A side note stepped away from the keyboard one time (nature called) - by the time I returned one of the cats had jumped up on the desk..., stepped on the keyboard..., and entered a trade And it ended profitable Moral of this story 1.) Keyboard gets locked whenever I step away - no exceptions 2.) Whenever I get to thinking I may know something - hey dumbass even your cat can place a wining trade - he don't know a damn thing..., and neither do I Keep your ego and opinion up your ass - and simply do your damn job Good lessons RN
No matter your approach to making monies in the stockmarket, day trading, swing trading, investing all have advantages and disadvantages to each approach. You have to weigh the risks and pick the best approach for yourself. For me, investing (with trend following) is the best way. Does not make it easy because you have to deal with drawdowns, losses from trades, lower win rate on your trade. Some will disagree with timing the stockmarket but, like it or not, when you enter and exit your trades affects your result, by a lot. That is reality.
%% VOO founder [JB=1929-2019]had some billion dollar points + billions in assets; + noted enemy of investors= ''emotions + expenses'' Emotions do a lot more damage than expenses; VOO has a wider spread, may make a few cents more. But SPY has made a lot more since inception/ its 7 years olderLOL Easier, but not sure i would name it ''easy'' =trend follower JH said, what you call luck, I call a small sample. Easiest =Money Market. Hardest= but fun= single stocks{unless you are Bill Gates}.
Hard - Investing (cause you have to wait for years and bad news will ruin your portfolio) A little hard-swing/positional trading (again, news can affect the trades and also you have to do a lot of research) Easy - Daytrading (I've been day trading for a couple of months and it's the easiest of them all, you get leverage too)
Starting with the most accessible, long-term investing tends to be the least demanding in terms of time and expertise. It's more about patience and letting your investments grow over time.
Fully fund your 401K to the max...Or fund an IRA. The elephant in the room is your spending. No one wants to talk about that. The less you spend, the more you can save and invest. It's not rocket science... Start with this old book (New York Times best seller)...It is still relevant. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjwwIjugIaCAxVaNEQIHbRiBg8QFnoECEAQAQ&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door&usg=AOvVaw166IpyiKuuLxyP2tZKy-XF&opi=89978449 PS No need to read the book...This summery will work.
if we define easy vs difficulty level as how hard it would be for the averaged untrained person to get in on the game & start/ continue making money off it (ie. not talking about how easy vs. hard Buffett finds it to make good deals), there's probably an inverse correlation between difficulty/ expertise level required & amount of lifetime profits/ ceiling vs. floor in the strategy it's like, anyone can walk in & go gold prospecting in those tourist locations in California, and marginally make a few bucks on average, but the opportunity cost is probably not worth it vs. the difference of, - a career/ expert geologist forming his own company, putting together capital to acquire promising lands & striking a motherlode - i've met a guy who did this and he became superrich in <1-2 years after toiling in obscurity for the first part of his career. sure, he was probably also lucky, but he was the real deal knowledge wise, which is how he made money in the venture instead of getting scammed like many amateur weekend geologists - the companies trying to mine asteroids - the potential profits if they manage to get it working would be insane, but the barriers to entry and expertise required to get the projects working are also insanely hard