reasons why you would pick a certain stock.

Eg. Markets re-open worldwide => I bought WTI on 29/04, endresult was 40%.

I'm positioning myselve right now to multiple market scenarios with an
expected (gamble) vaccine in December 2020 ( which is pretty early, I know)
and where the vaccine test results come in at the end of the summer. I'm also
taken into account the pumped up market by the US government and potential
geopolitical issues.

These things can't be done by a AI/ML right now. There is literally no
precedent for it.

\--

Just a question, what would your general strategy be? I did check out
technical indicators in the past, but I have a hard time believing in it.

In the end, I believe the stock market is about emotions in a numbers "game".
It's not that quantitive as most people think.

What's your take on that statement?

