Since COVID hit I've been lead to invest in the stock market and real estate. There's a movement out there called FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early), and so far, for me, it's been an incredible journey of learning and growth. I've technically invested in the stock market since a young age, but through a financial advisor. I'm now taking that into my own hands to save myself the 3% you pay off to an advisor, which over the course of your life, could amount to a very large amount of money.
With the stock market, I've learned it's just like the spiritual journey we are taught to take, which means to take it slow, step by step, and increase the amount we can take on in bits.
I spent countless hours during unemployed time off researching the market, and eventually starting up my first brokerage account. 6 months later and I've now opened my second brokerage account, which will allow me to trade paper stocks (they give you a program with fake money so you can test yourself on the market to see how well you can do).
Trading on the market can certainly be favourable, but needs to be treated like a career - not a game. It's only gambling if you choose not to fully research tactics and inform yourself on how to be aware of trends to take advantage of. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Personally, I'm only investing right now in the long term as a buy and hold with very minimal swing trading until I plan to purchase my first house for the purpose of house hacking. If you're not familiar with house hacking, start reading up on it and watching youtube videos. I'll talk more about that below. Having only been in the market myself for just a few months now, I'm now at a point where when the market falls, my holdings won't go below 2-3%+. At first, it would fluctuate into the minus, but now it's compounding enough that it doesn't. When the markets are high before a correction, I'm hitting close to 10% returns, which is pretty good seeing as how the average Joe typically only generates a 7% return. With some more research to identify trends, I plan on utilizing my cash account (not my tax free accounts) to start doing more swing trading.
In terms of playing the stock market as a means to make money, as others mentioned on here, that you need 5-6 digits in order to make money, this is not true. In order to make a living, yes, you will need to have more money, but like a business, you have to start somewhere. You don't throw 5-6 digits into a building a new business from scratch without having a foundation of knowledge as to how to actually run, operate, market, maintain, and grow said business. The amount of money you need to get started on trading depends on the variety of methods one can take when trading. You can be an intraday trader, or a swing trader. You can trade large-mid cap, short cap, penny stocks, options, futures, etc. You can short stocks. And you can do all these either long or short. You have to know exactly what you're getting yourself into and REALLY learn it inside and out before you start throwing your money in. Different brokerage accounts are best for whichever way you want to go.
Watching proficient traders live is one of the best ways to learn. Watch whoever you find to be effective & efficient in their strategies.
I am of the opinion, everything you need to become a good trader, is available online for free. Only spend money on content when there is proof of outcome in their claims & you see value in the purchase. You will have to spend money to start off with a brokerage account (unless you want to swing trade with a free app, but this doesn't sound like the method you want to get into).
Provided you appropriately entertain both the theoretical & pragmatic application of trading & then embark into paper trading to test & formulate your own strategies, the acumen you acquire should provide plenty of insight to keep you moving in the right direction.
TRADING | STUDYING RESOURCES To increase your theoretical trading acumen :
Trading Stories and Biographies
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre
Pit Bull: Lessons from Wall Street's Champion Day Trader by Martin Schwartz
Way of the Turtle by Curtis M. Faith
Short-Term Trading and Analysis
The Art and Science of Technical Analysis by Adam Grimes 1 Getting Started in Technical Analysis by Jack D. Schwager
Long-Term Secrets to Short-Term Trading 2nd Edition by Larry Williams
The Universal Principles of Successful Trading: Essential Knowledge for All Traders in All Markets by Brent Penfold
Market Comprehension
Irrational Exuberance (3rd Ed.) by Robert J. Shiller
Seasonal Stock Market Trends: The Definitive Guide to Calendar-Based Stock Market Trading by Jay Kaeppel
Following the Trend: Diversified Managed Futures Trading by Andreas F. Clenow
Stocks on the Move: Beating the Market with Hedge Fund Momentum Strategies by Andreas F. Clenow
Psychology
Trading Psychology 2.0: From Best Practices to Best Processes by Brett N. Steenbarger
The Psychology of Trading: Tools and Techniques for Minding the Markets by Brett N. Steenbarger
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, Second Edition by Van K. Tharp
Trading Beyond the Matrix: The Red Pill for Traders and Investors by Van K. Tharp
Super Trader, Expanded Edition: Make Consistent Profits in Good and Bad Markets by Van K. Tharp
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
TRADING | VIDEO RESOURCES To increase your pragmatic trading acumen :
These are some channels I’d recommend (Free content is sufficient, don’t buy their programs) :
*Humbled Trader
ZipTrader
Steven Dux
Umar Ashraf
Live Traders
Meir Barak
Master the Market
LazyFA
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Mind you, I've barely scraped the surface on any of these, so I can't tell you what's good or not. You'll have to start somewhere and find out for yourself. Personally, Humbled Trader has provided a lot of healthy direction for those wanting to get into this.
Investors Underground on youtube is also a great place to start and they provide an enormous amount of hours of free lessons:
Learn to Day Trade - Beginners Lesson 1 of 8
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt4n6w2o4dexydr77KXJ4mw
It could take 6 months to 1 year of heavy research and studying before you start jumping in with your own money. Go steady, and you will know when you are ready to take the next step.
Personally, I would love to make this a full time career, but my next goal in life is to get into house hacking. In order to apply for a mortgage loan, I can't be starting up my own business and relying on the income from that until 3 years of taxable income on that has passed. As such, I'm putting in the 9-5 to get houses rolling now. House hacking is all about buying a property in a somewhat less favourable neighbourhood in a somewhat dilapidated state, and follow the BRRRR method (Buy, Renovate, Rent, Refinance, Repeat). Typically, you want to renovate to give a place more bedrooms than it had before you bought it, live in it for the first year to take advantage of OOL (Owner Occupied Loan), rent out the rest of the rooms for cash flow, then after one year, take advantage of the debt system by refinancing to go and buy another property. Rinse and repeat. Build equity and forced appreciation through strategic renovations - then sell off the homes when you want, or keep the ones that are easy to manage with great tenants and keep the cash flow moving. I would recommend checking out Mike Rosehart on youtube for how to go about doing this.
Like others have said, nothing immoral about doing this. People need places to live, and as long as you're not ripping people off on rent, you're doing society a favour by supporting your nation's economy. Same with trading. Depending on your method, when you put money into a stock, you're putting money into a business that they can leverage to help their business grow. So if you put money in, stock goes up and you sell for a profit, the company is in a better position than it was before, so you're helping that business grow. And unless you're buying and holding for the long-term, you really don't need to invest your time in learning about the company, managerial ethics, their philosophy, etc. as you're only looking at identifying immediate trends, as with penny stocks, for example.
Anywho, all the best on your endeavours!