[Windswept]

Originally Posted by El Gallo While starting your real portfolio, I might recommend also starting a "fantasy" portfolio much like how people play fantasy sports. Then you can try out some of your thoughts with pretend money before you do the same with your real money.

This is a great idea, turtle. Just for the heck of it, pick some stocks today, say $1,000 worth of each stock, and follow their worth for a few months, while you are busy reading magazine articles and doing online research to increase your general knowledge about the market. With $1,000 of each stock, it will be easy to calculate their percentage increase or decrease literally at a glance.

If I didn't say it succinctly in the post above, your side goal should be to increase your knowledge of what is happening in the world and the U.S., because news events can have huge effects on the economies of each nation, and thus on the stock markets. PBS News Hour is a wonderful daily news program. You can probably watch it on your phone or laptop, since PBS local and national have websites with various of their programs available for viewing online. I love PBS because the programs aren't constantly interrupted by commercials, because they have in-depth coverage, and because they have no particular political bias influencing their coverage.

Next in selecting stocks, in my opinion, is common sense. Think of companies that you and your wife like personally, places where you shop that seem well-run and treat their customers well. Do some online research on a few of these companies to back up your common sense feeling about them. A company like Costco might be a slow-growth stock that you might have as a long-term investment. It might not go up fast, but it may keep going up steadily over the years. Some of the bio-tech stocks might be fast-growth, depending on when you catch them.

If you decide on a few bio-techs that seem promising, be prepared for uncertainty. If you know you want to buy, be ready with money in your account, and then buy when the market takes a dive, which it does all too frequently. Greece, for example, has caused the world markets to dive more than any single cause over the last few years. Germany has helped to steady that situation, but now, Germany has hundreds of thousands of new immigrants flooding in due to the Syrian crisis, and who knows how that will affect the German economy. They've had an aging population, as have many first-world countries globally; so young immigrants could be great for their economy. All things to consider when investing. Costco, for example, has stores around the world, so what I've been mentioning affects them.

Edit:

PBS television includes BBC News programs which give a global perspective on world news. BBC news is also on radio, on your local National Public Radio (NPR) station. You could go online to check when the BBC news airs on your local NPR station, and then listen in your car or home radio.

All the news sources available should be accessed for the individual investor to get a grip on what is happening in China now wrt their stock market. The dive currently going on is really scary. The Chinese leaders are so used to withholding truth from their citizens for decades, and those leaders are now discovering that a free market can't work unless the same truth/information is available to all people. The current disaster is going on because the Chinese people who invest don't feel they can trust their leaders or their stock market, because *it* has been manipulated by those leaders. The Chinese leaders have caused devastation in markets across the planet. I just hope things settle out over the next few months.

Originally Posted by turtle Thank you so much for your input Windswept! I'm on "break" right now but will reply with more thoughts on these posts in the next few days. I just wanted to let you know I'm very grateful for your input.

You're very welcome. It's a lot to soak in, but I think you and your wife together could do well on the market. It's the only place where your money can grow a bit, and not just sit in a savings account with virtually zero growth.