This is my opinion as well. It's possible for more agile traders to consistently make money year after year. It's just fraught and you won't know until after th

This is my opinion as well. It's possible for more agile traders to consistently make money year after year. It's just fraught and you won't know until after the fact whether you have what it takes. You could also do well for a very long time and then lose those gains. People tend to trumpet their winnings and not their losses and a shocking number of people don't actually know their rate of return. I recommend Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein (http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Pillars-Investing-Portfolio/dp/0071747052 http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Pillars-Investing-Portfolio/d...). It has a lot of overlap with Malkiel's book and I recommend both of them. Until you have read at least one of them I recommend you not start investing. The Intelligent Investor is a little optimistic and in later editions even Benjamin Graham admits that maybe active investing is not the greatest idea for most people.