To add to Nick's point, you can read Random Walk Down Wall Street to get an understand of why buying an index fund is probably a good idea for you. It boils do

To add to Nick's point, you can read Random Walk Down Wall Street to get an understand of why buying an index fund is probably a good idea for you. It boils down to the fact that the market is fairly efficient "most" of the time (hard to find deals), and by trading you are already at a disadvantage against the market because you will likely pay more commission and pay more taxes (based on your trading volume of course, but generally speaking, buying index funds are extremely efficient in both these two areas). To over come this and still beat the market as a whole (over a long period of time and risk-adjusted) is a extremely difficult. You have to be very very skilled to accomplish this. Most pros do not accomplish this in their careers (even though it may be due to other factors such as incentive structures, but that's for another discussion). So realistically speaking, you will have to invest a lot of time to become "good enough", which means it will only be worth while if you are trading a significant amount of money. Even Warren Buffett, who's an evangelists for value investing recommends investing in index funds for most people. And the last and most important thing to remember is that yes, people make money from the stock market all the time just like how people make money from the casino all the time. It doesn't mean it makes sense risk-adjusted, and that it can be done over a long period of time.