I've worked in the hedge fund business for 5 years. My single best piece of advice if you are serious about investing and willing to spend a decent amount of ti

I've worked in the hedge fund business for 5 years. My single best piece of advice if you are serious about investing and willing to spend a decent amount of time learning how to do it properly is to apply for membership to the Value Investors Club website (http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/ http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/). This is a free website that requires you to submit a compelling write-up describing an actionable investment opportunity on the long or short side. It was founded years ago by a hedge fund legend (Joel Greenblatt) and is populated by some of the most sophisticated investors in the world. You can still read all the write-ups without being a member, but there is a significant time delay if you are a guest. The message boards on the site are also at an extremely high level, and people spouting nonsense are challenged pretty quickly. Best of all, if the site admins pick your idea as the best of the month, you get a $5,000 check! (I've won two of them in the past year, so I can vouch that it's real). In any case, stick to uncontroversial ideas (i.e., don't short TSLA) that have a high rating on the site and that have a reasonably active message board, and you will generally do very well. You can even go back and look at all of the submitter's past ideas and see how well they would have worked out if you want to be more careful.