Take it from someone who has lost a lot of money in the market - unless you love trading, do not trade. It's like playing poker or any other game of risk: you

Take it from someone who has lost a lot of money in the market - unless you love trading, do not trade. It's like playing poker or any other game of risk: you will pay to learn. That said, there are two ways to play. Buy and hold, or the poker game. The trouble is, unlike poker, you don't have an easy way to calculate the odds, and you are surely wrong as a beginner. Thus, unless you want to be a student of the game, you will lose (even if completely random choices, you will lose from psychological and transactional factors). My advice for someone who defines his goals to be a fixed stable income is to buy blue chip dividend payers when valuations are reasonable (do research on this... ps it's not now). Then hold forever. Do not buy stocks you have to spend mental energy on (all but blue chips).