NEW buyer

[PND4]

Hi, I am new at this. I have seen the stock market going down and have been told this is a good time to buy. I am on a very low budget. I am reading and studying the market and stocks. Basically I am on ground zero working up. What should I do? I want to take advantage of this now and do not know where to start. What is the best thing for me to do? Should I buy? What should I buy? Am I on the right page right now? Thank you.

[Airelon]

Best thing you can do right now? Is wait.

Heck, I've been investing and trading for 12 years. But right now? I'm just waiting. There's an old saying in the market:

"Don't try to catch a falling knife"

In other words, when the market is falling? Don't try to just 'buy' and predict the bottom. Wait for the bottom to become evident.

The best thing you can do as we wait for a bottom to develop in the market? Use that time to educate yourself as to how the market works. What's the difference between investing, and trading? What's a P/E ratio? Why is it important? What's the risk? How can you share in a companies profits?

And always feel free to ask any question here. Plenty of folks that are willing to help out.

[Fredledingue]

I agree.
There is NOTHING at present time that looks even remotely like a normal bearish market or even an usual market crash. It's all upside down. Even if you are lucky buying now, you won't learn from it because in two years everything will be different.

[StockJunkie]

Yes, you are better off sitting on the sidelines right now and simply watching all that is happening than getting involved. Learn as much as you can from other investor's mistakes and then take action later.

Heck, buy a stock book and read that while you wait. Blain wrote a great list covering 20 of them here on the site,

http://www.stocktradingtogo.com/2008...vesting-books/

[PND4]

Alrighty then. I might just do that. Thank you very much for the wisdom. You all sound like you know what you are doing. Ill look into those books. I am definitely interested. First question, do you expect it to go lower? And if so, how much lower? And how low are they right? I don't know what a profiting market looks like. What is normal or good?

[PND4]

Alright so it being that I know nothing I do not want to dive into a book in which i will understand none of the terms or idioms so the two that stuck out were The Right Stock at the Right Time,Larry Williams and How to Make Money in Stocks, William O’Neil. What do you say?

[kingsrookie]

Personally, a good book to learn the terms and the way markets work on a beginner's level is a dummies book. I have read them and learned what the terms mean. Afterwords, I moved to some investor's business daily books. You may not get the terms if you jump right into some books that assume you know something. If you do know at least something, then forget the dummies book. If not, could be a good place to start.

[aquaswim47]

Two days ago, the market was extremely attractive. Right now, you've missed out on a lot of the gains.

Here's some sectors that you may find attractive:
1) Consumer Staples - i.e., JNJ, PG, GIS, KO, PEP, etc
2) Consumer Discretionary, i.e. TM, JCP, HMC, KSS, SHLD, etc
3) Industrials, i.e. UTX, MMM, etc
4) Biotech, for example, MRK, GSK, TEVA, JNJ, GENZ, etc
5) Tech, for example, GOOG, RIMM, CSCO, ADBE, etc
6) Defense Contractors, i.e., NOC, APD, BA, LMT, GD, RTH, etc

Good luck.