This thread kinda reminds me of those hilarious Instagram finance accounts that serve as motivational posters and be saying things like: "They say it was good that my girl broke up with me,.. I know, she's broke, I'm up." or "They asked me whether I'd take a million dollars right now, or a dollar every day... I'll take the dollar every day, PASSIVE INCOME it'll change your life". Everyone just saying vague things like "when the fat lady sings, make sure you're far enough to not hear her". So weird when I see people talking like that..
I don't understand what sort of goal you actually have though. Are you simply looking for advice on where/how to invest your money for the sake of returns after some period? If that's the case, then a few basic classes on investing would be decent enough. And then after that, turn into an analyst (but one that actually does something with respect to research, and not like these morons that barely have a clue on what they're talking about, but for some reason get paid by investment banks to state the obvious after said bank has already gone all-in weeks prior). Or get ready to pay a broker.
So lets bring up an example like tech investments for instance. (If you want to skip the example of what level of observation you need, just scroll down passed this example which I'll delineate with BOLD)
A few years back anyone with a brainstem in tech investing could see Intel was going nowhere with their 10nm node shrink (literally been half a decade, and supposedly we'll finally be seeing it by this year's end in consumer+enthusiast form). With respect to that, seeing their main competition (AMD) was making strides after dumping GoFlo (Global Foundries, based here in America) due to their piss poor rate of advancement in terms of silicon manufacturing capabilities, and so AMD resorted to TSMC. With good reason, seeing as how they are the actual suppliers of the worlds cutting edge silicon processors. Now knowing basic movement in this industry (you can't just be a silicon designer, and then simply say "oh okay, lets just build better fabs, or use fabs from others like TSMC). So Intel gets nothing, while AMD has three generations, and finally beats Intel this last generation in terms of high end CPU's in terms of performance. Another thing was, AMD also dumped that moron of a GPU lead designer (he's at Intel now) and consolidated their GPU business with their CPU business and brought out GPU's that rival Nvidia's as well, while the company is worth not even a fraction. This of course is thanks to the latest CEO at AMD being a literal genius (comp sci PhD).
Basically everything that could possibly go correctly, has for AMD (and not by luck alone, but by the moves you expect a sane company to be making).
It was so obvious, anyone remotely interested in this sector could've seen their stratospheric rise.
Now there's also TSMC (which for the longest time I simply couldn't understand why their valuation hasn't risen only until recently after every retard working in investing concerning tech realized "oh shit, these guys are literally the company that supplies the entire planet, uhh INVEST IN THIS GUYS!"). I think this company has still a ton to grow in terms of stock price. It makes not a shred of sense considering their competition is nowhere to be seen at this level. The amount of "pre-orders" from Apple, and AMD particularly that called dibs on their wafer supply is insane, and nobody seems to care (I say nobody, yet their stock in the past 2-3 years has gone up from $30's to $120's). Though recently Intel has also demonstrated they've woken up (and have begun making AMD-type moves). Finally getting rid of the executive-run.. executives, and axed that moron of a CEO that got caught messing around with his secretary (and brought in another technical veteran of the company out of retirement who is also a genius like AMD's CEO)
(End of example)
At any rate, I feel if you're going to compete in a world that allows entities as big as investment banks, hedge fund managers, and private firms that employ the biggest nerds with math/finance/economic degrees to go out and create software that algorithmically is tailored to make money (on top of just having a bunch of people doing manual invest... You're going to need to actually "invest yourself" more than your money. And by that, I mean become an analyst yourself in many fields. Likewise these sorts of plays are somewhat long term (if I wanted day trading or penny stocks, I'd go to Atlantic City).
If you're going to do the thing many do (by that I mean ask pointless questions like "do I put my money in funds of some sort, or stocks of X", the only way you'll get anywhere is by luck, or some sort of esoteric and holistic approach a savant might benefit from. Besides being versed with financial tools, you have to realize most of this stuff is essentially well-informed gambling, and nothing really complex beyond that besides things that are essentially 'schemes' for a certain sets of investors.
At the end of the day, everyone in this game is asking the same question about what to get in/out on, before it goes somewhere. Shame that the system functions by having cliques and groups that tend to keep that private. Though if I were investing (I don't, I take philosophical qualm with respect to investments through the stock market and publicly traded companies), I'd open up my books to you so you would have available the portfolio of someone who's staking their neck, and not just blowing hot air on how to be a woke investor extraordinaire. Please avoid Buffet and Lynch, both of those guys had more failures than sucess (and like most of these billionaire investors, had a few that paid off extremely well). They can give decent inspirational advice, but it begs to question with so many fans of theirs, how is it still apparently the case that being a millionaire or billionaire especially still resembles nothing other than luck. Surly you sympathize with such observation seeing as how you yourself have luck to thank according to your opening post. Buffet and Lynch, if it wasn't them who made it - it would have to be someone eventually (as probability would dictate). Also, most of these inspirational folks can only talk in the same way you or I might talk about Apple. It's always in retrospect. Now if they were writing thesis in the same fashion as they speak to would-be investors today, that would've been something interesting (and to see how their stragedy never changed, yet still worked). But no, of course not. They only speak post-hoc in the fashion they do. Somewhat smart pair that would better be served actually giving advice to people of their caliber. The level of money they make with respect to investments is superhuman - so them even trying to talk to common folk seems like a waste of time/effort beyond being inspirational in my book.
