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Or you can be a Boglehead and in general not try to pick individual stocks and not try to time the market: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started "Bogleheads® emphasize regular saving, broad diversification, and sticking to one's investment plan regardless of market conditions. We follow a small number of simple investment principles that have been shown over time to produce risk-adjusted returns far greater than those achieved by the average investor. They have been further distilled and explained in thousands of posts on the forum. ..."

That said, sometimes people get lucky so YMMV. And the Boglehead philosophy and success (following by Jack Bogle, the creator of the first Index fund) has been forged primarily over the last few decades of US markets and people can question if anything substantial might change and when. Always lots of discussion about such things on that web board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Bogle



If you want to be an active hobbyist investor, may I suggest Magic the Gathering or Pokémon cards or Lego sets?

Basically, pick anything that's too small and niche for the serious players to tackle.

(If you want to invest in stocks, just by an index fund.)


The thing about the stock market is that there’s incredibly powerful incentives for the market to keep growing year after year. These niche markets could crash overnight and no-one would care.


Yes. So I would suggestion people not be active, hobbyist investors.

I suggest you get some hobby that's not in finance. And put your money in index funds.


> Basically, pick anything that's too small and niche for the serious players to tackle.

It might not sound like it, but this is truly fantastic advice. Really. I suggest doing the same.


Well, I only meant it as very conditional advice. The if in 'If you want to be an active hobbyist investor,' is a very big if.

Other hobbies are less dangerous.




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