How can I learn how to invest?

What are some good resources that can help me learn finance so that I can invest in stocks intelligently?

• I want to invest in stocks but only after making informed decisions and not just by listening to people. The problem is that I am a novice when it comes to finance. How should I go about investing in stock market? Although I am aware that it is a vast subject but I want to understand what all should I essentially be knowing and how can I acquire the required skills? Where should I start? What are some good books that can help me learn finance (if it all it is a good idea) ?

• Answer:

  There are a lot of investment platitudes that will not help you. There are a lot of investment bibles that will not help you. Markets change as investors change their behavior, particularly after a guru dispels his secrets in a book (particularly in the current Information Age as knowledge spreads rapidly). Klarman's worst performance came right after Margin of Safety; Niederhoffer's worst came after Education of a Speculator; Einhorn's worst came after Fooling Some of the People. One rule that should always work: We never buy or sell short anything unless we feel that our understanding of the company is better than the Wall Street analysts who cover it. 80% of the time this is not possible; other times it is. Read JP Morgan's or Deutsche Bank's analysis of the company you are interested in. Find something they are missing. For example we found that no Wall Street analysts recognize the source of Austal's value. Nor do they understand the accounting. We concur with the bullish analysis of Austal, which is to say that we agree for all the same reasons but also for different reasons altogether. We just HAD TO write about it: http://honnecap.com See our sample investments.