I am paid the least of many I know and still have more money than they do. I'm very liberal until it comes to my own money.

Most people that invest themselves in the stock market loose their ass. Look at IRA's and Mutual Funds. I started investing when I was 19. Some years I lose money, but other years I have made close to 25% interest. The people that pick the bonds are professionals. Friend of mine thinks he is making so much money on the stock market. I promise that he is not making money. This is the same guy that bought $100 on lottery tickets in one go. He lost it all. I think he got some free tickets, but that's it. I was listening to the radio, and I think it was the mega millions that was at 40 mil. But the odds of winning are one in over 300 mil. This is the same guy that claimed he could make $800/day mowing lawns. That business went south. Also look at the little old ladies from Florida that claimed they were beating the stock market. They did their paperwork wrong, and were losing money.

@TheGreatShadow I hear ya. I was up on my 401K until 2007, at one point I lost 40K in one month. My account was frozen because I was in the middle of a divorce, not that I would have known what to do then. The 401K advisor kept telling me to hold on until it reversed, by the time I got smart I was down to 40K. I was so mad I went to school and got an insurance license with the intention to get a brokers license next. What I learned was a rude awakening, the entire financial industry is a fraudulent ponzi scheme. The market was down 6500 so I figured WTF, no guts, no glory, so I went back in-figured if the market went any lower money would be worth nothing and we would be shooting the neighbors for the water in their pool. Cashed out in 2016 when the market hit 17,500 with enough to buy 2 rental houses and retired with 4 incomes-I do work part time. Made the most on a Fortune 500 Index fund believe it or not. Those conditions will never happen again I think.

I'd recommend a boring ass book by Gerald Loeb, The Battle For Investment Survival. Loeb is a famous investor, lived during the Great Depression, and while the book is out-of-date as hell, boring as hell, it has some real good takes on investing. Going long is asking for trouble nowadays. He also favored focusing on maximizing gain, not limiting yourself.
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If there is anything I detest, it's a mechanistic formula for anything. People should use their heads and go by logic and reason, not by hard and fast rules. - Gerald Loeb
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Investing in the stock market requires the right state of mind. My favorite quote with regard to it is by Machiavelli, although I am sure Machiavelli was not thinking about the stock market when he wrote it.
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“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli
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I started out with a small amount and traded small for about four years before I started finding consistant ways of making money. If you cannot prove to yourself that you can consistantly make money, then you probably should indeed go with an investment firm.
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Anyone who wants to do well in the stock market should study the masters . . . . people from history or contempory who have done well in the market.

Coast to Coast AM! I used to listen to that all the time back in the day. Art Bell was great fun.

@greyeyed123
It’s been a while since Art Bell was on, but George Noori (sp?) keeps things interesting, although I tend to enjoy the weekend hosts a bit more.

@greyeyed123 Isn't Art Bell a looney tune? He's the one that is all about conspiracy theories, isn't he?

@TheGreatShadow Art is dead now, but yeah. I loved all that stuff back then. It was free entertainment! There were several segments that qualified as performance art.

I never have heard him talk about religion. Then again I hardly listen to him.

It was supposed to say digging.