[gotme]

Hey mate,

I'm a futures trader from Sydney - I'll help you out with some of this.

Now investing isn't such a great get-rich-quick arena, but a steady reasonable investment in good stocks, semi-speculating (buying low/selling high in the long trend ups/downs) will easily make you wealthy within in 15-20 years if it's done right.

Now first off - don't bother with G+D's Security Analysis. It's more a financial analysis MBA text book, good if you want to be a professional fund manager or research analyst etc - but boring and dry if you're just reading it in your spare time.

Studying Warren Buffett material is an excellent start, these books would include:
- Buffettology
- The New Buffettology (more of an updated copy of orignal)
- The Intelligent Investor (this book got WB started in the stockmarket)
- Other books such as the "Warren Buffett Way", i haven't read but still are good from what i hear - check Amazon reviews.
- Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits - Good book to read after the intelligent investor.
- The books by Peter Lynch should also be read.

Once you've read these, you'll have a pretty good idea of how to analyse the fundamentals of a company.

Next move on to using some technical analysis:
- How to make money in stocks - teaches the CANSLIM method - EXCELLENT (i've made alot from what I learnt with this)

This is about all you need, you should be able to work alot of what's next out from here.

Tip: for investing the 200 day Moving Average with solid fundamentals is very useful.
Tip: A stock's movement = 40% movement of the broad market, 40% movement of the sector, 20% movement of the individual stock. So buy preferably when market and sector are trending upward.

Hope this helps.