Response is generally along the lines of "You wanted to throw bricks at me when I dared suggest AAPL @ $200 was expensive - why are you asking me now?" This seems to be the general case, for sure.
1. I tell them that the way I learned was by reading a lot for the last 20+ years, which is true. I tell them it's not a weekend avocation. It's not like changing your oil or baking a loaf of bread, where if someone spends an hour showing you how, then you'll always know how to do it. 2. Next, I tell them that I can save them a lot of time in their reading efforts by pointing them towards only the best trading books, since I have read most of them. 3. Then I wait for them to get out a pencil and ask me, "OK, which books?" Nobody has ever gotten to #3. My point is that people want you to tell them something to make it easy for them. They don't want to have to do the hard part where you try, fall down, get up, figure out what you did wrong, try again, etc. until you get it right. Someone mentioned medical advice, and I get asked for this, too. Same kind of scenario. For example, patients used to ask me quite often how to lose weight. I would talk to them about the food pyramid, exercise, and so forth. After about three sentences, their eyes glaze over. After all, the truth is that most of them already know how to lose weight. What they want is for you to give them a magic pill or a magic diet to make it easy. Well, those magic pills exist, but people who take them always gain the weight right back, because they have not done the hard part--changing their habits and lifestyle. I disagree with the assessments of many on these boards that if someone can trade successfully, they will never tell you how they do it. There is plenty of useful free info and cheap info, as in what you can find in books. (It's the info that's for sale for high prices that you have to steer clear of.) But information does not make a trader. Only study, practice, admitting one's mistakes, and figuring out how to adjust your technique so that your mistakes don't hurt too much makes a trader. Personally, if I knew a quick and easy way for anyone to trade, or to lose weight, I would definitely tell them. There just isn't one.
I always tell them that whatever they want to do is absolutely idiotic. No one takes my advice. If you don't tell them what they want to hear, they won't listen. If you tell them it is stupid, at least they will think a little more before doing it.
My answer over the last few months was very simple when it came to the market. "Don't touch it". I try to explain better things to put money into but these guys just want to buy and hold for 10 years. Now they are feeling anxious. I told them that a rally should be happening soon, get out then and forget US equities for a few years.
Somehow, the old saying that "the best way to make a small fortune by trading is to start with a large fortune" seems appropos