Time to learn about THE STOCK MARKET!
Dah dah dahhh!
After much deliberation and strategic procrastination, I came to the conclusion that there were no other options than to start investing. Frankly, I didn’t have the capital to start my own business or invest in something else, and I didn’t want to get some silly job doing some mundane crap. I also wanted to start growing some kind of nest egg that could fund my life in the long-term. At some point, I was going to have to invest my money anyway. So, why not start now?
As someone who knew absolutely nothing about finances, or investing, or any of that jazz prior to getting started, here are the very first baby steps I took to start learning about investing.
Let’s rewind back to 2022.
Okay, so stocks…
Markets…
Learning…
What a daunting bunch of words. Sitting at my IKEA desk with a freshly brewed cup of coffee, I realized that this seemingly simple thing I was going to try to teach myself, may not be so straightforward. At least, not straightforward enough for a few Google searches to handle.
How am I supposed to teach myself if I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be learning? Wait, that doesn’t make sense. I just– well, where am I supposed to start? What if I learn the wrong stuff and I lose all my money? What if the stock market is just gambling for dummies? What if I make some big tax mistake and I have to go to jail! I can’t go to jail!
Deep breath… Huh, so maybe I’m a bit nervous about investing my money. I don’t know what I don’t know and not knowing makes my hands sweat and my stomach go all tingly. To me, “learning” suggests a potentially hazardous, idea spurning, nudge of a concept that, if not done right, could lead to bad habits, loss of cash, and in the likelihood of shady misinformation: bodily dismemberment.
Listen, I’m a fairly recent college graduate, and so I still have dreams of missing the school bus or showing up to class in my underwear. Also, college for me wasn’t that hard. I went to film school during the height of COVID. I promise there wasn’t much learning going on.
Needless to say, the thought of investing my own money made me scared, especially because I didn’t know right from wrong, or where to even begin. I needed a teacher, or a couple of teachers, to point me in the right direction. Unfortunately, I didn’t know who those teachers might be, or how I might find them. I knew that plenty of people invested professionally, and that a lot of very smart people make a lot of money from the market, and I knew that I didn’t need some crazy degree to teach me how to invest… I just didn’t know where to start.
Okay, so maybe I will try to solve this with a few Google searches.
Another cup of coffee later, I hesitantly tapped on the gates of the world wide web and asked, “how do I make money in the stock market”?
Pshhh, yeah I was right. So many terms, and numbers, and types of investments, all of which people across the internet claim made them money. Plus, everyone and their brother seemed to have an opinion about how to invest and why to invest and where to invest. The internet was really no help to me at all. I needed a more direct route to a clear list of explanations and definitions that I wouldn’t have to go searching in the dark for. I needed like a pamphlet, or something of that sort. Something written by a professional, an investing guru, something that would have all the answers in one place…
A book! Yeah! I’m sure lots of people have written books about investing! I changed my search to, “books about how to make money in the stock market”. The first book that popped up? “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham.
I didn’t know it, but I had hit the jackpot.
All this to say, the hardest part about investing, I believe, is just getting started. There is a lot that can go wrong in the market due to unforeseeable circumstances. There’s also a lot of opinions out there that can lead those gullible enough to believe them astray. With my money on the line, I was worried about learning, because I didn’t want to learn the “wrong” things. By chance, I happened upon one of the best investors of all time, and I just took it from there.
I suppose I also wanted to ramble about the plight of misinformation on the internet as it pertains to investing. The financial industry seems to make it intentionally difficult to learn how to do what the “professionals” do. There’s a language, a hidden communication between companies, advisors, and fund managers. The Stock Market was created by humans, and all of the rules that make up the Stock Market were created by humans. The fun thing is, these rules can also be changed by humans, and they seem to change all the time.
As someone with no financial schooling, trying to break into this big, scary market seemed like self-sabotage. The professionals want you to leave it to the professionals. Well, the professionals are expensive, and I would like to invest my money myself thank you very much.
So, the moral of the story here? Just get started. Learn how the market works, learn about the different investing styles, learn from other truthful, successful investors. Know what you don’t know, and don’t make any rash decisions.
I wasn’t prepared to just start throwing my hard earned cash to the wind on the whim of some invisible minds on the internet. I needed certainty, I needed someone to hold my hand and teach me how to invest without risking my savings or my sanity. Unfortunately, that kind of support can’t be found through a few Google searches, but it can be found through the teachings of certain guru investors, starting with Benjamin Graham.
Anyway, more on this later. For now, go pet a cat or something. Unless you’re allergic.
Also, pick up a book every once in a while.